It amazes me what some people consider to be a real "attack". Hopefully you guys don't ever get jumped and have to defend yourselves... 
Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Arrest
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vanedor
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It amazes me what some people consider to be a real "attack". Hopefully you guys don't ever get jumped and have to defend yourselves...
Please tell me, how rough an attack has to be to be considered a physical attack, in your book?
Well the incident in question wasn't much of an "attack" in *my* book. A rough takedown perhaps, but not an attack.
zahratustra
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Of course it is. If JDR did it to somebody he would, most likely, have been arrested for an assault.
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JDR is not a police officer who's confronting someone with a knife, and please spare me the "well it's no different", because it most definitely is.
magerette
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But much less entertaining. Please continue your most interesting narrative, as Conan Doyle said, however best suits you. I finally figured out quote plus* a while back, and I use it occasionally, but it can make for some horrendously long posts--and mine are usually long enough.
*hit quote + for everyone except the last person when it's just plain quote.
AFA this discussion, I have to go shed some tears for some cops, a ruined health care initiative, the decline of America's Golden Years, and a few beat up old ladies.
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That's the difference all right.
To anyone who's not completely dense...
@magerette, I didn't realize that was a spoiler. :lol:
Squeek
connoisseur of tidbits
Exactly. So that leads to the obvious question: Why should it be justifiable on the one hand (for cops) but not be on the other (for everyone else)? Is it justifiable or not?To anyone who's not completely dense...
At the risk of seeming completely dense, I think it's not.
You just don't seem to be able to comprehend the fact that an on-duty police officer is enabled by law to perform certain tasks that you or I could not (lawfully) perform.
txa1265
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It just isn't so clear - because I don't believe for a second that any of you who are crying 'racist police brutality' wouldn't also be blaming the police if she stood there talking and keeping things safe for others but not touching the woman ... and then she killed herself or badly harmed herself ... you'd all be crying 'the cop should know better, why didn't she do anything ... she should hand in her badge'.
I've been pretty clear on my thoughts - I am always wary of police because of the people I knew growing up who became police, and those of my friends, were not those who I would hold in either esteem or respect without a badge / uniform / gun. So while I show respect and do my best to help, I won't forget who these guys were ... so I'm a bit wary.
I've been pretty clear on my thoughts - I am always wary of police because of the people I knew growing up who became police, and those of my friends, were not those who I would hold in either esteem or respect without a badge / uniform / gun. So while I show respect and do my best to help, I won't forget who these guys were ... so I'm a bit wary.
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Good point txa, I think you hit the nail right on the head with that one, even though those people would never admit it.
zahratustra
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Text book straw man txa I am affraid. Nobody is arguing that nothing should have been done but some of us argue that what was done was an overreaction. There is a range of possible reactions in between doing nothing and an assault.
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Squeek
connoisseur of tidbits
Speak for yourself, txa. I know I would have understood why someone would have been reluctant to manhandle an old lady, just like I would understand someone being reluctant to manhandle a child. It just makes obvious sense.
Shakespeare referred to old age as "second childishness," and that certainly describes this eighty-four year old Alzheimer's sufferer. She was just a confused feeble little old lady who needed a little help.
What this cop did was unacceptable. She would be better off in a different line of work.
There is no way you could know that. I'm sure it's true for some but hardly all. Either way it's completely irrelevant, does the supposed hypocricy of these people somehow juctify what transpired?
So no matter what people say you'll just assume that you know them better than themselves?
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Prime Junta
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Yes, I probably would. That would have been almost (but not quite) as incompetent.
However, I find it extremely unlikely that said old biddy would have suddenly started stabbing herself without first giving some indication that she was about to do so -- getting highly agitated, waving the knife around, and so on. At that point, the cop would have been justified at intervening, and in such a case, I would not have blamed the cop had the outcome been as bad, or worse, as what happened now.
Basically, what I would have liked to see is a demonstration of concern for a helpless old lady who clearly needed help. I didn't. I saw a cop treating her the same way she would have treated a PCP'ed out twentysomething male waving a knife -- "Drop it! -- CRUNCH!" -- which was an abysmally bad judgment call.
Had she done nothing and had the old biddy ended up cutting herself, that would also have been incompetent. However, I would blame the cop less if I had seen that she made an honest try at helping, even if the attempt failed.
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txa1265
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The problem I have is not so much with an assessment of over-reaction - I actually agree with that.
But there is a difference between over-reaction and career-ending racist brutality. Many folks here have insinuated that. And I really believe that they are wrong.
The real problem I see is that many of you have circumscribed the scope of acceptable action for the officer into an area that is so small that anything other than perfection would have been met with a lynch mob for the cop. Oh, the cop could have been stabbed / maimed / killed, that would have been perfectly acceptable, so long as not even a fingernail on the old lady was chipped.
This is a tragedy ... Alzheimers is very destructive and a real issue.
Another interesting thought - I bet most folks who want the cop to be publicly excoriated are against 'profiling'? In other words, arresting a black teen wearing gang garb with tatoos in a rich suburb at 2AM is 'wrong'? Yet what you are looking for is exactly the same - you want the cop to use profiling in this case to determine that since it is a 'harmless old lady' no action was really needed.
But there is a difference between over-reaction and career-ending racist brutality. Many folks here have insinuated that. And I really believe that they are wrong.
The real problem I see is that many of you have circumscribed the scope of acceptable action for the officer into an area that is so small that anything other than perfection would have been met with a lynch mob for the cop. Oh, the cop could have been stabbed / maimed / killed, that would have been perfectly acceptable, so long as not even a fingernail on the old lady was chipped.
This is a tragedy ... Alzheimers is very destructive and a real issue.
Another interesting thought - I bet most folks who want the cop to be publicly excoriated are against 'profiling'? In other words, arresting a black teen wearing gang garb with tatoos in a rich suburb at 2AM is 'wrong'? Yet what you are looking for is exactly the same - you want the cop to use profiling in this case to determine that since it is a 'harmless old lady' no action was really needed.
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I don't really think that one mistake should be career-ending in just about any case, but a suspension or some "sensivity training" or what have you might be in order. And on a side note I don't know that this was racialy motivated I've seen nothing that indicates that race was a factor beyond the victim beeing black and without any such indications I won't call it racist.
No, there is a wide range of actions and outcomes that I would've found acceptable, it's just that all of them involves a greater effort to resolve the situation without violence.The real problem I see is that many of you have circumscribed the scope of acceptable action for the officer into an area that is so small that anything other than perfection would have been met with a lynch mob for the cop. Oh, the cop could have been stabbed / maimed / killed, that would have been perfectly acceptable, so long as not even a fingernail on the old lady was chipped.
This is a tragedy ... Alzheimers is very destructive and a real issue.
It depends on what the black teen in question is doing, I'm against anyone being arrested without some reason to believe they've comitted a crime.
And in this case I wouldn't really call it profiling it's more like threat assessment wich I belive is something that cops should definitely do. It doesn't take a genius to see that someone who you could easily outwalk isn't a very big threat if only armed with a melee weapon.
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