that some kind of jab at my protruding brow and strong jaw?
people should still protest if they feel it's the right thing to do. maybe cool it on the "what do we want? dead cops!" bullshit for a day or two.
According to Ecclesiastes, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose.” For me, today, that means a time to seek justice and a time to mourn the dead.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ntil-slain-cops-n273251?cid=par-time_20141223
And a time to shut the hell up.
The recent brutal murder of two Brooklyn police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, is a national tragedy that should inspire nationwide mourning. Both my grandfather and father were police officers, so I appreciate what a difficult and dangerous profession law enforcement is. We need to value and celebrate the many officers dedicated to protecting the public and nourishing our justice system. It’s a job most of us don’t have the courage to do.
At the same time, however, we need to understand that their deaths are in no way related to the massive protests against systemic abuses of the justice system as symbolized by the recent deaths—also national tragedies—of Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, and Michael Brown. Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the suicidal killer, wasn’t an impassioned activist expressing political frustration, he was a troubled man who had shot his girlfriend earlier that same day. He even Instagrammed warnings of his violent intentions. None of this is the behavior of a sane man or rational activist.
The protests are no more to blame for his actions than The Catcher in the Rye was for the murder of John Lennon or the movie Taxi Driver for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Crazy has its own twisted logic and it is in no way related to the rational cause-and-effect world the rest of us attempt to create.
Those who are trying to connect the murders of the officers with the thousands of articulate and peaceful protestors across America are being deliberately misleading in a cynical and selfish effort to turn public sentiment against the protestors. This is the same strategy used when trying to lump in the violence and looting with the legitimate protestors, who have disavowed that behavior. They hope to misdirect public attention and emotion in order to stop the protests and the progressive changes that have already resulted. Shaming and blaming is a lot easier than addressing legitimate claims.
Archeologist chicks, maybe.Don't fret, William. Chicks dig the caveman type.
Mayor de Blasio asks for a cessation of the protests.
the irrationality of police unions who never have seen an action taken by an officer they wouldn't defend as justifiable and exemplary police work.
no need to try to use me as a stepping stone to lash out at the "i can breathe" idiocy.
i said immediately after garner's killing that the cops should be indicted, and i stand by it.
and i support the right to protest.
While I don't agree with their position, it is a union's job to protect their members. Of course they will place a public face of "They did no wrong." That's their job.
We don't know what internal discussions are happening with the union.
That being said, I think unions are running into a serious issue regarding public face and actual policy and they need to readdress that side of things.
As do I. It's just that expecting the NYPD to provide security and manage traffic for protests many consider to be "anti-police" while they are angry, hurt and in mourning for two fallen brother officers is cruelly insensitive and indifferent to their anguish.
Maybe, but we just had a thread all about how law students shouldn't get a break for mourning the injustice of the case decisions, so it seems like a fair expectation.
Not quite the same thing. The police officers are not asking to be excused from doing their jobs altogether for several days so they can mourn.
That said, I support people's right to protest. (Though I would think it in bad taste if they did a Westboro Baptist church and picketed the funeral with shouts of "they deserve to die," and I hope they won't.)
We can't stop!
We won't stop!
'til killer cops are in cell blocks!
We can't stop!
We won't stop!
So kill a cop!
I don't believe Patrick Lynch gives a damn the PBA's "public face."
Police unions are supposed to back their members, but is there no such thing to these unions as a member whose actions so stray from acceptable conduct they won't defend that officer? Has a police union ever not sided with a bad cop? I mean like EVER?
The Thin Blue Line is beginning to look more like a Towering Blue Fortress with its members hunkered down in a siege mentality.
And then there's the game one Fox affiliate got caught playing with the protests
the original chant at a protest in Baltimore:
After the local Fox affiliate got through with it:
Pretty disgusting, and at least for me, it's hard to see any motive for doing so other than to discredit the protests, with a side order of fanning racist flames.
But hey, at least they apologized.
The reactions to the murders of two New York police officers this weekend have been mostly uniform in their outrage. There was the predictable gamesmanship exhibited in some quarters, but all agree that the killing of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos merits particular censure. This is understandable. The killing of police officers is not only the destruction of life but an attack on democracy itself. We do not live in a military dictatorship, and police officers are not the representatives of an autarch, nor the enforcers of law handed down by decree. The police are representatives of a state that derives its powers from the people. Thus the strong reaction we have seen to Saturday's murders is wholly expected and entirely appropriate.
For activists and protesters radicalized by the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, this weekend's killing may seem to pose a great obstacle. In fact, it merely points to the monumental task in front of them. The response to Garner's death, particularly, seemed to offer some hope. But the very fact that this opening originated in the most extreme case—the on-camera choking of a man for a minor offense—points to the shaky ground on which such hope took root. It was only a matter of time before some criminal shot a police officer in New York. If that's all it takes to turn Americans away from police reform, the efforts were likely doomed from the start.
The idea of "police reform" obscures the task. Whatever one thinks of the past half-century of criminal-justice policy, it was not imposed on Americans by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from these policies—the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects—are, at the very least, byproducts of democratic will. Likely they are much more. It is often said that it is difficult to indict and convict police officers who abuse their power. It is comforting to think of these acquittals and non-indictments as contrary to American values. But it is just as likely that they reflect American values. The three most trusted institutions in America are the military, small business, and the police.
To challenge the police is to challenge the American people, and the problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that we are majoritarian pigs. When the police are brutalized by people, we are outraged because we are brutalized. By the same turn, when the police brutalize people, we are forgiving because ultimately we are really just forgiving ourselves. Power, decoupled from responsibility, is what we seek. The manifestation of this desire is broad. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded to the killing of Michael Brown by labeling it a "significant exception" and wondering why weren't talking about "black on black crime." Giuliani was not out on a limb. The charge of insufficient outrage over "black on black crime" has been endorsed, at varying points, by everyone from the NAACP to Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson to Giuliani's archenemy Al Sharpton.
Implicit in this notion is that outrage over killings by the police should not be any greater than killings by ordinary criminals. But when it comes to outrage over killings of the police, the standard is different. Ismaaiyl Brinsley began his rampage by shooting his girlfriend—an act of both black-on-black crime and domestic violence. On Saturday, Officers Liu and Ramos were almost certainly joined in death by some tragic number of black people who were shot down by their neighbors in the street. The killings of Officers Liu and Ramos prompt national comment. The killings of black civilians do not. When it is convenient to award qualitative value to murder, we do so. When it isn't, we do not. We are outraged by violence done to police, because it is violence done to all of us as a society. In the same measure, we look away from violence done by the police, because the police are not the true agents of the violence. We are.
The NYPD tell the New York Daily News that officer Wenjian Liu had volunteered to fill in for the man normally partnered with officer Rafael Ramos the day he was shot and killed by Ismaaiyl Brinsley in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Ramos' usual partner was running late that day.
Ramos' partner, the Daily News reports, called into the NYPD's 84th Precinct last Saturday to say he was going to be late; brass put out a call for someone to cover him, and Liu apparently volunteered. "He wasn't supposed to be there," a police source told the tabloid.
people should still protest if they feel it's the right thing to do. maybe cool it on the "what do we want? dead cops!" bullshit for a day or two.