I’ve encountered far more decent cops than I have assholes. I agree, it is a two way street. In college, I was driving my girlfriends car (a ’67 lime green Mustang – ahh) when I got pulled over, I forget for what. A week before, an officer had been killed in a pullover by a shotgun blast to his sternum. Kept my hands on the wheel, had my wallet out, blinkers on. Told the officer that I had to reach into the glove compartment to get the registration. Did it slowly. He let me go with a warning and a thank you. (I was probably docile and introspective and thought faster than I moved.)

But I’m Caucasian.

And they didn’t have to use lethal force. They just didn’t. Let him run down the street until he trips and hits his head. He wasn’t a threat once he got out of the car. So he grabs a taser. Big fucking deal. It’s not a lethal weapon. Cops get zapped with tasers as part of their training.

They didn’t have to kill him. There was absolutely no reason they were in a situation where their lives were in actual danger.

No, the guy was drunk, fell asleep in line at Wendy’s drive-thru, and then when he realized his whole day was going to end badly, (at the very least, lose his licence or insurance and a heavy fine); decided to take advantage of the new wave of self-righteous indignation sweeping the country to do a little intimidation of his own. Besides, there were brothers around with cameras ready to back him up, right?. Stupid? Sure, even he would have realized that if he had been sober.

Maybe the cops could have cut him some slack and told him to call for a ride to take him home, that’s a point well taken, but he looses my sympathy when he chooses instead to get into a fight, and to reach for their weapons. There’s a purely simian power dynamic at work here, the cops are always outnumbered and depend on the ability to project commanding force instantly. If they fail to do so, they become objects of contempt, easy targets, wimps, and the crowd will turn on them….especially a crowd that has very valid reasons to be be pissed off at bully cops.

I agree, maybe they could have had a gentler approach to begin with. Like you said, cut the guy some slack. Maybe if he had been white they might have, although we don’t really know that, a drunk driver is a drunk driver. But once the guy puts up even a token resistance, they HAVE to escalate. On the street, those are the rules of engagement. This incident isn’t necessarily like those other cases that have been in the news lately.

Like you said, you’ve had encounters with asshole cops as a white guy. When I was a hippy dippy long hair I did too, even though I was lily-white too; as far as the pigs were concerned I was just a new flavor of nigger. Fortunately, pot makes you docile and introspective, you move slow but think fast. Liquor does just the opposite. It makes you think you’re invincible.

Nope.

Let’s shoot him in the back.

If this was a white guy, in a suit and tie, who had more than the three martini lunch, decided it was better to stop driving, they’d have let him walk to his sister’s place. Might have given him a ride there. Our police forces are infiltrated with assholes.

Last year, in this bastion of liberalness, our police drew guns on a black man cleaning litter in front of his own apartment building. They said his trash pick up tool was a weapon.

Seriously.

This has got to stop. Police have become convinced that they are part of the military. They are not. Observe how they refer to “civilians,” as if they are warriors.

Protect and serve. That’s the motto, right? Was this man protected? Was he served? Just walk the guy to his sister’s and problem solved. No paperwork. Be fucking human.

Nope. Need the collar.

A couple of years ago, some of our city’s finest, killed an 800 pound bull elk in a nearby neighborhood. The elk was pretty mellow, really, the residents loved it, gave it a name, just pretty much left it alone. But these guys decided to kill it. Why? Because one of them was a taxidermist and elk hunter. 800 lbs. of elk meat is worth some coin, and a mounted trophy is worth a lot more. Poaching is illegal. But they’re cops. They just write a report that the elk was wounded and needed to be put down. Fail to file a report at all, really, until people complained.

But they were acting like they owned the place, they were in charge, this was their town. Even though they didn’t even live here. It’s that sense of entitlement that pisses me off. Their perceived lordship falls mostly on minorities. I’m a lily white northern European and I’ve had encounters with asshole cops. I try to imagine what it is like for minorities and when I do I get really pissed off.

But a lot of innocent people, white and black, who are not fascists are going to get hurt, and fascists and racists will seize on the conflict to advance their own cause.