No charges in police shooting of Tamir Rice

[kali o.]

Emotional appeals are a logical fallacy. Have fun bending reality to pretending they have a place in rational discussions.

Emotional appeals make otherwise intelligent folks believe all sorts of stuff...from a police force intent on murdering innocent black children to a president firing hologram missles at their own citizens...just saying

Hope you all identify an ACTUAL crime if there is one. Im out - Mental wins...I am too frustrated to continue!

[Replay]

*sigh*

Look:

After wading through a night I'd describe as "Angry White People 2: The Whitening Strikes Back" over on the Least I Could Do boards last night, Kali - I am prepared to appreciate the relative moderate stance of your position, even if I don't agree with you. I saw shit like "If I saw a 12-year-old point a gun at me, I'd blow the little sociopath away" followed by rantings about child gangbangers. To some extent I understand - people are angry about the "gangsterization" of American society - but to another extent I don't - because that just means the trigger-happy nonsense in America is escalating, to the point where I'm worried about seeing the nation head towards 1865 again. And the solution to angry, poor, gangsterish Americans (and children who get sadly blown away emulating them) is not more angry, poor, gangsterish Americans.

And the issue I'm having here is this:

Everyone wants to talk about whether or not the cop was justified in taking the shot. (I myself again blame the Cleveland PD more than anybody else in this situation for hiring Loehmann back as an officer in the first place after Independence PD shitcanned him for what now appear to be very good reasons, but we've already established that.)

Nobody wants to talk about the *systemic forces* that are leading to situations like this.

Yes, a gun culture might be one of them; but it exists on the police/military side as much as the citizens'.

And systemic poverty is also one of the forces at work. And that isn't showing up in the discussion at all.

[ManaMan]

I've been meaning to respond to this mess but was busy at work getting ready for a release.

What do we have here...

you are a deranged person with whom I can not have a logical debate with.

Aw, but I like you Kali! Seriously though, emotional appeals aren't allowed but name calling is? What else do we have...

I am not trying to be mean here...but in your reality, there is an officer here saying "Awesome, a gun call. I cant wait to kill this 12 year old nigger and lie about it".

Oh look, straw man arguments too! I see how it is then. "logical debate" huh? OK bro.

My position is perfectly within the bounds of reason:

• We're discussing whether there is grounds for an indictment not a conviction. An indictment simply means there enough reason to bring something to trial.
• Tim Loehman was in the process of being fired from his job with the Independence, OH police department when he quit (link).:

  "Supervisors described an emotionally unstable recruit with a 'lack of maturity' and 'inability to perform basic functions as instructed' during a weapons training exercise."

• We've already established that the officers initially lied about the series of events and changed their story when the footage came out. This means that they knew they did something they shouldn't have done and were trying to cover it up.
• We can't then trust the officers if they say Tamir was reaching for the gun. The footage is grainy and it's unclear whether there was any movement to the gun or not before shots were fired. You may say you see it (as does the DA) but I (and many others) don't.
• Regardless of whether he reached or not, the time between when the police car rolled up (in the grass feet from the victim) was not enough to allow for rational action let alone for the interpretation of such action.
• I believe that it's probable that officer Loehman decided prior to arriving that he was going to go in with guns blazing. He wasn't looking to be a "killer" but an action hero taking out a bad guy with a gun. This is the sort of thing you'd expect from an unstable immature person with a gun in the position of authority. It's also illegal.
• Given all that, I'd say there's reason for an indictment. There should at least be a trial.

You can disagree with me on this and that's fine. I don't need to convince you, I just want to clearly state my opinion (which is worth absolutely nothing).

Also, on the subject of the "shock and awe" police tactics: I'm not an expert on police tactics and, hey, neither the fuck are you (so quit pretending). Watching "Cops" does not an expert make. All I know is that this situation was wrong and handled horribly. So what if he had gotten away? Is it worth one person dying for the crime or brandishing a firearm to avoid... what? potential future crimes? Please.

[Replay]

*applauds for Mana*

[kali o.]

Aw, but I like you Kali! Seriously though, emotional appeals aren't allowed but name calling is?

Well, I love you too, but as a note, name calling and position attacks are always tactically allowed...

What else do we have...

I am not trying to be mean here...but in your reality, there is an officer here saying "Awesome, a gun call. I cant wait to kill this 12 year old nigger and lie about it".

Oh look, straw man arguments too! I see how it is then. "logical debate" huh? OK bro.

Now now now, its one thing to point out my attacks but you can't accuse me of strawmanning you. I quoted you verbatim. You think the killing was premeditated and determined regardless of actions upon arrival. That indicates a plan to obviously lie afterwards by necessity. So the part that irked you is the "12 year old N----"....? Well, dramatic effect and all. Feel free to sub in "young black man", still an indefensible starting position and not a straw man.

My position is perfectly within the bounds of reason:

Let's see about that...

• We're discussing whether there is grounds for an indictment not a conviction. An indictment simply means there enough reason to bring something to trial.
  No, it means enough evidence. Not reasons.
• Tim Loehman was in the process of being fired from his job with the Independence, OH police department when he quit (link).:

  "Supervisors described an emotionally unstable recruit with a 'lack of maturity' and 'inability to perform basic functions as instructed' during a weapons training exercise."

  Not relevant. It lacks any sort of detail, but I understand why the BLM crowd clings to it. It is the only thing approaching "evidence" of a possible crime (trying to imply negligence, I would imagine). What it is actually evidence of? What was the specific circumstance? Beats me...you don't know either.
• We've already established that the officers initially lied about the series of events and changed their story when the footage came out. This means that they knew they did something they shouldn't have done and were trying to cover it up.
  That doesn't mean what you state it means, and just highlights your desire to lead the evidence to the conclusion you've already made in advance. Rather than assume their recollection was faulty (as it often is for most people, nevermind after inadvertently killing a child) or things occur out of camera range, you presume guilt and cover up. Nothing is rational or reasonable about that.
• We can't then trust the officers if they say Tamir was reaching for the gun. The footage is grainy and it's unclear whether there was any movement to the gun or not before shots were fired. You may say you see it (as does the DA) but I (and many others) don't.
  I repeat my assertion that you are leading the evidence where you want. Let's say the footage is grainy. We can agree, I hope, that we see some grainy image of his jacket pulling up around the waist. Did he reach? Did he pull up the jacket to show it wasn't real? Did the wind blow it up? I don't know. But something happened. Why isn't the officers assessment in that moment, mistake or otherwise, good enough for you? Because you have decided you simply don't want it to be.
• Regardless of whether he reached or not, the time between when the police car rolled up (in the grass feet from the victim) was not enough to allow for rational action let alone for the interpretation of such action.
  Not in a 12 year old, no. But it did allow the optimal time for the police to deal with the situation safely...which they did. In this scenario, it is a bad result. In a scenario where the gun is real, and the suspect submits or is disarmed, it is a "good" result. None of this is a crime.
• I believe that it's probable that officer Loehman decided prior to arriving that he was going to go in with guns blazing. He wasn't looking to be a "killer" but an action hero taking out a bad guy with a gun. This is the sort of thing you'd expect from an unstable immature person with a gun in the position of authority. It's also illegal.
  How is any of this reasonable and not just you going off half-cocked with a bunch of assumptions without a lick of evidentiary support? I am seriously confused. You assume his motivation based on...WHAT? You've assessed his mental state based on...WHAT? It is bad enough when you lead the evidence, but you are downright imagining evidence at this point.
• Given all that, I'd say there's reason for an indictment. There should at least be a trial.

I disagree, I've pointed out the flaws and a grand jury has disagreed. Now, you can go conspiracy theory here, but are you really sure that's the train you want to board?

You can disagree with me on this and that's fine. I don't need to convince you, I just want to clearly state my opinion (which is worth absolutely nothing).

I appreciate you expanding on your opinion. Obviously, you haven't convinced me (and I am sure I haven't convinced you), but at the very least, I know you are leading the evidence...for whatever reasons you have. And that's not rational, so I hope you at least consider whether you are being bias when interpreting various aspects of this case.

For a more complete picture of my position, I equate this killing with similar killings of people who are mentally ill. I don't like it, I wish there was a better way, but I don't have it. The reality is a kid or someone who is mentally ill is often incapable of making appropriate decisions in these scenarios. When you hold them to the same standard as "regular folks", you get a fucked up result. In any case, I don't call racism here, any more than I think police hate the mentally ill.

Watching "Cops" does not an expert make.

ummm...yes it fucking does. It also makes you sweaty.

[Replay]

[*] Tim Loehman was in the process of being fired from his job with the Independence, OH police department when he quit (link).:

"Supervisors described an emotionally unstable recruit with a 'lack of maturity' and 'inability to perform basic functions as instructed' during a weapons training exercise."

Not relevant.

Mana, you deserve all possible praise for trying to get Kali to see reason here. My advice though - don't make yourself crazy trying to get him to listen.

Of course Loehmann's previous disciplinary actions for emotional instability while holding a firearm are relevant to a case where he panicked, misread a situation badly, and shot a child to death.

Kali is not likely to understand that, for a variety of reasons. Basically - and I doubt the community will recognize this, in fact most will think I'm being unfair to him here - it has taken me a long time to recognize that Kal can't feel normal human emotions, particularly as they relate to relationships between human beings. And when you can't feel normal human emotions, you generally see every situation as something to be manipulated - or, at best, a logic puzzle. And so he literally can't feel the outrage or pain that others feel at seeing a child's life snuffed out in a case of gross misconduct by those in authority. (Oddly, however, you'd think he'd see that removing an officer who was grossly emotionally and reactionally unstable from active duty before something like this happened would have been the most logical thing to do.)

[ManaMan]

I'm not trying to convince Kali of my side of the argument (or psychoanalyze him), I'm just trying to state my position and that it's a valid one (not just purely a knee-jerk "all cops are evil and racist!!!"). He's entitled to his opinion and I to mine. In the words of the Dude:

[Replay]

Look, I've been trying to work on having more compassion for Kali myself.

Just understand that when he calls you "deranged" or whatnot, it's not that he is actually making the conscious choice to piss you off or be a jerk. It has taken me a long, long time to realize that he just quite literally doesn't have the biochemical equipment to do anything else. Like every situation, he sees this as something to be "won".

And, for what it's worth, I'm fairly sure he's the only person here who actually thinks that about your opinion. Most people here are in agreement with you that Loehmann and the Cleveland PD were badly, even criminally, out of line.

[ManaMan]

Just understand that when he calls you "deranged" or whatnot, it's not that he is actually making the conscious choice to piss you off or be a jerk

Actually, that's exactly what he was trying to do. He was playing matador trying to get me to overreact and say something stupid. Then he'd swoop in and act like the reasonable guy who was just trying to have a "logical debate" and I was the crazy one. I've been in enough internet arguments to not fall for it. You, however, fall for this every time.

[kali o.]

Just understand that when he calls you "deranged" or whatnot, it's not that he is actually making the conscious choice to piss you off or be a jerk

Actually, that's exactly what he was trying to do. He was playing matador trying to get me to overreact and say something stupid. Then he'd swoop in and act like the reasonable guy who was just trying to have a "logical debate" and I was the crazy one. I've been in enough internet arguments to not fall for it. You, however, fall for this every time.

*snap* Whatcha talking bout...you don't know me!

Back on track, as far as I know, Loehmann slept with his previous supervisor...hence the poor review. Should I make that leap? You people are...(whaddya mean, you people?!). What you have is a piece of evidence with no firm link of relevance or clarity.
- What are the details of the issues described and how do they relate to the actual current incident?
- Are the issues previously assessed measurable and insurmountable?
- Is the former supervisor qualified and unbias?
- What occurred in relation to his current hiring (training/testing)?
- Was proper police procedure followed (all that matters)?
- With the above answered, does that constitute an actual crime within the current incident?

No point breaking down the rest of the assumptions you folks are making...this is the best you have and it is full of holes.

[Replay]

Actually, that's exactly what he was trying to do. He was playing matador trying to get me to overreact and say something stupid. Then he'd swoop in and act like the reasonable guy who was just trying to have a "logical debate" and I was the crazy one. I've been in enough internet arguments to not fall for it.

I think you don't actually and really understand what Kal suffers from, man. But there's no gain to me here in hashing it all out at this point.

You, however, fall for this every time.

The "like, whatever" stance is not very compatible with my personality. *shrug* I am rather allergic to people who like to try to hurt other people - and I have a hope that there's still a person hiding somewhere inside him that can be reached underneath the layers of disaffect, anger, power, and wealth he has hidden the fault lines in his personality under.

[Replay]

But really, Mana - if all I'm going to get from you is grief if I take your side, by all means you can spar with him alone. It seems to me you have "fallen for it" as deeply as anyone else here - the thread is still going, after all.

Bon appetit! I know how corrupt the world is and I will never be shocked by the depth of racism, hatred, and pure Hell that untrained, inexperienced, or malicious police officers inflict on our world. And since this community still spends most of its study/recreation time buried in media and fiction, let me make a few suggestions - watch "Training Day" and "Lakeview Terrace" as if they were documentaries, not works of fiction, and you will be less naive and less surprised by all of this yourself. (They're not, but they're both close enough to what actually goes on in our world to recommend in this fashion.)

[Replay]

Honestly, I'm going to stop getting in Kal's grill over it all.

Whatever my issues with him may be, I can say one thing with certainty - he doesn't suffer from the same issues of apathy, naivete, and mediocry I so often see in our world.

I get the increasing sense I ought to be finding ways to learn survival and success techniques from him for this world we live in, not giving him grief.

[Don]

I was reading some stuff on smart guns, e.g. the guns that won't fire if someone just grabbed it out of your hands. That to me seems like a more viable method to address these things, in the sense that if smart gun is the common technology then you probably can feel reasonably confident that a child or some shady guy isn't going to have the PIN or fingerprint or whatever the mechanism the gun is on. Obviously that's not going to work all the time and it'd take a long time before such technology becomes prevalent but there would at least be some hope.

[kali o.]

I was reading some stuff on smart guns, e.g. the guns that won't fire if someone just grabbed it out of your hands. That to me seems like a more viable method to address these things, in the sense that if smart gun is the common technology then you probably can feel reasonably confident that a child or some shady guy isn't going to have the PIN or fingerprint or whatever the mechanism the gun is on. Obviously that's not going to work all the time and it'd take a long time before such technology becomes prevalent but there would at least be some hope.

I had a sudden vision of the movie Dredd (badass flick...gonna watch it tonight now)...smart gun technology didn't help much in that one. Especially when you consider the corruption with Judges -- queue Mental and Mana establishment conspiracies

[Replay]

No need to "queue conspiracies". You're quite intelligent enough to realize that a smartgunned world will only be as smart and honest as the people running the program, Kal. And I don't think anyone can particularly say that the police did a good job here, whether or not one feels Cleveland PD's incompetence was at a criminal level or not.

My opposition to gun control has precisely to do with the notion that there is very little evidence that the U.S. police and government are competent and honest enough to run it. Most cops I have met in America become burnout cases in short order, who would abuse the power to remotely take over people's weaponry with relish, given the chance.

We can discuss at length as to do with whether or not that has to do with poor training, a bully mentality on the part of those who become American police, and/or the highly armed nature of American criminals if anyone actually feels like doing so. (I'd imagine "all three factors contribute" is a good start to that discussion.)

[Replay]

I was very taken with the concept of smartgun technology, the first time I heard about it.

I still don't think it's a bad idea; but until some of the systematic incompetence and violence within the system itself is reformed, that smartgun lock is only going to bring peace equivalent to the peaceful intentions of that system. Right now - that's not nearly what most would like to believe or pretend that it is.

There may be those here who really still believe most police and other officials in authority are really and truly honest, non-racist, helpful people who don't have any desire to power-trip on the public. I know better. I wish others could personally witness even half of the corruption I've seen.

[Replay]

Here - let me make your argument for you again, Kali, in way the community can understand.



It's not hard to see both sides of the issue.

To a young boy playing with an Airsoft gun in a public park, and to his family, a trigger-happy officer who guns that child down without so much as a word of inquiry is a villain.

But to a young officer, terrified of America's culture of violence and knowing that there are indeed children out there in modern America who take up gangbanging with deadly aim as young as 12, the kill shot is the only way he can be sure that if it *wasn't* an Airsoft gun - and indeed no one can tell at distance unless the toy gun is marked - he's not going to die or be maimed himself.

[Replay]

I keep wanting to have the discussion about the links between poverty and America's gun culture that are producing all this in the first place, but I can't seem to start that fire here. Nothing wrong with my lighter, but the wood seems wet. >_>

[Don]

Well smart gun would just be a form of securing guns. In the same article about smart guns they also talk about people selling safe/gun locks so that a kid wouldn't just randomly grab a gun from your house and start shooting people with it. It's obviously not going to solve everything but right now you pretty much have to assume anyone who wants a gun can get a gun so there's really no reason anybody would assume the other guy isn't supposed to have a gun.

[Replay]

I don't think it matters if society adopts smartguns or not - as long as we have a modern corporatist system that makes certain very, very ugly people very wealthy and consigns a lot of other hardworking people to perpetual poverty no matter how hard they work.

Britain has gun control all over, and they have less homicides - but their rate of violent crime generally is *twice* the United States', and that has a lot to do with how screwed and fucked up their economic system is. Yeah, you'll *survive* your robbery over there, most likely - but you'll probably be badly beaten, knifed, or what-have-you. Poverty and violence go hand in hand. Look at any crime map and correlate the data with poverty in that region. As long as there are people out there who are consigned to an underclass from birth by poor job opportunities and a failing educational system, there is going to be gangsterism and violence. It's a refuge for people whose lives are otherwise broken.