A Chicago policeman has been charged with first-degree murder for shooting a 17-year-old child over a year ago. Is it any wonder that black people avoid cops as much as possible?
In Trouble? Look for a Cop and Run the Other Way
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Sad but true in many places around the USA.. Nothing new here – we only get to see it more easily and more often now. It’s gotten harder to sweep things under the rug or keep things a secret. It’s too bad we had to give up so many of our freedoms to see what we can see now. Maybe like Firesign Theatre suggested many years ago – we may not really be “safe” until every citizen is handcuffed to a police officer 24/7? 🙂
So, you all agree (rightfully) that the media censors many stories. But once it’s about white cops shooting blacks you suppose somehow the all-powerful media cannot prevent it. It’s plastered all over the media but you think that is somehow *not* what powerful people want. The truth is only the police themselves don’t want it, and they cannot get every journalist fired nor every media outlet closed. This kind of divisive sensationalism is *exactly* what the media wants. Can you guys be more disingenuous?
«… Run the opposite direction ?» Not, to my mind, a workable policy – it may, indeed, be possible to outrun – or at least dodge – one bullet, but a whole magazine ?…
Henri
I assume they don’t open fire instantly, as the cop who killed Tamir Rice did.
Have to say, Ted, this is a low point for you. The cop will be the shooter? No, in all likelihood, it will be a fellow black youth. That’s the truth and you know it. The mother should be telling him something useful, such as, “don’t commit crimes.” While we all here can agree there have been blacks who were shot unjustifiably, I strain to think of one, reported in national media, who was not engaged in criminal activity, save for Tamir Rice. It’s not fair, but if Michael Brown hadn’t robbed a store, or if Eric Gardner wasn’t selling cigarettes, etc., they’d be alive. There’s some actually good advice that could save lives.
Convictions for robbing stores and reselling cigarettes do NOT carry the death sentence.
The police are NOT the institution in charge of the process that results in convictions.
Falco, our friend «Jack Heart» seems to be disappointed that the police do not (according to her/him – as usual, without citing any statistics in support of her/his claim) kill more black youth than do other black youth. Whether or no the claim is true – I’ve not been able to find any reliable statistical information on the matter – here, however, some information om how many people in toto are killed by cops in the US : http://killedbypolice.net/ – the point is that police are presumably hired by communities to protect the inhabitants. Killing them seems in most circumstances to be as odd a way of «protecting» them as terror bombing by the US Air Force and its vassals is of bringing «democracy» and «human rights» to the benighted inhabitants of other countries whose governments have not been sufficiently compliant to Washington’s wishes….
Henri
I can only assume that Jack’s little feelings would not be hurt if he was shot to death for jaywalking, speeding, or spitting on the sidewalk. Those are, after all, illegal – even if most of us have committed those crimes at some point in our lives..
But CrazyH, I suspect that «JackHeart» would feel, utterly betrayed – in the unlikely circumstances that s/he could feel anything after being shot to death by the cops for the capital crimes you mention above – after all, s/he is almost certainly what is (inaccurately) termed «White» and that kind of abbreviated legal procedure is generally reserved for Blacks and other minorities….
Henri
Bingo! They never stop to think that once they grant those kinds of powers to the gubbmint, they could be used against themselves. The funny part is that the righties keep talking about how much they distrust the government – yet they willfully grant them the power of life and death. Jack’s fav candidate, Trump, wants to legalize waterboarding.
And on that day that Jack gets waterboarded, he’ll blame the left.
Try rereading my comment, falco. So typical. Even my attempts to head off being misinterpreted by Leftists fail. I believe you literally have blinders on when dealing with someone that ‘triggers’ you. I said they didn’t deserve to die. All the same, they WERE criminals, not entirely innocent. Now, I nor you or anyone else can stop the police from shooting these people. HOWEVER, quite clearly, anyone can drastically reduce his chances of being a victim of a police shooting by refraining from any sort of criminal activity, right? Shouldn’t that be quite obvious to keep one from getting into their sights in the first place?
Fascinating henri. You’re ready to believe without finding “any reliable statistical information on the matter” that unjustified shootings of blacks are a massive systemic problem, but when I point out something that IS so well-documented that I so foolishly thought that I did not need to cite statistics for, that is, young black men commit almost as many murders as whites despite blacks being only 11% of the population and they do so mostly against each other.
Yeah, CH, the police with a license to kill jaywalkers. That’s what I want. May I suggest a course in reading comprehension?
1) Blame the victim
2) Get called on it
3) Deny everything
Typical.
Leftist life plan:
1) Be a victim.
2) Accuse anyone who suggests actionable advice of ‘victim blaming’ even when he really blames the perpetrator.
3) Repeat.
«[F]oolishly» is indeed the word, «Jack Heart» ; that matters are well-documented (according to your lights) is no excuse for not documenting them. Note also that the statistics you provide do not include victims shot by cops – the table’s rubric is «murder», while the killings done by cops are almost universally classified as «justifiable» homicide. In any event, thank you for the link….
As I noted in my comment – and which, not surprisingly, you fail to address – was that you seem disappointed that the police do not kill more black people than other black people do. You do point out, however, with the support of the FBI table, that the number of homicides committed by black people is greater than the number which would be expected were they committed at the same rate as among the general population. You don’t seem, however, to have extended your statistical analysis to the number of homicides committed by police officers and the rate at which these police officers kill others («justifiably» or not). Alas, it’s no easy task to determine just how many police officers there are in the United States ; this source (http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2014/08/26/by-the-numbers-how-many-cops-are-there-in-the-usa/) provides an estimate of 810 000 «full- and part-time employees with general arrest powers» in the US in 2008. That number has surely increased in the seven intervening years ; if a figure of one million such persons is a not unreasonable estimate for 2015, and we take into account that the number of people killed by cops hitherto this year is some 1046 (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database#), we find a homicide rate among this segment of the population, of approximately 100 per 100 000 population (with the caveat that a single cop can kill more than one person in a given year, but the same caveat of course holds when we attempt to calculate the homicide rate among blacks). According to the US census of 2010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans), the total number of Afro-Americans that year was 42,020,743, they were certainly no fewer in 2013, the year in which, according to the FBI table to which you link above, Black or Afro-Americans committed a total of 2698 homicides. If, to simplify matters, we assume 42 million Blacks or Afro-Americans and 2700 homicides, the homicide rate among this portion of the population is 6.43 per 100000. Statistically, it would seem that the risk of being killed by a cop in the US is some 15.6 times as great as being killed by a «Black or Afro-American».
But the above analysis is, of course, unfair to the cops (which Heaven forfend !), small children rarely kill people (although such incidents are not unknown in the United States) and most (but certainly not all!) homicides are perpetrated by males. The number of black males in the United States in 2013 was 21.5 million (http://blackdemographics.com/black-male-statistics/), of whom 49 % or 10.535 million were 18 years or over. If we divide our 2700 homicides by the that latter figure, we find a homicide rate for this group of 25.6 per 100 000. In other words, proximity (within shooting distance) of a cop in the United States carries a risk of being killed about four times greater than being near a black male of 18 years or over….
Strange, «Jack Heart», that you have not chosen to note this fact, which makes Ted’s advice to the child to run in the opposite direction if he sees someone in blue, when being shot at, not at all unreasonable…..
Henri
GOTCHA!
Using quotes from your original post – please show where you blamed the perpetrator, (that being the cop who pulled the trigger.)
Nope it’s all about the victim, the victim’s mommy, other black youths, etc. How about you offer a little ‘actionable advice’ to the cop? “Thou shalt not kill” for instance. I’m pretty sure that’d go a lot farther towards fixing the problem.
I said, since you cannot be bothered to read my first comment, “While we all here can agree there have been blacks who were shot unjustifiably” and “It’s not fair” ergo, I have nothing to ‘deny.’
I clearly give you too much credit still after all this time. I thought that would be the sufficient disclaimer. But I see now that I needed to say, “Murderers are responsible for murder.” Silly me. You are quite right. I can’t see where I left cops off for murdering people, but you must have better eyes.
Hey! While we’re teaching murderers not to murder, let’s teach rapists not to rape. Together, you and I, we will save the world! Who knew all we had to do was tell murderous cops to knock it off? I’ll get right on my letter to Obama teaching him that droning people is wrong.
You see, our perspectives are entirely different. I like to put as much of my life in my own control as possible. I don’t like to leave it up to others. I know I cannot expect no cop ever to shoot me unjustifiably just the same as I cannot expect no driver ever to hit me. So, I don’t commit crimes. I avoid police. I drive defensively. I also don’t expect the gov’t to save me. So I invest in my own future. I take care of myself. I don’t expect anyone else to. Sure, it would be far better if I or anyone else didn’t have to worry about asshole cops, reckless drivers, or our elites tanking the market, but that’s not the world we live in. But I can’t control that. I can only control myself. Yes, the difference between us is that while we both know it isn’t the victims’ fault and that TPTB aren’t changing the rules anytime soon, only I am telling the victims anything useful while you’re just whining like a petulant child that only the elites should have to change. You are impotent.
> “While we all here can agree there have been blacks who were shot unjustifiably”
Fair enough, I reading comprehensioned that sentence twice, and I still don’t see the word ‘cop.’
If you work hard & keep your grades up, maybe someday you can go to high school. There, they will explain that this style is known as “third person passive voice.” It can be used to disassociate the principal and the action, as when Rumsfeld famously equivocated, “Mistakes were made”
But it wouldn’t matter even if you had used the word “cop” – the post is still about the things the victim did wrong which lead to his untimely death.
And no matter how much you try to deny it, it’s still “Blaming. The. Victim.”
Cops are the topic of discussion. It is understood, or rather, I thought it was.
You should also know that the passive voice is used to place emphasis on the object. I could have easily added “by cops,” but again, seems a little redundant and superfluous. I was addressing the options of the victim hence the emphasis. It is quite fruitless to continue stating and focusing upon what we already know–that is, cops are responsible for unjustified homicides.
And “mistakes were made” has a much longer history than Rummy.
And no matter how much you try to assert otherwise, it’s not “Blaming. The. Victim.” I don’t deny. Deny is a loaded word. I disagree. “Victim blaming” is just yet another Leftist PC rhetorical device used to silence opponents.
The problem exists above and beyond your average badge-dangling gangbanger wearing an invisible pointed hoodie. Instead, it is perpetuated by the criminal histories of the lawmakers themselves. And nowadays? The most vicious blackmail crime-family in America is its network of police unions. Functionally, ANY information held by all police departments is also readily available to the police union oligarchy. Especially in the current culture of LE access to state-of-the-art spyware … ain’t nobody got secrets from them.
DanD
We have at least 2 large “groups” of people here in the US that people, whether young kids or not, have to beware of – disenfranchised people, whether poor or discriminated against, and the police. I used to live in Compton, CA., and I knew that it was always best to not be around the bad areas, especially at night, or better yet, out of the area when I was not at home. I also knew that I didn’t want to have any interaction with the police force in that area, and that if I did have an interaction with the police, it would be less dangerous with police in more affluent neighborhoods, aside from “gated neighborhoods”, like those of San Marino, where the police serve to guard the interests of the very rich. All these people are Americans, part of our nation, part of Us. The simple fact is that once we create neighborhoods and communities that are full of poor and disenfranchised people, we create pockets of anger and craziness that spill over into the surrounding areas. They are breeding grounds for the worst behaviors. We have never really been a country that “looks out” for those less fortunate as much as it could – we are, like much of the world, a people who have an “I’ve got mine, you keep away” attitude, coupled with a desire to be among people “like us”. Now, if you add the greed and voraciousness of corporate capitalism and a “GOP” set of values, you might not be surprised to see us exactly where we are now. The demockracy has timed out – it did a long time ago…
I’m always fascinated by Leftist attitudes towards poverty. You think of it as some sort of disease that can be eradicated. As if it just “happens” to some people.
There will always be poor people no matter the system. Some people are just poor in mind, which you yourself and many others here acknowledge, but you fail to extend that to the realm of poverty. And even if the government gives them money, which it of course does, they waste it on junk food, lotto tickets, drugs, and alcohol. Precious few raise themselves up. Most either resign themselves to poverty or come to believe they are entitled to receive for nothing.
You also assume that poverty creates crime without considering the reverse.
“You think of it as some sort of disease that can be eradicated. As if it just “happens” to some people.” ” You also assume that poverty creates crime without considering the reverse.” No Jack. I don’t think those things. That’s what you want to say I think. All I think is that these conditions produce what Ted’s cartoon illustrates – Nothing more Sorry if I woke you up from your nap under the bridge…. 🙂
From your description, rikster – which corresponds to much else that I read – it sounds as if you people have a so-called «low-intensity war» going on in the United States. I can’t but wonder how long the intensity of this conflict will remain low,,,,
Henri
Yes Henri, it does sound we we have a low-intensity war going on. A lot of other countries have it even worse. And just like those other countries, it will either get worse or better depending on how the root causes are addressed – which I don’t think is being done very well, if at all, really. What I think is that citizen apathy and self-interest will drive the direction it goes.
Not to worry, Ted – I note that US cops are now proposing to learn from the past masters at subjugating a hostile population : http://www.commondreams.org/further/2015/12/04/abusive-us-cops-even-more-abusive-israeli-cops-we-want-learn-your-experience….
No doubt certain posters here will applaud….
Henri
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