[Sixstrings]

CNN: Baltimore Rioters Threatening ‘Anybody… Who Was Not African-American’

A CNN correspondent covering the Baltimore anti-police riots live indicated rioters were openly hostile towards “anyone… who was not African-American.” (WATCH: Rioting Punk Taken Down By Baltimore Police)

CNN correspondent Miguel Marquez described the scene on the ground: “It was a frightening scene. Young people, male and female, holding rocks, bricks, bottles, sticks.”

“Very, very angry to see anybody driving in a rental car who was not African-American,” he reported, “and very, very threatening to us.”
http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/27/cnn-baltimore-rioters-threatening-anybody-who-was-not-african-american-video/

Maryland Gov. activates National Guard as Baltimore protests rage
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/violence-baltimore-7-police-officers-injured-clashes-article-1.2201004

The press conference is on live right now. They're saying there will be 5,000 natl guard troops to start with. They say it is not martial law, and they're not at that point.

They say for everyone to "take cover for the night" and let the national guard restore order in the city of Baltimore.

edit: press conference sounds serious, they made a point to say the national guard troops will be carrying their weapons and will defend themselves.

Maryland governor is saying right now, that "outside agitators" have come into Baltimore from around the country. And that there are "lawless, roaming gangs of thugs" that have taken over the streets.

[Sixstrings]

Update: was watching news coverage.

Rioters threw household items into the middle of the street and set a bonfire, "to draw the police in." Then when the police got there, the rioters got on the roofs of the buildings and threw things down onto the police.

Earlier, they set a senior citizens center on fire. Then when the FD gets there, the rioters stabbed the fire hoses with knives so they couldn't put the fire out.

Just now, CNN was showing a mixed use urban neighborhood, and a Chinese couple running out of a store they own, with their baby. Store was on fire, apparently they lived above the store.

Also, they were saying there was a study and it says the youth poverty conditions in inner city Baltimore are actually worse than for youths in Nigeria.

There's no excusing rioting, and people are going to get hurt or maybe killed out of this.

But the fact remains -- when you have extreme poverty, extreme income disparity, then you're gonna get riots. It's the same thing whether it's Ukraine or the USA. If you let wages get so far low, if you send all the jobs offshore, and then if you get a string of incidents with police shooting too many people using way too much force and people dying in police custody -- these are things that cause a riot.

The extreme poverty is the #1 cause.

I'm not excusing, but let me ask you guys -- why don't we just maybe have a $15 minimum wage like Australia has? Would it be the end of the world, if our billionaires had maybe a few billion dollars less? Wouldn't that be better for all of us, to not have to look at extreme Nigeria-level poverty all over our country, and people so desperate?

This Baltimore riot could get ugly, it looks like a darn prison riot. So what is that city, was it a prison to start with?

You've got DC right next door.. what if the riots in Baltimore gets worse, what if it spreads to DC.

Guys just remember -- when masses of poor rise up with pitchforks, they actually don't go tot he billionaires' houses. They burn their own neighborhoods down first, then their city, THEN IT'S THE MIDDLE CLASS SUBURBS.

Billionaires will always be okay. So why continue this? Why keep so many people so extremely poor, and it's the middle class too. People like my nephew that's upper middle class, but the jobs here are part time and not living wage, even for a nice hard working white kid. He's getting up there in his 20s, still living at home, could not even afford a roommate much less his own place.

The jobs just aren't there, and poverty is everywhere, and the 1% get richer.

edit: and just to add, if you remember Fergusson I was very pro-police and against the protesters / rioters.

But the thing is, there have been multiple incidents since Ferguson. People keep getting killed by police, and it's on video, and it looks like excessive force. That one guy in New York that got suffocated to death right there on the street. All he was doing was selling "loose cigarettes."

Then there've been several unexplained shootings, unarmed perps gunned down, seemingly unnecessarily. The one guy, all he had was a child support bench warrant out. Do we really want to shoot people down in the streets for small things like that?

And then, one of the latest things, is that elderly VOLUNTEER RESERVE deputy that THOUGHT he was grabbing his taser but grabbed his GUN instead and shot a man down.

Having said the above -- I sure as heck don't want to be WHITEY trying to drive down the street in a city that's erupted with riots and bloods and crips have roadblocks set up and pulling whites out of their cars.

And I'm not for rioters.. like that Chinese family just working hard with a business, suddenly their shop and apartment is on fire.

But the root of it all, is just that so many are so poor now in this country, white, black, brown, we have too much extreme poverty now and our problems from that will only get worse. It's not worth it. Who are you guys protecting, billionaires? Why?

[sjn]

Starting to get it 6? I thought you were all for "Globalization"? But yes, inequality leads to social instability. If the people perceive those with power as adversaries, as opposed to authorities the outcome is assured.

[Revi]

Houses start at $7000 in Baltimore. I took the train to DC last year, and in Baltimore there was about 15 minutes of what looked like abandoned houses, burned out 2 story row houses and dead mills and businesses. Then I took the train south of DC, and they were building thousands of 2 story row houses in Virgina. It's pretty obvious where the economy stops.

[Revi]

Here's a beauty. $8900.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Ba ... rect/7_zm/

[Plantagenet]

If the people perceive those with power as adversaries, as opposed to authorities the outcome is assured.

So you think the riots in Baltimore were justified because the rioters see those in power like Obama and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as their adversaries?

Nah---the rioters were just a bunch of thugs taking advantage of the situation to loot and burn and riot. The mayor foolishly ordered the Baltimore police to stand down and allow the thugs to destroy things, and the thugs took the opportunity to loot stores, burn things down, and attack the police, beat reporters, rob people, etc. etc..


Couldn't those dopes just write a letter to the editor to protest police brutality, instead of burning down our city?

[Plantagenet]

Ooops. Looks like the word "thug" is no longer politically correct. The new PC term for the arsonists, looters and rioters is "misdirected youth."

baltimore-council-prez-apologizes-to-rioters

The president of the Baltimore City Council apologized for calling rioters "thugs" at a press conference Tuesday, calling those responsible for the violence "misdirected" youths.

Now O is doing his best to explain things to the misdirected youth. Obama just said: "There's no excuse for the kind of violence we saw yesterday. It is counterproductive. When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting. They're not making a statement: they're stealing. When they burn down a building, they're committing arson. They're destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities."

[Tanada]

baltimore-council-prez-apologizes-to-rioters

The president of the Baltimore City Council apologized for calling rioters "thugs" at a press conference Tuesday, calling those responsible for the violence "misdirected" youths.

Now O is doing his best to explain things to the misdirected youth. Obama just said: "There's no excuse for the kind of violence we saw yesterday. It is counterproductive. When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting. They're not making a statement: they're stealing. When they burn down a building, they're committing arson. They're destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities."

More power to the President in his efforts to quell the rioters. I watched the Mayors news conference and it was a very muddled more in sorrow than in anger speech that wouldn't deter a 2 year old from misbehaving, let alone a 20 something with a big chip on their shoulder about a given business they want to loot. The woman in charge of the Maryland National Guard should run for President, she gives a good speech and seems to know what she is doing.

[Plantagenet]

...speech.....wouldn't deter a 2 year old from misbehaving, let alone a 20 something with a big chip on their shoulder about a given business they want to loot....

I totally agree.

O's speech and the other speeches by other pols are all well-intentioned, but they aren't going to deter the arson and looting at this point. There were plenty of speeches when the Ferguson rioting and looting was going on as well, but the riots went on night after night----- they didn't stop the arson and looting in Ferguson until they got tough on the arsonists and looters.

Its a smart move to establish and curfew and bring in the National Guard right away in Baltimore---no point having more stores looted and more buildings burned down.

Hopefully the National Guard presence will be enough to keep things quiet in Baltimore tonight.

[Sixstrings]

@Plant and Tanada,

We're into a bit of a "Ukraine" situation here. You see both sides testing each other. Government does not want to crack down TOO much, and actually stoke more resistance as people see the crack down on tv and then more just come out to protest.

Yes, government has to keep order and you can't have white tourists that made a wrong turn getting pulled out of their cars and clubbed to death. (to be fair, that has not happened, but that's the fear -- some kind of LA riots thing and total madness and chaos and anyone that's white gets pulled out of his tractor trailer rig and beat over the head with bricks)

The mayor held back, because she didn't want another Ferguson. She said herself in the a press conference that it's a balance, she said she does not want "a military state." (I found that interesting, I kind of like her for that, you don't usually hear politicians that are concerned about encroaching military state)

But anyhow, she called the governor and activated the national guard. So we'll see what happens tonight. Government does not ever want another "kent state," either. We actually never want to see the horror of our army shooting their m16s on the people.

The national guard is in Baltimore, they have their weapons out. A reporter asked a commander about the weapons, and he said "we're here as a force multiplier -- the key word there is force."

They've also gotten more police into the city, from around Maryland and also surrounding states. So there should be plenty of civilian police to handle it now. The national guard will be in reserve. So it's unlikely we'll see any incidents with the national guard, unless for some reason things really spiral out of control.

A general theme going on, since Ferguson, are the "outside agitators." A Ferguson or Baltimore will start up and they actually get people *driving in* from all over the country, as far as California.

These incidents are more than just local riots. There's a new, different element lately. You see the "anonymous" guys out there, with their masks. There's definitely an element of civil uprising, people with issues larger than local police brutality.

Was watching one reporter on CNN, he was saying that people in Europe and other countries don't actually realize how 3rd world bad the poverty is, and how very dangerous it is, in certain places in the US. Baltimore is one of those places, and it's among the most poor and dangerous places as there is in America. Along with parts of Detroit, etc. A lot of smaller metro areas all have that "bad part" of town, of course.

I've got one in my area. My metro area isn't large enough to ever have a riot, but it's gotten rather rough over the last few years. Gunshots just heard in the night. Sh*t like that.

There's parts of my area that, holy cow, you DO NOT want to even DRIVE down because God forbid you have a flat tire or something like that. The danger in the air, in a ghetto, is *palpable*.

So -- I see a lot of sides to this general issue, I really do.

And I've also seen it with my own two eyes, how my own local area has gotten worse over the years, and that's because of the neverending jobs bleed to offshore, combined with open doors immigration, and then falling wages and lack of work, decade after decade, just getting worse.

We've got a LOT of problems in this country. And they are ALL poverty rooted. That's the fact and truth, and if one is a conservative then you still can't deny that, the only thing a conservative can say is maybe have a different idea about how to turn the tide of all this poverty in America. They would say MORE free trade deals, MORE "trickle down," MORE tax cuts for billionaires.

edit: So yes Plant, they are thugs, but I would ask WHY are they thugs? We've got too many "thugs" lately. This is out of the norm, worse than it was in the past. All the jobs got sent offshore, and these cities like Detroit and Baltimore were left to be apocalyptic wastelands with people but no jobs anymore.

And that model just spreads, to more of America. Many places don't have ghettos, but it's quieter "white" dysfunction. We've had a crystal methhead and pillhead epidemic for many years now, nationwide. And now heroin is up. Darn Indiana has an HIV epidemic just from people using dirty needles.

It's all from poverty. It's all from lack of jobs. The more the middle and lower classes are ignored and allowed to fall into poverty, the more dysfunctional they will get, and the more riots we will have. If you respond to that by just cracking down more on the lower classes, then more will rebel.

P.S. And it's worth noting, by the way, the police brutality incident that sparked this. I don't know all the details -- so many of these incidents have happened this year, you can't keep up anymore -- but apparently an unarmed man, young guy, had his voice box crushed and SPINE SEVERED while in police custody. So how the f*ck does that happen, folks, that's an incredible beating that is quite unusual and I'm not a hand to hand combat expert but I know enough to know that would take a LOT of force and you just don't hear about things like that, not even in the worst bar fights or brawls.

There was no gun involved but how the hell did the police do all that, they smashed his voice box, they actually *broke his spine* and severed it.

We've got some problems going on, people, and we need to start admitting it. Not even police in Russia are anything like this. Russians can't hold up a Putin protest sign, and yes Russia has mafia-state hit jobs, but for average folks at least their police seem to be able to handle things without gunning everyone down or breaking their spines. It's gone too far, there's a real problem with police brutality. And the poverty has gone too far, too.

[Plantagenet]

When riots, arson and looting occurred in Fergusson, Mo., it was widely blamed on the fact that Ferguson was a black majority city with a white mayor and white chief of police.

Now riots, arson and looting are occurring in Baltimore, a black majority city with a black mayor and a black chief of police and a city council where every member is a democrat. In 2012 President Obama won a whopping 87.4% of the Baltimore City vote and the riot zone in Baltimore is represented in Congress by Elijah Cummings, a black congressman who has held office for more than thirty years. Baltimore has been run continuously by Democrats since 1967 --- the last time there was a Republican Mayor was 48 years ago.

It appears the explanation that these riots are caused by the racism of local government officials doesn't stand up in Baltimore, where all the relevant government officials are Democrats and have been so for decades, and many of them are black, including the mayor and police chief.

[Plantagenet]

We've got a LOT of problems in this country. And they are ALL poverty rooted. That's the fact and truth, and if one is a conservative then you still can't deny that

Why would a conservative want to deny that? That is exactly what conservatives have been pointing out for decades---the Ds who run America's cities have turned large areas of our beautiful cities into ghettoes, with bad schools, bad housing, no jobs, basically creating violent drug infested hell-holes. Why not face facts? The Ds have run Baltimore for the last 50 years and mucked it up but good.

[dolanbaker]

[Sixstrings]

When riots, arson and looting occurred in Fergusson, Mo., it was widely blamed on the fact that Ferguson was a black majority city with a white mayor and white chief of police.

Now riots, arson and looting are occurring in Baltimore, a black majority city with a black mayor and a black chief of police and a city council where every member is a democrat. In 2012 President Obama won a whopping 87.4% of the Baltimore City vote and the riot zone in Baltimore is represented in Congress by Elijah Cummings, a black congressman who has held office for more than thirty years. Baltimore has been run continuously by Democrats since 1967 --- the last time there was a Republican Mayor was 48 years ago.

Just because it's a Democrat plantation, doesn't mean Democrats have ever done anything.

The root of it in Baltimore, is the same as the root in every abandoned previously-industrial city -- the jobs got offshored. Same thing as Detroit, too. So how much more offshoring are we gonna do.

How many more Detroits and Baltimores are we going to create? Not to mention the midwest, all white, that's full of cyrstal meth heads and pill heads and heroin junkies.

The root of it all is poverty, and lack of jobs, and that those things are getting worse.

Middle class folk don't run around burning everything down. Middle class white folks aren't hopped up on crystal 7 days in a row without sleep, but a lot of poor whites in poverty are.

Poverty -- it's honestly the root of it all. Lift the main street economy up, get more people out of poverty, and there would be less dysfunction and crime. More poverty, more dysfunction and crime.

This is just a fact, there is a direct correlation between extreme income disparity and society going to hell in a handbasket.

It appears the explanation that these riots are caused by the racism of local government officials doesn't stand up in Baltimore, where all the relevant government officials are Democrats and have been so for decades, and many of them are black, including the mayor and police chief.

I was with you on Ferguson, and I still don't like Noam Chomsky anarchy -- but I don't know, things are really bad in much of this country, maybe the politicians should lift wages? Consider it an experiment, just try it, hey why not, instead of buying more bullets.

[Sixstrings]

Why would a conservative want to deny that? That is exactly what conservatives have been pointing out for decades---the Ds who run America's cities have turned large areas of our beautiful cities into ghettoes, with bad schools, bad housing, no jobs, basically creating violent drug infested hell-holes. Why not face facts? The Ds have run Baltimore for the last 50 years and mucked it up but good.

Okay, you're right about that.

New York City has only done so well, because of the massive boom in Wall Street financial economy, and then good moderate republican leadership for many years. But the key there, is the wall street money. A city has to have something. If it was factories, and now Clinton / Bush sent them all to China and Costa Rica and God knows where, then something has to replace that or else you just have a burned out ghetto left behind. Just like Detroit.

Republicans and Democrats have both been in cahoots to offshore all the jobs, ever since Clinton.

Yes Plant you're right about liberal mismanagement, but it's also true that if there are just no jobs and if Clintons and Bush's have ground the ENTIRE country down to 30 year stagnant wages -- so folk make like half what they would have a generation ago -- then that adds up to poverty no matter who is in charge, R or D.

The economics is the root of it all.

They offshored all the jobs.

Last time I read about steel plants -- I think it said there's like only a couple left, in the entire nation.

All our crap is made in China. Then add in all the internet automation and super efficiency. And now Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Jeb Bush want to send the white collar office jobs to India. So we won't even have those much longer.

[Sixstrings]

Some protests in NYC now.

A week long curfew may have been a mistake, since that just makes this a week-long media event. And once you have a curfew, then you're backed into a corner of HAVING to arrest people, even if they aren't doing anything. And then the riots are about rebellion against police, so if you make a curfew then people are just going to come out to break the curfew.

But I think this thing will blow over. Really, nothing we've seen the last few years have ever added up to what the old LA Riots were, from the 90s.

That was the last truly serious riot in the US. 4 days of rioting, outright urban combat with korean shop owners defending their shops from the rooftops. That horror of Reginald Denny pulled out of his truck, and beaten to near death.

The LA riots burned down city blocks, and caused $1 billion in damage, and 53 dead.

There's a new element to more recent riots.. it's like an internet "Anonymous" thing. You saw those guys in Fergusson, with their "Anonymous" masks.

There's a bit of Ukraine / Arab spring vibe to it. And like in other countries, a protest spreads like wildfire with twitter and social media, now.

It also seems like we're getting more "European" looking riots / protests, and other places in the world. All the kids wear the masks (did they do that in the old days? I don't remember). They're more organized, they use tactics. Some have full gas masks.

Bottom line on the police brutality issue -- there just needs to be body cams, mandatory, nationwide, for all law enforcement.

Agencies fight this, because they fear it opens them up to liability -- if it's RECORDED and ON VIDEO then that could be more lawsuits against a municipality, with such obvious proof right there on video.

And then, individual LEOs are against body cams, because they understandably would rather not be recorded while at work. And, they fear it opens them up to liability.

BUT -- there have already been dash cams for a long time, with a lot of agencies. Really, it helps law enforcement more than hurts. It's fantastic for trials. A defendant can't wiggle out of something that is right there, on video.

Cameras are objective -- they show what a suspect does and says, and they show what law enforcement does and says, and neither of those are the fault of the camera.

These cameras are so cheap now. People buy gopro cams just to put on a kite, or on their personal recreation drone, or to go play sports. The cameras are a dime a dozen from China, they're the cheapest police gear there is so there's no excuse, every officer should have a body cam. If it were legally possible / fudgeable, this is one area where I would be in favor of a presidential executive order just ordering that all LEO must use body cams.

Or what do you guys think, are the body cams not a good idea? Would it make law enforcement too fearful to do their jobs? Is it too much surveillance state? I say no, because there have already been dashboard cams and that seems to work out and helps with prosecution of criminals, it's eye witness video right as the thing is going down. If police have managed and been okay with a cam on their dash, then a body cam isn't unreasonable.

(and body cams on police would protect YOU, the average decent citizen, when maybe you were just speeding through a speed trap designed just to raise money for the town from tickets. And then maybe a deputy is on a power trip or just having a bad day or is pumped with adrenaline from his last stop -- even IF you are white, even if you look respectable, even if you're doing all the right things -- interaction with police is inherently dangerous, for anyone. If they're just having a bad day or for some reason just do not like you, it can be scary. Maybe with a camera, they would be more polite and professional, right?

I remember my elderly mother had a horrible time with an officer. First time in her life anything like that had ever happened. All she was doing was driving down to the end of the street to get a newspaper from the machine, but didn't have a seatbelt on.

So see it's not just about "black people." What if you have an aged parent that's a bit cranky but obviously harmless, but then an officer has an attitude, and things just spiral out of control (my mom was okay, she was just rattled by it and got a $100 ticket). Police working in the public really isn't so different from any customer service business -- they need to have a bit of thick skin, they need to always have the goal of NOT ESCALATING a molehill into a mountain and suddenly they're drawing their gun and shooting an unarmed person ten times, when maybe that really never needed to happen.

Even a bar bouncer must use restraint, you can't just have a total badass as the bouncer in your bar, someone like that would actually just start fights with people. So see it's common sense, it's very important, being a cop is like being a bouncer in a club and you have to be tolerant and not escalate and know where that line is when it is appropriate to get tough.

Look at these incidents we've had lately -- that guy in NYC was thrown to the ground and suffocated to death, all for *just complaining*. He didn't cuss or threaten or do anything, he just complained about the cops harassing him all the time and then boom they all jump him and suffocate him to death right there. I assume they didn't MEAN to, but that's what happens, if five cops just violently jump someone and are on top of them and ignore the person when they say they can't breathe.

All Eric Gardner was doing was selling "loose cigarettes." I know a thug and hoodlum when I see one, and he didn't even look like that, not all black folks are hoodlums.

Just anecdotally -- I'm white, and I know white people -- I have to say, police have gotten more attitude and rougher over the years ever since 9/11. Even toward white people. They need some different training, they need body cams.)

[Revi]

My mother is from Baltimore. It has been a basket case since the 70's or so. The backside of Philly is like this too. NYC used to be really bad also, but has been getting better because people want to live there. All of these places were booming back in the day with lots of immigrants. Most of them moved up and out. NYC still has a lot of people coming in to occupy its housing stock. Not so much in Philly and Baltimore. Who really wants to live there? All the people coming into DC are living in northern Virginia and in the inner suburbs in Maryland. Who wants to commute over an hour to a drug infested dangerous row house in Baltimore? Everyone who had something going on moved out. That left thousands of abandoned houses and people who were just left there. It's not that different from the rest of the US, just more concentrated. There are thousands of rust belt cities, industrial wastelands and abandoned places all over America. They are all dry tinder.

Check out these pics of Baltimore's more picturesque urban decay:
http://flavorwire.com/196113/a-look-at- ... rban-decay

[Sixstrings]

Interesting, Rev. Looks like The Road:

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

What happened to the "rust belt" is that first the jobs and people moved to the "right work" states no-union South.

And then the jobs moved from the South, to no union + dollar a day wage Asia / Latin America.

I get what you're saying, that people are idiots to just stay in a ruined place when the jobs all went to Mexico and Shanghai. It's just that, OTOH, there are places in the world like Germany that do not have a rust belt. They protected their industries. They never lost their steel plants, and other things.

[Sixstrings]

Just an update.

There have been large protests in about 6 major cities, past few days. Some of the largest were in NYC and now Philadelphia. This is a new phenomenon we didn't see back in the old LA riots, back in the 90s.

The 60s are way before my time, but I know from history that even without social media -- the same thing happened then too, there would be a shooting in one city and then all the cities would erupt with disturbance.

So it's not all about social media, but that is also a factor now with spreading protests, as it has been a factor in the Arab spring and Ukraine and Hong Kong and everywhere in the world, ever since twitter and facebook and all that.

Things seems to be building in Philadelphia.

Protesters marched past a prison and the prisoners banged on the bars in support.

Then they tried to march onto I95, but police successfully prevented them from shutting down the interstate.

In Baltimore, about what started all this the guy that got killed and his spine broke -- police are trying to say that maybe *he did it himself* somehow, by "thrashing around" in the back of the police van.

Now here's what's strange -- I heard on the news someone saying that apparently Baltimore city had already been sued once, because another person had actually "severed his spine" while in the police van. I didn't get all the details on that, but apparently that had something to do with how they are restrained. So the city enacted a rule that all police must *seatbelt* anyone they put in the paddy wagon.

But what winds up happening is that police ignore the rule about seatbelting perps -- because they don't want to get too close to them, you can get spat at in your face, etc. So they shackle them and handcuff and throw them back in the van and close the door.

So maybe they open the van doors up and now this guy is just mysteriously dead all of the sudden, well that's what they're trying to say.

Like I already said, I'm no hand to hand combat expert -- but it seems highly unlikely that it's possible for a person to actually sever their own spine, no matter how much they thrash around. That just doesn't happen. That takes a LOT of trauma force. Like a darn car crash. Or serious, massive blows from many nightsticks to the back -- that's the common sense here about this, that spines do not just break willy nilly. We all know that. And then his voice box was crushed too, and he was unconscious.

Or is everyone wrong here, is it actually possible a handcuffed and shackled person could somehow inflict these injuries on themselves? I just don't see the physics of it even, common sense, there's no way you can just break your own spine, short of jumping from a tall building.

[Sixstrings]

I have to point a couple things out, just to be fair and objective. This article is actually correct:

CLARKE: FREDDIE GRAY CHARGES ‘DUKE LACROSSE CASE ALL OVER AGAIN’
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/05/01/clarke-freddie-gray-charges-duke-lacrosse-case-all-over-again/

The 6 police officers were overcharged. But that does not make the state's attorney wrong, to do so -- sure there is a legal threshold of probable cause. She is the elected People's Attorney. The State's Attorney. Elected.

How many times has it happened in the South, in the past. That an innocent black man was just charged, because the voters wanted him charged, and then he gets convicted and sent to death row. It happened many, many times, over a hundred years and more.

So that's just how that works, that an elected state's attorney is actually going to listen to their voters.

But having said that -- if I were looking at this as a judge -- at most, maybe the LEAST of those criminal charges would be okay. But not all the other charges, not 2nd degree murder, and not manslaughter UNLESS they can REALLY PROVE that those officers knew he was dying but they did nothing, willfully.

So.. there does need to be justice.. that could mean a prosecutor that has WAY overcharged, and then a jury to do its job and acquit these officers.

Cuz here's the thing -- it's looking like they didn't even beat this guy up, they did not actually kill him. What they are being charged for murder, on, is that they ignored his distress and didn't seatbelt him in. But you know, cops don't really know, maybe they thought he was drunk or on drugs.

These are some serious over charges, if the cops didn't even beat him up. 2nd degree murder charge, manslaughter, on and on. 3 of the charged officers are black, themselves. One is a woman cop and she is charged just because she came in toward the end, opened the van door, but didn't help him. It's some sh*tty police work, but is this manslaughter and murder?

Needs to be a fair trial, I hope justice works out and nobody is wrongly convicted and then that does work out, and there has been some deterrence here and police will start being more careful on the job. Yet no cop wrongly convicted in the end, either.

edit: and another thing..

The arrest was actually unlawful and without cause. (but did he resist arrest? that becomes cause, actually, at that point)

What started the whole thing is that this guy saw the police and then HE RAN.

So the cops just RUN AFTER HIM. Cuz, well, if someone is running they must have done something right? Even though in America, there is actually no law against running if you feel like you want to run around. Remember, there was no reported crime or something, or suspect on the loose, no probable cause. Cops just make eye contact with this guy, he runs, so they run after him.

Then they catch him and frisk him. He had a knife tucked in his pants. It turns out was a legal knife, and not against the law. But the police arrest him anyway.

Common sense -- these cops are trying to protect people, I mean yeah here we have a guy just running at the sight of police and he's got a knife on him. He may even have a violent rap sheet of crimes, maybe he just did something right? That could be.

So now these cops just get charged with murder, maybe convicted. Is that right? If they didn't even beat him?

We all want our police to do a good job and protect us, but also, they still have to follow the exact law. You can't just arrest, without probable cause. Also -- apparently there's an informal cop rule in Baltimore, that "if you make them run" they will "give you a rough ride" in the paddy wagon van. So see.. sh*t just needs to change.. we want them to protect us, but police need to get professional too.

Also, why the heck does Baltimore have a paddy wagon van that just drives around the city like that. It was bicycle cops that went after the guy, then I guess Baltimore uses a paddy wagon to pick perps up. That makes no sense to me. Vans like that are only for a big crowd, a riot, not every day stuff. It's better to put a detainee in the back of a regular police car, handcuffed and seatbelted in, so that the officer is aware of what's going on with the arrested person.

Otherwise, Baltimore just had this van and they throw somebody into it, shackled and handcuffed, then just lock the doors and the driver can't see back there or know what's going on.

A jury will figure this all out. And if cops are wrongly convicted on something, then I do hope the appeals process works.