[Sixstrings]

whether a gun is present or not? Does that in of itself justify shooting somebody multiple times at point blank range?

I don't know enough details about the Louisiana incident, to give an opinion.

I've already been wrong once in the thread, so I don't want to go on just what I've heard on tv, but I thought I heard the guy was *handcuffed*. So that makes a difference. Even if someone shouted "he has a gun!", if he was *handcuffed* then that's no threat or possibility he's reaching for a gun.

Ultimately though, this will be up to investigators to figure out, and then possibly a jury.

And THAT is our rule of law in this country, NOT an Afghan war vet turning terrorist and traitor.

If people want to protest then the ONLY acceptable thing is NONVIOLENT -- marches, sit-ins and VOTES.

It would appear to me that some of those who have been hired by us to serve and protect, may have gone a tad beyond the call of duty.

It's a "call of duty" gun culture overall, Greg, that's the problem. And then it's an arms race, between police and what they face on the streets.

If everyone has a darn AR these days, next thing you know police will have to start carrying these too as standard issue, instead of their pistols.

And it's just an arms race, and cycle. The answer is in addressing the root issues -- too many guns, and too much "call of duty" gun culture in the South and out west, the red states.

If police pull back, then who loses? WE do, tax paying suburbanite home owners. Crime would skyrocket, if the police are forced back. Property values would go down. Chaos would reign. NRA and Republicans say everyone wearing body armor and armed with AR's is the answer, as if the suburbs should be warzones. I say that's NOT how America should be, because it never has been -- why on earth would anyone want that?

[GregT]

Here you go Six:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eJTR9eaad4

[vox_mundi]

Facebook ‘glitch’ that deleted the Philando Castile shooting vid: It was the police – sources

The deadly shooting of 32-year-old Philando Castile by a cop during a routine traffic stop in Minnesota on Wednesday just got murkier.

Multiple sources have told The Register that police removed video footage of Castile's death from Facebook, potentially tampering with evidence.

Castile, his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter were pulled over by police in the Falcon Heights suburb of Minneapolis for a broken tail light. Using her cellphone and Facebook Live, Reynolds web-streamed footage of her dying boyfriend after he was shot by a police officer as he reached for his ID in his wallet. The video was mysteriously removed from her Facebook profile as it went viral across the internet.

On Thursday, Facebook said a “technical glitch" caused the recording to be pulled from its social network. However, Reynolds claimed officers seized her phone and took over her Facebook account to delete the evidence.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the event have tonight confirmed to The Register that someone – highly suspected to be the city's police – used her phone to remove her recording from public view shortly after the shooting. This was no technical glitch.

Attempts to arm the police with cameras that would protect them from claims of wrongdoing have been stymied by the astonishingly high rate of failure in the hardware designed to protect them.

At the same time, cellphone footage of actual arrests and killings have served as damning evidence against claims of legitimate takedowns by officers. In multiple cases police have confiscated smartphones from bystanders.

As more and more people get the means to broadcast events live, this issue is going to come to the fore. The US courts have waxed and waned over whether citizens have the right to record public police arrests – however, the deletion of evidence is a definite no-no.

[Shaved Monkey]

Paranoia is the price of liberty
Only the Americans can decide if its worth it

[GregT]

Something else for consideration Sixstrings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgr2lj7jwr4

[Plantagenet]

The response of the O administration has been weak. O spent the day jiving and joking after the cops were murdered in Dallas, rather than responding cogently to the tragedy.

Republicans-slam-grinning-Obama-

No word yet of Obama ordering a FBI investigation of the murderer(s), of the black power group that claimed responsibility for the murders, of the Black Lives Matter demonstrators who mocked wounded and dying police officers after they were shot, or of possible links between the murderer(s) and the Black Live Matter organization that was holding a demonstration where the murders occurred.

I'm sure O will get around to it eventually.

[GregT]

Obama is in Poland Planter. He has more important things to do, like ramping up the new cold war with Russia.

In message to Russia, U.S. will send 1,000 rotating troops to Poland

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... /86846264/

[SeaGypsy]

Shaved, the jump out for a chat with the cops days are over in Melbourne & Sydney, policy now is to direct the driver to stay in the vehicle with hands visible. This since a spike in mostly gang related shootings in these cities plus a handful of attacks by Muslims against police.

[JuanP]

Why Dallas happened.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/07 ... g-roberts/
I completely agree with PCR's assessment of the situation. It is time for everyone in the USA to arm themselves. Pretty soon it will be every man for himself.

[JuanP]

Sixstrings "The answer is in addressing the root issues"

I completely agree. We must address police brutality, the systematic abuse by police officers of innocent people, and the total impunity with which cops can beat, torture, abuse, rape, and murder innocent victims in the USA. I think that all cops who abuse, brutalize, and murder innocent people should be executed in public by the federal government. That would definitely help!

The USA has become a police state and it is on its way to become a military dictatorship.

[GregT]

The USA has become a police state and it is on its way to become a military dictatorship.

Exactly the way that my wife and myself both see it too Juan. So much so that we've avoided crossing the border now for the past couple of years. US customs is completely out of control as well. Guilty until proven innocent.

[Cog]

For the discerning and discriminating wearers of body armor.

http://www.ar500armor.com/

I would recommend level III+

[AgentR11]

The USA has become a police state and it is on its way to become a military dictatorship.

People do manage to live their lives within police states; but you have to stop pretending that you have rights. Instead, there are rules and systems of tolerated behavior that you may act within.

I'm big on not dying and recognizing the system as it is, not as propaganda would have you believe it is. The truth, is that any US cop can kill you for any reason, or no reason at all, and will generally suffer nothing more serious than a paid vacation. However, most don't particularly want to have anything to do with your stinky, bleeding corpse; so if you generally give them no cause to be agitated, you'll survive the encounter.

Obey, submit, and keep breathing.
We are not free; and have not been free for quite a while now.
Understand this, and you may live longer.
Or at least not get randomly beaten to a pulp by a cop.

[Plantagenet]

Black Lives Matter demonstrators frequently chant about killing cops.

Why aren't they arrested for making criminal threats against the police? Its actually against the law to make such threats against police officers.

Now that multiple police were murdered in Dallas by a "Black Lives Matter" supporter, isn't it time to hold this group to account for their threats against police? The anti-police beliefs of black lives matter are clearly inspiring exactly the wrong kind of followers.

AND shouldn't Obama, Hilalry and other Ds withdraw their support from Black Lives Matter now that these policemen were murdered?

[Sixstrings]

Well anyhow, I guess nobody is agreeing with me about the gun control angle?

Are you guys not noticing it's always these AR's, semi auto rapid fire rifles, and 30 round magazines, that keep getting used in every one of these things?

@Plant, I agree with ya, blue lives matter..



Where we don't agree, is about the reality that a state like Texas may need to actually do some gun safety laws at some point. That maybe the "open carry" that went into effect back in January, maybe won't turn out to be a "good idea."

Maybe 30 round magazines are not a "good idea." Maybe semi automatics on the civilian market, aren't a good idea.

But anyhow, I agreed with everything Rudy Giulani said, on msnbc:

Rudy Giuliani On Shooting Deaths Of Dallas Police | MSNBC
https://youtu.be/W-aLDASRGag

12 minute clip, everything he said there is right.

And I'd just add.. any attack on police is an attack on all of society. It's an attack on the rule of law itself, and the justice system.

Police and fire fighters and first responders are the only ones there are, that would SAVE YOU, a total stranger to them.

They risk their lives every day. Without police, every town and city would turn into zombie collapse chaos. New York City in the late 70s and the 80s was a MESS. Then it got cleaned up, and it was actually the safest city in the country. Democrats are wrong when they pull the police back, and now crime in NYC is headed back up.

Republicans and Democrats are wrong about different things..

D's are too hard on the police, and pull them back too much, and crime rises.

While R's support the police, yet *red state R's* also won't do enough to keep guns out of criminals' hands, and R's support policies that have too many guns out there on the streets.

A place like New York City -- when it had Democrat gun control, but had Giulani and then Bloomberg in charge and they were tough on crime yet fair, THAT is the best kind of combo. Democrats passed the gun control, and then Republican mayors were stopping and frisking, getting guns off the street. IT WORKED. Crime got down to historic lows, for NYC.

[Sixstrings]

Last thing I'm gonna say on this topic --

I don't understand how this is not common sense to everyone. That the police are actually pretty darn good.

Every day, in every town and city in this country, police are committing acts of heroism. Anything from medical first response and CPR, to pulling people out of burning cars.

That's happened numerous times over the years, in my area. In my county, police are doing something good every day and night of the week, for goodness sake.

Police are the first on the scene to any trouble and they save people and help people, it's common sense.

Anyone that gets stopped in a traffic stop -- they ought to be NICE to the officer. And RESPECTFUL.

And when there are bad cops, *which is very rare* -- then our justice system really does work. But it's a JUSTICE system, it's not a youtube video and mob rule. We have JURIES. Prosecutors, grand juries, juries, witnesses, and an opportunity for a defense and both sides be heard, and judges, and law. THAT is our system.

[Sixstrings]

About the incident where the guy was a conceal carry permit holder, I was getting Minnesota mixed up with Louisiana.

What should you do if you're pulled over?

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Authorities investigating the fatal shooting of Philando Castile will not say if he was a firearm permit holder, however, sources tell KARE 11 he indeed had a permit to carry which was issued through Hennepin County.

Castile was shot and killed by a St. Anthony police officer during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights on Wednesday night. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, claims in a viral Facebook Live video that he informed the officer he was armed and had a permit to carry.

A police officer holding a gun on Castile says, "I told him not to reach for it!"

"You told him to get his ID, sir. His driver's license," Reynolds replied in the video. ...

So what should permit to carry holders do in a traffic stop?

"That’s the thing most people who get a permit to carry are most concerned about because they understand it can be dangerous situation if it's mishandled," said Joseph Olson of the Gun Civil Rights Alliance. "They want instructions on exactly what they should do."

Ken Wilkins, of Hastings, has been a certified firearm instructor since 2012. He says there is no uniform policy on what a permit to carry holder should do; it's strictly personal preference. ...

"What I teach is to have your license, registration and proof of insurance out and available with your hands on the steering wheel, wait for instructions, and then follow them to a T," Wilkins said.
http://www.12news.com/news/what-should-you-do-if-youre-pulled-over/268116154

Okay, so THAT was the concealed permit holder story I was talking about.

[SeaGypsy]

The only remedial action I can think of would be to develop a racial diversity in the ranks reflecting the status of the community they work in & then preference same race actioning, reducing the opportunity for race to be seen as a factor.

[KaiserJeep]

The only remedial action I can think of would be to develop a racial diversity in the ranks reflecting the status of the community they work in & then preference same race actioning, reducing the opportunity for race to be seen as a factor.

This one is harder to get a good read on then other statistics, because the race of the officer is seldom reported on the news. However the NRA (National Rifle Association, a pro-gun group whose numbers are sometimes regarded with suspicion) has published data on this topic.

Firstly, it has long been the policy of virtually every police force in this country to be racially diverse, and the US BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) measures every company, police force, and organization for "acceptable" numbers of "protected groups", if the organization has 50 or more employees. These groups are racial, ethnic, the mentally and physically handicapped, male/female ratios, and oddball other groupings like the protected group I was in - Vietnam era military veterans. Minority, female, etc. officers are deliberately recruited until the Federal Government is happy that all medium and large police forces are integrated by race, ethnicity, sex, etc. Because police forces and other emergency services have specific physical requirements, such organizations end up with correspondingly higher numbers of handicapped people in administrative and logistical and janitorial and IT positions - until the overall ratio is "within acceptable margins" established by the Feds.

Secondly (this is the hard to find number that only the NRA is measuring) the minority officers are involved in a distinctly higher number of police shootings than are the white officers. When the area being patrolled is primarily one minority group, then the minority cops shoot a higher number of minority people than the white cops. It's an odd statistic, because although the white and minority officers have different family and neighborhood backgrounds, they all get the same training, use the same weapons (both lethal and non-lethal), and work under the same "use of force" policies.

It's one of those inconvenient facts that the BLM organization ignores. Just as they ignore the fact that in the communities other blacks kill blacks at rates higher than any other group including whites. These facts are ignored because they don't fit the liberal narrative of minority victims and white oppressors.



The highest murder rates in the USA occur in the black inner city neighborhoods of Chicago, New York City, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. We are being told that the white people who don't even live in those areas are responsible somehow for the violence.

In fact the city of Chicago - where Barack Obama briefly practiced law before becoming a "community organizer" (liberal speak for racial demagogue) and then a politician - is dubbed the "murder capital of the USA".

In the corporate world of Silicon Valley CA, I attended mandatory universal "diversity" training for all employees that tried to tell me that as a mature white male I was responsible for all the perceived ills in the world. Furthermore, if you didn't keep your mouth shut except for parroting back the same idiotic words, you got to repeat the training until you got it "right". In our state-funded colleges and universities, such as the ones my wife attended locally, the same things are taught in mandatory "minority studies" (except there were no mature white males to blame, so my wife as the only mature white female had to take all the heat).

[Cog]

To add on to KJ's point and to Seagypsy's thought about adding more black officers.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-st ... on-bandler

Black and Hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at blacks than white officers. This is according to a Department of Justice report in 2015 about the Philadelphia Police Department, and is further confirmed that by a study conducted University of Pennsylvania criminologist Gary Ridgeway in 2015 that determined black cops were 3.3 times more likely to fire a gun than other cops at a crime scene.