[Sixstrings]

Other than that I'm enjoying life in Quebec. Life is good. It is quite a bit different from American cities, much more European in style. Very clean and prosperous looking where ever I go.

That sounds nice Newfie. I've never been to Quebec but have heard good things about it. A bit of Europe, right on the border. Any Canadian I've ever met, are always such NICE people, too.

[Sixstrings]

Black Lives Matter supporter shot dead after breaking into policeman's home after having an on-line argument over Black Lives Matter

“Tyler was a good student and a good athlete,” said Dan Oliver, head football coach and athletic director at Affton High School.

But Gebhard waged a long battle with bi-polar disorder, according to his uncle.

"He was like a normal 20-year-old, (the family) had to stay on him to take his medication," said Brogan, also of Waterloo.

The uncle said the disorder worsened during Gebhard's first year at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.

Brogan said Gebhard and the police officer he befriended at a local church had clashed recently on Facebook over his nephew's support of Black Lives Matter.

Gebhard, who was biracial, supported the cause but was not an active participant in the protest movement, the uncle said.

His Facebook page contains numerous posts about police shootings of black men and the deaths of five officers in Dallas at the hands of a gunman targeting white officers. Some devolve into heated arguments and warnings of a "race war." Some posts are conciliatory, calling for black and white people to come together. One shows an image of a candle burning for the fallen Dallas officers.

But an online disagreement over the issues brought Gebhard to the Lakeshire home shortly before 6 p.m.

Brogan said the circumstances of his nephew's death are all the more painful because several members of Gebhard's extended family are in law enforcement.

"We are sick for both families because it was senseless," Brogan said. "It was a senseless death."

This case sounds a bit complicated. The police officer KNEW the man, they'd met in church. The officer was engaged in an argument over black lives matter, on facebook, with the kid.

Besides the insanity of people fighting over "facebook," I would tend to wonder what the officer's comments were. Maybe that's not appropriate for a police officer, to argue on facebook?

The 20 year old was "rebuffed at the door" and then threw the plant through the window.

This whole thing is a tad more complex because they knew each other.. it will have to be investigated, just as any home shooting must be. One would just need more information to have an opinion. I wonder how old the officer is? And, what the entire facebook conversation was like, and if Gebhard had made threats and specifically what were those threats.

Depending on the law in Missouri, if it's castle doctrine then the preponderance of leeway is to the homeowner.

But the thing just needs investigated.. especially since they knew each other.. good rule of law actually means that no, people cannot just use the gun unless it's truly necessary. There are fights all the time, between friends, lovers, family, etc.

I'm not taking up for the guy, but this story is just nuts. They met in church, argued on facebook about "black lives matter," and it leads to THAT? Things are getting nuts in this country.

[Plantagenet]

Here's clear proof that guns can protect home owners from the bad guys.

Cheers!

Just proves the point that guns kill.

Actually there is a bit more to the story than that.

In this case the home owner shot the intruder----who happened to be a furious Black Lives Matter supporter who became so incensed over an on-line disagreement that he drove across town and then broke into the other guy's house to attack him.

If the home owner hadn't been armed, the enraged and out-of-control Black Lives Matter person might have killed him and his family.

off-duty-st-louis-county-officer-fatally-shoots-black-lives-matter-intruder-

Cheers!

[Sixstrings]

Actually there is a bit more to the story than that.

In this case the home owner shot the intruder----who happened to be a furious Black Lives Matter supporter who became so incensed over an on-line disagreement that he drove across town and then broke into the other guy's house to attack him.

If the home owner hadn't been armed, the enraged and out-of-control Black Lives Matter person might have killed him and his family.

Plant, did you read the article? It sounds a bit complicated to me, like there should be more information before one can really form a conclusive opinion. They knew each other. They met in church. Why is a police officer arguing with locals on facebook?

I'm not really sure about this story, if the journalist slanted it maybe to make it more favorable sounding to the 20 year old.. maybe the reporter left out pertinent info.. there's definitely holes in this whole story though, that is not a complete story.

One would need to see that facebook to tell what was going on. Was the kid a radical, was he saying violent things about police, or was it the other way around and maybe he was cyberbullied. (I'm asking a question, I don't know the answer)

Here's what the police chief said:

"I don’t think the officer had a choice — I honestly don’t,” Belmar told reporters on Saturday, labeling the situation “a very difficult position to be in.”

Well, that's not very conclusive. "I don’t think the officer had a choice — I honestly don’t" sounds like the police chief isn't sure.

It just sort of seems like there's more to this story. There's not enough information, to conclude the 20 year old's INTENT.

If it's two people that know each other from church, and maybe the 20 year old was cyberbullied by posters on facebook and then his friend from church that's also a cop is arguing with him too.. and then he goes over to his house.. what are we really talking about here, a heated argument between friends, or a random assault home invasion?

These details matter, in the law. (in other words, WHAT is the rest of the story.. all the article says is the broken window.. WHAT happened after that, exactly.. did the kid lunge at someone, were there any verbal threats made, or any threats on facebook.. all that makes a difference, and so far none of that info is in the article)

EDIT: I re-read the article (I guess I'm the one that didn't read it all )..

Authorities said Gebhard, 20, and the officer were acquainted, and Gebhard made Facebook threats to the officer's family and “uninvolved members of the community” in advance of the Saturday encounter with the unidentified officer.

Well okay, THAT makes a difference. There still needs to be more details though, what awful reporting that doesn't even include the most pertinent info about a story.

Anyway, there still needs to be more detail, before one could make a definitive conclusion.

[Sixstrings]

It's just a strange story.. and not enough detail to make conclusions (and this is why there are investigations, and judges and juries and lawyers, to figure things out).

This part sounds like the officer warned first, before shooting:

Gedhard then went round to the back of the house and threw a concrete planter through the door and entered the home, say investigators.

Once inside the home, the off-duty officer allegedly shouted 'Get down! Get down! Get down!' at Gebhard before shooting him twice in the chest, reported St Louis Post Dispatch.

As the shots were being fired the family had apparently tried to escape the house through the bedroom window.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3683685/Off-duty-cop-shoots-dead-black-football-star-20-bipolar-disorder-broke-officer-s-home-following-online-argument-Black-Lives-Matter.html

There's certainly never an excuse for anyone to ever break into anyone else's home.

But there does need to be basic investigation, after any shooting, to get an overall idea of what happened. So far the police chief hasn't said any details.

The story is odd, the guy had racial reconciliation and some pro police posts on his facebook:

Tributes to the 20-year-old have already begun pouring in on Facebook, with many sharing their memories of the football star (pictured front, second from left, playing baseball)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3683685/Off-duty-cop-shoots-dead-black-football-star-20-bipolar-disorder-broke-officer-s-home-following-online-argument-Black-Lives-Matter.html

[onlooker]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/08/ ... -politics/
"What we are observing is not simply the overt face of a militarized police culture, the lack of community policing, deeply entrenched anti-democratic tendencies, or the toxic consequences of a culture of violence that saturates every day life. We are in a new historical era, one that is marked a culture of lawlessness, extreme violence, and disposability, fueled, in part, by a culture of fear, a war on terror, and a deeply overt racist culture that is unapologetic in its disciplinary and exclusionary practices. This deep seated racism is reinforced by a culture of cruelty that is the modus operandi of neoliberal capitalism–a cage culture, a culture of combat, a hyper masculine culture that views killing those most vulnerable as sport, entertainment, and policy.

The United States is in the midst of a crisis of of governance, author­ity, and representation and as historical narratives of injustice and resistance fade there emerges a further crisis of individual and collective agency, along with a crisis of the identity and purpose regarding the very meaning of governance. As democratic public spheres disappear and the state increasing turns to violence to address social problems, lawlessness becomes normalized and violence becomes the only form of mediation. This is fueled by a discourse of objectification, and a race-based culture of pathology, which often finds expression not only in police violence but also in scattered mass shootings and a tsunami of everyday violence in America’s major cities, such as Chicago. Politics has been emptied out, lacking any representative substance, and opens the social landscape to the dangerous forces of right-wing populism and ultra-nationalism, both of which are deeply racist in their ideological discourse and their relationship to those excluded others.

Americans are witnessing not simply the breakdown of democracy but the legitimization of a society in the grips of what might be called a politics of domestic terrorism, a kind of anti-politics that rejects the underlying values of a democracy and is unwilling to reclaim its democratic tendencies while deepening its civic principles. The U.S. is deep into the entrails of an updated authoritarianism and until that is recognized under such circumstances violence will escalate, people of color will be killed, whites will claim they are the real victims, and the discourse of racial objectification will become, as it has, a visible if not embraced signpost of an anti-politics that defines the varied landscapes of power and institutions of everyday life.

The ultimate mark of terrorism both domestic and foreign is a hatred of the other, a certainty that defines dialogue, an ignorance that embraces the power of the mob and the redemptive force of the savior. As America moves dangerously close to embracing such an authoritarian social order and the politicians who endorse it, indiscriminate and intolerable violence will assume a kind of legitimacy that allows people to look away, refuse to recognize their own powerlessness, and align them with a barbarism in the making. All of this bears the weight of a history in which such indifference is easily transformed into the worst forms of state violence. The face of white supremacy and state terrorism, with its long legacy of slavery, lynching, and brutality has become normalized, if not supported by one major political party, a large percentage of the public endorsing Donald Trump, and a corporate and financial elite wedded only to increasing their power and profits. We are in a new historical era that is widening the scope and range of violence-an expansive age of disposability that widens the net of those considered expendable if not dangerous."

[salinsky]

Oh shit whaddup That there campus syntax be goin' a long ways to hep clarify de problems here in dis country of ourin, know what I'se be sayin' nephew?

[Plantagenet]

Police accuse Obama of sowing discord between US blacks and police

police-swipe-at-obama-over-tensions-

“The man responsible for the murders [in Dallas] was Micah Johnson, but having said that, I do think the president by his inaction has contributed to a climate where these things can happen,” William Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents about 240,000 law enforcement officers, said Sunday. “This president and his administration absolutely do not have our back and make our jobs more dangerous.”

President Obama is already widely blamed for his part in creating the "Ferguson Effect", resulting in rising crime rates in the USA. Now some police officers believe Obama's past complaints about US police and his open support for Black Lives Matter and for black criminals like Michael Brown have helped encourage black anger at the police.

[Sixstrings]

1,000 mass shootings in 1,260 days: this is what America's gun crisis looks like
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/oct/02/mass-shootings-america-gun-violence

The infograph in that article only goes up to June 13.. BEFORE everything that's happened since then.

[Loki]

The ultimate mark of terrorism both domestic and foreign is a hatred of the other, a certainty that defines dialogue, an ignorance that embraces the power of the mob and the redemptive force of the savior....The face of white supremacy and state terrorism, with its long legacy of slavery, lynching, and brutality has become normalized, if not supported by one major political party, a large percentage of the public endorsing Donald Trump, and a corporate and financial elite wedded only to increasing their power and profits.

Progressive hypocrisy at its finest. This kind of hate-filled, pseudo-intellectual invective lays the ideological groundwork that motivates people like Micah Xavier Johnson.

If "white supremacy and state terrorism" is indeed at the center of the American project, it becomes not only ethical, but the actual duty of the oppressed to fight back using whatever tools they have. Johnson's tool of choice was an AK74, which he used, in his words, to "kill white people, especially white officers." The good professor says not a negative word about this act of racist terrorism. On the contrary, he very clearly endorses it. What's good for the goose, I suppose.

But, no, he's right. The riots, the lootings, the virulent racism, and the terrorism of the Black Lives Matters movement is all Trump's fault.

[SeaGypsy]

Goes a long way to explain why the cops are on edge. I don't think these sorts of numbers have ever been common outside of war.

[Loki]

Another Black Lives Matters activist taking progressive rhetoric at face value.

A gunman in Tennessee who opened fire on Thursday was targeting white people and police after becoming angry at recent confrontations between cops and African Americans, officers say.

Lakeen Keon Scott, 37, killed 44-year-old postal worker and mother-of-two Jennifer Rooney, and wounded police officer Matthew Cousins, hotel worker Deborah Watts and passerby David Whitman Davis during an attack at 2am in the town of Bristol.

Now agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation say Scott 'may have targeted people and officers' because of racially charged police incidents across the country, later adding that all of the victims are white.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... icans.html

[careinke]

[

Besides the insanity of people fighting over "facebook," I would tend to wonder what the officer's comments were. Maybe that's not appropriate for a police officer, to argue on facebook?

Why do you insist on trying to set standards and rules/laws for everyone else?

First, you feel qualified to set firearm limits when you obviously know jack all about firearms.

Now, you want to take away police officers right to free speech.

Instead of worrying about other peoples actions, maybe you should work on your own, I guarantee the results will be better. Might I suggest you start with severely editing your posts to make them more concise, with brevity always in mind.

Damn now you have me doing it.....

[Cog]

In Sixstring's universe, if you pass the right laws they will all be rigorously followed, and everyone becomes friends and be nice to each other and bad things stop happening.

[Sixstrings]

Why do you insist on trying to set standards and rules/laws for everyone else? ...

Now, you want to take away police officers right to free speech.

EDIT: Ok, edit and rephrase for brevity and to not keep an argument going that's pointless (the guy did break into that house after all).. I give up. All the information isn't out, about this Missouri case, and I'm just filling in the blanks with hypotheticals.

There's too much going on to get into the weeds on this one case.

ALL I would suggest is just for everyone to SLOW DOWN -- don't just knee jerk reaction on every drudgreport story you see and just ASSUME things. And then it's all a big narrative, and one side has their narratives, and the other side has theirs.

And that goes for the left too -- over and over, they jump to conclusions from just a youtube video, and they assume and conclude all in a 3 line (brevity) tweet.

Well, truth isn't brief folks, I'm sorry.

But Sixstrings does need to be brief on this forum.

[dohboi]

http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/politics/d ... uch-worse/

Dallas Mayor Calls Bullsh*t On Open Carry:

It Didn’t Help During Shooting, And Made Things Worse

Open Carry, the movement pushed with near-fanatical obsession by Texas Republicans, not only did nothing to help stop the mass shooting of police officers in Dallas, but it actually made the situation far worse.

Open Carry had an opportunity to justify its existence – and it failed on every conceivable level...

The “good guys with guns” didn’t suddenly become action heroes bravely stopping a heavily-armed lunatic.

They acted like any of us would: When the shooting started, they scattered in every direction in terror of their lives.

Only unlike others, these fleeing victims were strapped with weapons that sowed confusion. Any of them could have been a shooter attempting to blend in. At a moment when cops were being targeted by a sniper, officers had to track down these “innocent” gunmen just to make sure they weren’t one of the bad guys.

[Plantagenet]

The data shows there is no racial bias in police shootings---the police shoot everyone equally!

surprising-new-evidence-shows-no-bias-in-police-shootings

Of course its too late to try to talk logically to people in Black Lives Matter on this---they are way too wee-wee'd up to think sensibly now.


All Lives Matter

[dohboi]

The beginning of the actual headline of the article P cited was:

Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force...

But it is indeed true that we are all more likely to be shot by cops in the US than are citizens in most other advanced countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -countries (and of course much more likely to be shot by cops than by, say, 'terrorists' http://filmingcops.com/new-study-americ ... errorists/.)

Should that make us happy??

...And of course there are other ways of being killed than shooting: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... -race-data "Estimated Rate of Arrest-Related Deaths by Homicide, 2003-09: Blacks: 3.7 / million; Whites: .9 / million.

And if we're gonna compare studies, I'd go with the CDC's: "The CDC's cause-of-death data, based on death certificates collected at the state level, also reveals a profound racial disparity among the victims of police shootings. Between 1968 and 2011, black people were between two to eight times more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than whites. Annually, over those 40 years, a black person was on average 4.2 times as likely to get shot and killed by a cop than a white person. "

It sounds to me like P's 'study' may have been involved in some very careful cherry picking.

In any case, perhaps we can all agree with this point from P's article: "Official statistics on police shootings are poor"

(Perhaps if the repugs weren't blocking studies on guns and shootings, we would have more accurate data??? )

[Plantagenet]

P's 'study' ....

1. Its not my study. The news report on the study showing no bias exists in police shootings I cited is from the NY Times. The New York Times is reasonably careful in their reporting, so the report has at least some credibility.

The fact that the study found no bias in police shootings is interesting. It suggests that police shootings are almost random, rather then being some kind of pre-planned racist assault on the black community. Yes, a lot of black people people get shot, but thats because so many black people come into contact with the police. Which takes us to point #2 below.

2. You've got be careful whenever claims of "bias" are made, especially if the statistics behind the claim involved aren't explained. For instance, it seems terrible that force is used more frequently on blacks being arrested then on whites being arrested.....but the percentage of blacks who are criminals is much higher then the percentage of whites. The percentage of blacks at every point in the criminal justice system is much higher then for whites. There are more blacks being arrested then whites, so of course there are forcible arrests of blacks then white. There are more blacks charged with crimes, more blacks in jail, more blacks interacting with the police---at every point there are proportionally more blacks then whites.

Some might say that is evidence of "bias" through the criminal justice system. But an alternative explanation is that blacks commit more crimes then whites and so are over-represented throughout the criminal justice system.

If blacks commit more crimes----and thats what the data shows----, then you would expect them to be over-represented in the criminal system as we see is happening today----even if no bias were present.


The data shows there are proportionally more blacks in the criminal justice system because blacks commit proportionally more crimes

CHEERS!

[dohboi]

Sorry, I thought it was clear that you did not perform the analysis yourself, P. "P's study" was short for "the study associated with P" But thanks for clarifying.

We need to look at all studies carefully to see how selection of data may have (perhaps non-intentionally) skewed the results.

Consider that, if cops pull all sorts of blacks over for all sorts of minor offenses, but they pull whites essentially only if they suspect some serious crime is being committed--then there are more shootings of said whites, per (white) capita, that 'data point' doesn't say quite what the headline implies.

I haven't read the study, but as with any individual study, one ought not to hang much on it alone, especially not before other researchers have weighed in on why it seems not to jibe with results of other careful studies by major research institutions.

And again, even this study shows that cops are much more likely to harass and abuse blacks more than whites in all sorts of ways. Do you agree with that part of the study?