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    Not Enough Day DrinkingMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 5:24pm

    To be clear, the police department had access to this video for more than a year.

    Everyone who saw that video and recommended not pressing charges needs to be charged as an accessory. 

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      TheLandoSystemNot Enough Day Drinking
      11/27/18 5:49pm

      Amen.

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      acmeindustriesNot Enough Day Drinking
      11/27/18 5:52pm

      Seems like it would be helpful for city governments to pass ordinances that say that police must turn over bodycam footage immediately upon request to any person who appears in the footage.

      Reply
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    In-A-Mazda-Da-VidaMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 5:42pm

    Put your hands out to show you have no weapon, start to get down on the ground so you’re not a threat, get shot anyway because apparently you’re some sort of magician who’s about to produce a gun out of thin air

    A prosecutor’s office is never gonna be truly independent from the police, they’re always gonna have almost as strong an interest in covering up these incidents as the police do, because they rely on a close relationship with police departments to do their job, not to mention the general perception of police officers being trustworthy when it comes time to testify in court

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      ZellieIn-A-Mazda-Da-Vida
      11/28/18 7:05am

      Yup.

      This is why, despite loving the scientific and investigatory aspects of my forensic criminology background, I ultimately couldn’t abide any sort of career in law enforcement. Ironically (or, really, I guess it’s more accurate to say “unsurprisingly”), the more I learned about how the law actually functions*, the less I wanted anything to do with it.

      Anyway, this is why — even though I was, at one time, a certified forensic photographer, print examiner, and blood spatter analyst — I’m not a criminologist. It’s also why I don’t talk much these days to my childhood best friend who ultimately became a prosecutor. Watching the whole “blue lives matter” bullshit crowd get into his head was... disappointing, to put it very mildly.

      * Law enforcement is pretty exclusively about actively recruiting racist bullies to become poorly trained cops, and streamlining any and all pipelines responsible for locking up, profiting off of, and using for basically slave labor the poor and minority populations. When it comes to actually catching genuine criminals or “serve and protect,” it’s a complete joke. It functions as designed, not as citizens believe it’s supposed to. That’s the trick.

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      theoldcapIn-A-Mazda-Da-Vida
      11/28/18 11:26am

      Man, you can’t even be pre-complying and you’ll get shot. Huh, wonder if there’s a problem in training and culture? 

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    wkiernanMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 5:42pm

    Well gosh, they would have done the same to a white person. I mean, you can’t reasonably expect a police officer to take any chances with any person he suspects might be armed. Excuse me, what?

    Storm also drew a comparison to how police in the same district responded to young white man on Election Day who clearly was armed with a gun.

    Neighbors had reported Brandon Baker, 20, was shooting from the roof of their building. When officers arrived, Baker was outside, holding an assault-style rifle, but managed to safely arrest him — after he refused to put down the rifle without any shots being fired.

    The rifle, plus three handguns Baker also had on him, were all loaded.

    “Why were they afraid of Jerry but not the white guy who really had a gun?” Storm asked

    (from the linked article)

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      Old white guywkiernan
      11/27/18 7:18pm

      Well, the black looked like he was about to get into a crouching position so he could pounce on the cops!

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      Sara PascoeOld white guy
      11/27/18 7:24pm

      Yeah, then he was going to shapeshift into a white person to save his ass.

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    Tall Glass Of CakeMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 6:07pm

    Do they even ask potential cops if they have any courage at all?

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      Rooo sez BISH PLZTall Glass Of Cake
      11/27/18 7:25pm

      I can’t tell you about that and wouldn’t want to, but what I can tell you is that they screen out for intelligence — if you score above a certain level on your IQ and aptitude tests they do not let you into the Academy ... because they prize “just following orders” attributes over intelligence, which they’ve determined leads people to question authority.

      Which is just as bad as it sounds.

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      thundercatsaregoRooo sez BISH PLZ
      11/27/18 10:48pm

      Yep. And they routinely disregard psych evals that flag people as unsuitable. My friend stopped doing psych evals for her local police and fire departments after it became clear they regularly disregarded whatever she wrote. 

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    sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 5:24pm

    What’s that tattooed on the cops hand? It looks like “ONE MORE ....”

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      ManyPeoplesTalkinggoat, first and last of his name
      11/27/18 5:32pm

      And is the other cop wearing a skull and crossbones hat?

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      sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameManyPeople
      11/27/18 5:54pm

      WTF is on his hat? It wouldn’t surprise me if it was skull and crossbones. The PD has already (very ironically) appropriated the Punisher logo.

      Illustration for article titled
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    MajorBurnMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 6:24pm
    Illustration for article titled

    Okay, this is a case of 2 civilians, in which the male one of them couldn’t take no for an answer and ended up murdering his female neighbor and her young child. I’m not sure how you equate this stalking-type homicide with Police violence, or how a Black man being the perpetrator in this instance undermines the documented over policing of Black folks and the ever escalating violence against them.

    If you’d cared at all about this woman or putting the word out about toxic ass men, you’d have shared this in any of the myriad articles on The Root, or Jez about toxic ass men. You’re just sad for this.

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      wkiernanMajorBurn
      11/27/18 6:33pm

      In other words, you can offer no defense whatsoever for what the Milwaukee police did to Mr. Smith, nothing at all, so your only recourse is to point to a completely unrelated offense in another state and yell “Ignore that and pay attention to this instead!!!”

      Go fuck yourself! Do it now!

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      MajorBurnwkiernan
      11/27/18 6:42pm

      Are you talking to “Hey I Wrote A Splinter Headline” here, or is this an entire reading comprehension fail? 

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    RubycakesMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 7:41pm

    MKE resident here. Not to put too fine a point on this bullshit, but this story has been kept so quiet in the news that I hadn’t even heard much about this until a few days ago when this part of the story broke. Furthermore, Smith got charged with Jack shit. The cops literally shot a dude for the twin crimes of being black and being afraid. Fucked up indeed, and I hope he wins millions from the mpd

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    Mr.DuckSauceMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 5:42pm

    So these dumb ass fucking white cops were chasing only one black man while the other was the actual perpetrator who started the problem and didn’t care because they already had one to “take care of” because of their racist bullshit ignorant fucking moronic garbage white trash notions.

    Burn all of them on the stake in that force and the people involved in being complicit to this bullshit.

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    GPMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 5:13pm

    Just a couple of bad apples.

    Seems they should be looking for a new D.A. what is the process for disbarment in Wisconsin? If those statements were made in a legal proceeding the D/A. commented perjury.

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    skefflesMichael Harriot
    11/27/18 6:26pm

    The watchmen are supposed to watch each other, but they aren’t doing that basic fucking job. That is why I say that cops who look the other way for other cops ought to get a harsher punishment than the dirty cop who committed the crime. Police are supposed to police the police, and do so stricter than they police the population, as a safeguard against exactly this situation. Damn blue wall is the biggest hindrance to effective justice in America right now.

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