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"running while black"
#33932 04/22/15 04:36 PM
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I'm surprised the Baltimore spinal snap hasn't made the lounge yet. For those that somehow missed it, it looks like a guy made eye contact with some cops on a beat and bolted. They gave chase, arrested him, and found that he had a partially severed spinal cord while laying in jail. (he died shortly thereafter)

The Baltimore PD haven't offered any reason for his arrest, nor do they have any idea who broke his back. Looks like a case of "don't run from the cops", or getting arrested for "running while black". (a variation of DWB, "Driving While Black", that's unfortunately a common probable cause for a traffic stop around where I live) Running from cops isn't illegal, nor is it probable cause for stopping you. (failing to stop if they order you to stop is an offense but not a felony, and they can't arrest you for resisting arrest because that's circular logic)

https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/04/21/...die-grays-back/

Seeing as they tossed him in a van with another fellow, how much you want to bet they try to finger the other(s) in the back of the van?


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Re: "running while black"
Virtual1 #33959 04/23/15 08:20 PM
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Y'know, if I were black in the US, even if I were 100% law-abiding I'd still bolt whenever I saw a police officer.


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Re: "running while black"
Virtual1 #33971 04/24/15 02:01 AM
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Whether someone is black, white, brown, or yellow running from the police is suspicious behavior. It is most definitely NOT a reason for being shot, or beaten, but it is a reason to be detained and questioned. Unfortunately the black experience in many parts of this country make it far more likely a black man would run and I can't say that I blame them.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: "running while black"
joemikeb #33980 04/24/15 01:15 PM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
running from the police is suspicious behavior. It is most definitely NOT a reason for being shot, or beaten, but it is a reason to be detained and questioned.


I believe that's already been taken to court a few times, and the courts have found that running from anyone, be they police or otherwise, alone is not "probable cause" for detention or arrest, unless the officers are actively investigating a recently committed crime and are hunting for the perpetrators. (either a crime has to have just been committed, or there are very high odds a crime is about to be committed) An example would be if a robbery was reported, and a cop shows up at a store and as he gets out of his car, someone walking briskly away from the store suddenly bolts, that is good probable cause for suspicion and brief detention. (tho NOT probable cause for arrest, but you will likely be gotten for either failing to obey or resisting detention, and THEN they can legally arrest you) It can be a domino effect on your rights. Circumstances cause you to lose a little bit of your rights. Attempting to exercise those rights causes you to lose more of your rights. Then further attempting to exercise your rights causes you to again lose more of your rights, until you are in jail, over what began with something that by itself in no way should have been able to land you in jail.

The rub there of course being that in most cases police have very broad and vague rights to give basic orders. The intended use of these is to disburse a crowd, stop bystanders from interfering with a police action, etc. But they may also command you to stop if you are running from them. (they can yell "STOP, POLICE!" and then legally you have to stop) Here's the problem: If you don't stop, then they have probable cause to detain you for "failure to follow an order of an officer of the law". If you DO stop, well then you have detained yourself. Those are the cases that go to court, because it's a catch-22 that infringes on your personal freedom. They can't detain you without cause, but by following that trivial process they effectively do. As long as they're smart enough to remember to yell "Stop Police!" before chasing you, they're legally covered, initially, until you get in front of a judge to sort it out. The problem with that law is it has no restrictions. There are numerous videos on youtube of people filming an arrest. Officers command the person to "step back or I'll arrest you". They go across the street. The officer pursues them and commands them to step back some more. This repeated, sometimes up to a block or more from the scene of the arrest. Legally, they can do that. (and pro tip: step onto private property, such as a neighbor's lawn or a nearby store, that curbs their authority since they can only order you to move when you are on public property or interfering with a police action)

I think most people would agree that police officers have overly-broad authority prior to arrest. The ridiculous "stop and frisk" is the ultimate expression of that. It amazes me that hasn't been federally outlawed.





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Re: "running while black"
Virtual1 #33996 04/24/15 09:09 PM
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The latest I heard the man whose spine was broken was handcuffed and I believe shackled in the van but a seatbelt was not put on him. That is absolutly horrible if true. When I lived in Philadelphia, and that was a very long time ago, that was done deliberately to a friend of mine except he was only handcuffed and his injuries were less serious. At that time in that city it was not an unusual occurance and was accompanfied by the driver of the van slamming on the brakes often. It happens. I guess the question would be whether there was intent to do harm or the benefit of the doubt that things were not done right for some other reason. That is not an excuse, but I guess a grand jury will decide the charges.

Re: "running while black"
slolerner #34016 04/27/15 03:18 PM
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Re: "running while black"
Virtual1 #34017 04/27/15 03:28 PM
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"Batts said he had ordered the department to rewrite police rules on moving suspects and how to respond to medical emergencies."

Last edited by slolerner; 04/27/15 03:40 PM. Reason: change comment
Re: "running while black"
slolerner #34026 04/28/15 12:46 PM
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Originally Posted By: slolerner
"Batts said he had ordered the department to rewrite police rules on moving suspects and how to respond to medical emergencies."

might help going forward but people are out of control today, rioting. It's unfortunate for them to be reacting this way. From what I've seen, the police department appears to be aggressively addressing this issue, with serious commitment to fixing it. Can't help but wonder how many of the people that are in the streets right now just feel like rioting and are just using this as an excuse?

I'm surprised though that we haven't gotten more details yet on the cause of the injuries?


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Re: "running while black"
slolerner #34032 04/28/15 07:39 PM
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Originally Posted By: slolerner
"Batts said he had ordered the department to rewrite police rules on moving suspects and how to respond to medical emergencies."

Changing the police rules is an appropriate response to the situation, but ultimately it is up to the individual police officers to enforce those rules on themselves and their fellow officers. Until that happens the only benefit to new rules is a moment's publicity blurb to calm those members of the public who have the least contact with the police.

Last edited by joemikeb; 04/28/15 07:40 PM.

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Re: "running while black"
Virtual1 #34037 04/28/15 08:54 PM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1

might help going forward but people are out of control today, rioting. It's unfortunate for them to be reacting this way. From what I've seen, the police department appears to be aggressively addressing this issue, with serious commitment to fixing it. Can't help but wonder how many of the people that are in the streets right now just feel like rioting and are just using this as an excuse?


I wonder that same thing myself. I suppose different people require different levels of excuse to riot. Black people see it as an excuse to riot when they are systematically denied equal protection under the law and are killed with impunity by police. White people see it as an excuse to riot if their favorite sports team loses a game.


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Re: "running while black"
tacit #34040 04/28/15 10:28 PM
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Originally Posted By: tacit
White people see it as an excuse to riot if their favorite sports team loses a game.

At some universities the students burn the dorm furnishings when the WIN a game.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: "running while black"
Virtual1 #34041 04/29/15 12:01 AM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
I'm surprised though that we haven't gotten more details yet on the cause of the injuries?

Perhaps the reason is the Maryland Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights. Under the Maryland Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights, when an officer is under investigation for a matter that could lead to disciplinary action, supervisors are prohibited from interviewing the accused for 10 days. Further, disciplinary action can only happen after a hearing board of the officer's colleagues.

In other words they have ten days for all the officers involved to get their version of what happened straight. Do you suppose other Maryland residents are allowed that much time to get their alibi nailed down before the police question them?


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: "running while black"
joemikeb #34043 04/29/15 01:27 AM
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Quote:
Do you suppose other Maryland residents are allowed that much time to get their alibi nailed down before the police question them?
I would think many, if not most, Maryland residents know how to ask for an attorney. In all fairness, arrested citizens get way, way more than ten days to come up with something. All unions are there to protect their workers and the cops are no different, they get representation. The first part of the Law Enforcement Officer's Bill of Rights sounds right. The second part, it's not clear from your post whether that body has any power at all. It sounds investigatory.

Re: "running while black"
Virtual1 #34068 04/30/15 11:30 AM
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What's becoming clearer with each new incident is how poor (read inexpensive and unregulated) training and lack of education has come back to bite us in the collective butt.

Ohio's AG (no liberal he) issued a report recently detailing how prospective cops don't need to have graduated from high school/earned a GED. In addition, they aren't drug or psych tested. With this kind of quality control, could we expect anything different from what's happening?

Combine this with fewer hours training, an emphasis on lethal vs. incapacitating firepower, Special Ops–type equipment, and the kind of ill-informed attitudes prevalent all over the news and social media.

Each incident only seems to polarize the country further. I can't see how this country will recover.


Re: "running while black"
dboh #34073 04/30/15 05:56 PM
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Originally Posted By: dboh
What's becoming clearer with each new incident is how poor (read inexpensive and unregulated) training and lack of education has come back to bite us in the collective butt.

To illustrate the education issue one Texas legislator has proposed a bill to improve high school graduation rates. Because too many kids are failing the high school writing test he has introduced a bill to simply omit the test. They still won't be able to write a comprehendible sentence but no one will know it so it is okay and they can graduate high school.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: "running while black"
joemikeb #34080 05/01/15 08:26 PM
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What troubles me is that, as others have said, there are many factors that led up to this. I keep thinking what happens after a plane crashes, for instance. Many factors come together, according to most experts about three things have to go wrong before the plane can no longer be controlled. The event ends with people dying, but it's much more complicated than that although the result looks the same.

Re: "running while black"
slolerner #34081 05/01/15 08:32 PM
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Re: "running while black"
artie505 #34082 05/01/15 08:55 PM
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Ms. Mosby said that Mr. Gray suffered a spinal injury on April 12 while being transported in a police van — and not earlier, while being arrested — and pointed to the failure of the police to put a seatbelt on him as a crucial factor.

“Mr. Gray suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside the B.P.D. wagon,” she said, referring to the police van.


There it is. Happened in the van.

Last edited by slolerner; 05/01/15 09:09 PM.
Re: "running while black"
slolerner #34083 05/01/15 10:18 PM
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Originally Posted By: slolerner
Quote:
Ms. Mosby said that Mr. Gray suffered a spinal injury on April 12 while being transported in a police van — and not earlier, while being arrested — and pointed to the failure of the police to put a seatbelt on him as a crucial factor.

“Mr. Gray suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside the B.P.D. wagon,” she said, referring to the police van.

There it is. Happened in the van.

I'm certain that the union will find a bunch of pathologists who'll swear that Gray was dead before he was put into the van, and the police just didn't realize it. crazy frown

(Even after serving jury duty many times, I'm still not sure whether the attorneys or jurors scare me more. Neither group inspires much confidence in our legal system.)


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: "running while black"
artie505 #34084 05/02/15 01:00 AM
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It's sickening.

Re: "running while black"
artie505 #34085 05/02/15 05:09 AM
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It's difficult to discern any great difference between this and a lynch mob.


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Re: "running while black"
joemikeb #34087 05/02/15 05:19 PM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
... running from the police is suspicious behavior. It is most definitely NOT a reason for being shot, or beaten, but it is a reason to be detained and questioned.

While many people may think this way, it's not exactly true, at least not in an unqualified way. As it happens, U.S. courts apply a double standard to people running away from police. At the top, the US Supreme Court has ruled that running from police in and by itself is no justification for arrest. But while running doesn’t provide probable cause for arrest, it might provide reasonable suspicion. Since police officers must in both cases have ‘specific facts’ (other than running) to warrant a stop, reasonable suspicion may be used when circumstances warrant. Based on decisions reached in lower courts including state SCs, these circumstances are frequently taken literally by using the location they occur in: if the running happens in a ‘bad’ neighborhood, the combination provides reasonable suspicion without further ’specific facts’. Running in a ‘good’ neighborhood doesn’t. The socio-economics of this contribute to perceived unfairness and subsequent public reaction.

There is, however, a problem with police adhering to these ‘rules’. Yes, many of them mean well and try hard in a difficult job. But at the same time it doesn’t help that the general education level of most US police officers is low (often no GED required), the required police training short (around 18 weeks on average), and the personal history of candidates rarely matters. Add to that the short-circuited street instructions officers receive from their superiors, and I wouldn’t want to bet on any of them knowing the salient details, let alone following up on them. So what you get is arrest procedures (and the level of force used with it) developing within the constraints of jurisprudence and street experience, bouncing like a pinball against various bumpers until something goes sufficiently wrong for the general public to notice. Then, with luck, the pinball machine is adjusted, the ‘game’ resumes until the following ‘tilt’ condition occurs.

Having said this, I don’t want to appear too negative or cynical, but I also think it’s naive not to take such considerations into account. Policing is a necessary and difficult task, and requires constant public vigilance to stay within reasonable bounds. If the police is to blame for transgressions in certain circumstances, in too many cases so is the public for letting them.

Last edited by alternaut; 05/02/15 05:19 PM.

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Re: "running while black"
alternaut #34106 05/03/15 11:28 PM
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Originally Posted By: alternaut
….it doesn’t help that the general education level of most US police officers is low (often no GED required), the required police training short (around 18 weeks on average), and the personal history of candidates rarely matters.

Across Canada the average police training is 12 to 24 weeks, depending on the jurisdiction. For the national police force, the RCMP, it is 6 months at their teaching facility in Regina. However, it doesn't appear that lengthier training absolutely reduces any proclivity for nasty behaviour, as the RCMP have had their share of discreditable events.

The most well-known was the taser death of the Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver airport in 2007. Currently the officers involved are being tried for perjury (2 convicted so far) because they colluded on a story which they testified to be the true description of events.

One wonders what the difference is between the four officers involved in that death and the thousands of others who daily carry out their duties honourably.

Last edited by ryck; 05/03/15 11:39 PM.

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Re: "running while black"
ryck #34121 05/04/15 07:04 PM
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Originally Posted By: ryck
One wonders what the difference is between the four officers involved in that death and the thousands of others who daily carry out their duties honourably.

Without knowing any more about those officers than what you have posted, I would speculate the root cause as fear and hubris born of fear. Fear of those they do not know and most of all fear of loss of control. One of my heroes, the sixteenth century theologian and reformer, John Calvin, would likely have deemed them guilty of original sin — the desire to be in absolute control, like God. Modern psychologists would more likely talk about it in terms of "over compensation for feelings of inadequacy, lack of real self-confidence, and low ego strength."

Please do not misunderstand me, I am in no way implying all police have low ego strength. That would be an absolutely false assertion. It is my belief the vast majority of police officers are fine and dedicated individuals who genuinely believe in the Protect and Serve rubric.

What I am saying is individuals with low ego strength are often attracted to positions which they view as having inherent authority to bolster their own sense of inadequacy. It is also a very human characteristic that we all tend to associate with persons who are most like ourselves. Individuals with low ego strength often seek the company of others of similar ego strength. In such a group it only takes one individual with the appearance of a strong personality to influence and shape the opinions of others in the group. It takes a really strong ego and lots of self-confidence to go against the group-think. So one or a few bad actor(s) can instigate actions where others either participate or tolerate rather than opposing. Theoretically police are tested psychologically to weed out the potential bad actors, but psychology is an imprecise science. Add to that police recruiting is down and jurisdictions that 20 years ago required a bachelors or at least an associates degree are now accepting high school dropouts as officer candidates and you have the makings of a potentially lethal brew.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: "running while black"
joemikeb #34128 05/05/15 03:13 AM
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Another factor is that some of the officers involved may be local to Baltimore, may have grown up there. What I do not know is whether the police department there reassigns officers to different precincts on a regular basis. A certain 'comfort zone' can lend itself to abuses of power. With six officers involved, it is hard to believe that this young man is the only person who has experienced this disregard of human suffering. He may be the worst case scenario.

I am still a little stuck on this "paddy wagon" mentality. The incident I described much earlier in this string in Philly involved an individual being picked up, put in a van, handcuffed and given a rough ride. As I recall, he ended up with a broken wrist. In New York, where I live now, if one person is arrested they are put in the back of a cruiser. The police vans and busses are used in cases such as a protest, when multiple arrests are anticipated, or to transport prisoners from precincts after being booked. The young man in Baltimore was put in a van and the van went to pick up a second person somewhere else. So, the arresting officer does not arrive with the prisoner?

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