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I'm surprised that they're pressing charges, considering how these things usually go down. Convicting her is another story though.

Manslaughter though? I thought it was generally understood by everyone who's not an American cop that if you shoot somebody with a gun you're probably trying to kill them. So killing them would be murder. Maybe a manslaughter charge will be easy to stick?

Im assuming that after the high profile murder charges on officers in similiar situations going nowhere, manslaughter seems like an easier charge.

Judging by the article the investigation yielded enough information for them to go through with a charge.

The Tulsa shooting is a bit different than the Charlotte one though at least in the facts that are known. The PD admitted the guy had no guy on him or in his car, and the video is fairly clear that he had his hands raised almost the entire time

 whembly wrote:

You left out that those black disproportionately commits the crime as well.

Except they don't. Numerous studies have found that Blacks do not commit a disproportionate amount of crime.* They are however disproportionately arrested and punished. In fact some studies suggest that the rate of crime is much higher among well off whites than it is among poor blacks. We just happily give a white kid from the suburbs benefit of the doubt, or the "he's young and foolish excuse", while a black kid from the ghetto gets people talking about how black criminal youths are a problem that is out of control.

Spoiler:

Ha!

The Female officer who shot the gentleman with his arms raised is being charged with manslaughter

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tulsa-police-officer-charged-mans-death-203750472.html

While yet another example of why people might be inclined to riot, I'm not sure a shooting that occurred last week in Tusla Oklahoma is directly related to a riot sparked by a shooting in Charlotte North Carolina.


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 Future War Cultist wrote:
I'm surprised that they're pressing charges, considering how these things usually go down. Convicting her is another story though.

Manslaughter though? I thought it was generally understood by everyone who's not an American cop that if you shoot somebody with a gun you're probably trying to kill them. So killing them would be murder. Maybe a manslaughter charge will be easy to stick?

Manslaughter is applied via exigent circumstances. That the victim was reaching into his car and not following police orders (assuming these things are true of course), easily qualifies as having influenced the officer's decision to fire, and brings the appropriate charge down from full murder. Manslaughter however is still a serious crime. If convicted her career would be over, she'd probably lose her pension, and she'd spend upwards of more than a decade in prison (don't know what Oklahoma's manslaughter charges entail for punishment).

Not directly related no,

But it is interesting to see how the cities reacted to a smiliar situation, one city rioting, one remaining fairly peaceful.

Though looking at both stories and the facts that are known, I'm still surprised the Tulsa one isnt the one blowing up, it seems more in the favor of the shootee rather than the shooter of the Charlotte situation

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Though looking at both stories and the facts that are known, I'm still surprised the Tulsa one isnt the one blowing up, it seems more in the favor of the shootee rather than the shooter of the Charlotte situation

Probably because Tusla OK isn't a city in a former Jim Crow state. Like I said before, police relations with the black community in Charlotte are dreadful. Well not even just with the police. There's a booming field of racial discrimination specialized law firms in the state of North Carolina, a lot of them based in Charlotte. And of course, remember that this is the state that passed a voter ID law blatantly designed to keep the poor blacks from voting.

At least the family of Keith Scott saw the shooting video...

Not sure why the Police won't release it to the public though.


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 LordofHats wrote:

 whembly wrote:

You left out that those black disproportionately commits the crime as well.

Except they don't. Numerous studies have found that Blacks do not commit a disproportionate amount of crime.* They are however disproportionately arrested and punished. In fact some studies suggest that the rate of crime is much higher among well off whites than it is among poor blacks. We just happily give a white kid from the suburbs benefit of the doubt, or the "he's young and foolish excuse", while a black kid from the ghetto gets people talking about how black criminal youths are a problem that is out of control.

I think I'm having a hard time articulating the point I'm trying to drive across...

I'm not arguing that, in a vacuum, blacks are predisposed to commiting... which is absurd.

I believe it's more to do with where they live, education, poverty, gangs, nuclear family, and other factors... rather than overt/subversive racism. (*please note, I'm not saying racism doesn't happen, only that it's not the *root cause* )

ANd in Ferguson's case, the acrimony between the public in police/municipal really starts with using their citizens as a revenue stream in leu of ticket violations.

IN the end, I do agree that we need Justice Reforms in a real bad way...

 whembly wrote:
At least the family of Keith Scott saw the shooting video...

Not sure why the Police won't release it to the public though.

Police chief said they won't do so during the ongoing investigation.

 LordofHats wrote:

 whembly wrote:

You left out that those black disproportionately commits the crime as well.

Except they don't. Numerous studies have found that Blacks do not commit a disproportionate amount of crime.* They are however disproportionately arrested and punished. In fact some studies suggest that the rate of crime is much higher among well off whites than it is among poor blacks. We just happily give a white kid from the suburbs benefit of the doubt, or the "he's young and foolish excuse", while a black kid from the ghetto gets people talking about how black criminal youths are a problem that is out of control.

I just go off the homicide numbers that the FBI put out...

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls

I'd figure homicide stats are probably more reliable than other crime stats because you're less likely to have a murder that goes unreported and uninvestigated.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 whembly wrote:

You left out that those black disproportionately commits the crime as well.

Except they don't. Numerous studies have found that Blacks do not commit a disproportionate amount of crime.* They are however disproportionately arrested and punished. In fact some studies suggest that the rate of crime is much higher among well off whites than it is among poor blacks. We just happily give a white kid from the suburbs benefit of the doubt, or the "he's young and foolish excuse", while a black kid from the ghetto gets people talking about how black criminal youths are a problem that is out of control.

I just go off the homicide numbers that the FBI put out...

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls

I'd figure homicide stats are probably more reliable than other crime stats because you're less likely to have a murder that goes unreported and uninvestigated.

Of all the African-Americans stopped by the police, how many of them were stopped as part of a homicide investigation?

 d-usa wrote:
Of all the African-Americans stopped by the police, how many of them were stopped as part of a homicide investigation?

I don't think I ever suggested that was the case?

But unless you believe blacks have a higher propensity for murder (I don't) then a higher murder rate would imply there's likely a higher overall violent crime rate. If there's an overall higher violent crime rate, cops are in turn more likely to respond with violence and shootings, either intentional or by accident, are more likely to occur.

Murderers represent a very small percentage of all incarcerated persons, and a small percentage of incarcerated blacks (that murder rates are much higher among blacks than whites is otherwise highly recognized, but it's root cause simply goes back to all these other problems). Most people in US prisons are there for non-violent drug charges, and that's why most incarcerated blacks are in prison. Yet whites use drugs at a much higher rate than blacks;

Link



There are of course a lot of whites in prison for drug offenses as well, but given that white use drugs more than any other race, the number should be statistically higher than it actually is.

And even in non drug related offenses, arrest rates for blacks across the board are astronomically higher. Black neighborhoods are far more heavily patrolled than non-black neighborhoods, so it is only nature that arrest rates are higher, but it's really hard to ignore the massive disparities as being horribly biased unless we honestly believe 4% of Dearborn's population is responsible for 50% of its crime to the extent that the police arrested 500 more blacks than even lived in the city.

Blacks are more likely than others to be arrested in almost every city for almost every type of crime. Nationwide, black people are arrested at higher rates for crimes as serious as murder and assault, and as minor as loitering and marijuana possession.

• Arrest rates are lopsided almost everywhere. Only 173 of the 3,538 police departments USA TODAY examined arrested black people at a rate equal to or lower than other racial groups.

Either 13-20% of America's population is responsible for more than half of this country's crime statistics, or there is a bias in play. Ignoring this problem is why we saw riots in Ferguson (which was easily one of the worst offending townships in the entire country), and I won't be shocked if it later comes out that it's much the same in Charlotte. Things were not well there ten years ago when I lived in the area, and I don't think they've gotten any better.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

But it is interesting to see how the cities reacted to a smiliar situation, one city rioting, one remaining fairly peaceful.

While I doubt it has much to do with it, Tulsa was the site of one of the worst episodes of racial violence in the US in the 20th Century... If you're interested, just look up the Tulsa Riots. Obviously, I don't think there's many (if any) people who were alive for that event that are alive today, but I do believe in a cultural "memory," which could very easily have been passed on through the years. And that could play some part in why we're not seeing much out of Tulsa.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

But it is interesting to see how the cities reacted to a smiliar situation, one city rioting, one remaining fairly peaceful.

While I doubt it has much to do with it, Tulsa was the site of one of the worst episodes of racial violence in the US in the 20th Century... If you're interested, just look up the Tulsa Riots. Obviously, I don't think there's many (if any) people who were alive for that event that are alive today, but I do believe in a cultural "memory," which could very easily have been passed on through the years. And that could play some part in why we're not seeing much out of Tulsa.

Some other factors that may also have contributed are the difference in percentage of the population in the two cities, and more importantly IMO the recent history of shooting and trials in the two cities.

Charlotte just had a trial of a police officer end with a hung jury, and Tulsa just had a trial where a sheriff deputy was found guilty of shooting an unarmed black man and was send to jail.

The Race Riots were not covered at all during my Oklahoma History class in high school, and of the people who have heard of it here in Oklahoma many have the colors of the parties involved backwards.

I don't think its whether blacks have a higher propensity to do crime so much, rather the cultural values promoted in certain inner cities that promote crime. In general though, bigger cities will always have this sorta sub gang culture, it's just that some possibly foster it more than others.

Furthermore, there is the compounding nature of racial identity within cities, and the pack mentality it can create. That is to be expected.

The solution for this isn't more progressive government. It's a thing that must be tackled from a voluntary ideological approach (once called ministry).

Can't fix corrupt morals in a society with more government; where the elected is from a society that advocate corrupt morals.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

But it is interesting to see how the cities reacted to a smiliar situation, one city rioting, one remaining fairly peaceful.

While I doubt it has much to do with it, Tulsa was the site of one of the worst episodes of racial violence in the US in the 20th Century... If you're interested, just look up the Tulsa Riots. Obviously, I don't think there's many (if any) people who were alive for that event that are alive today, but I do believe in a cultural "memory," which could very easily have been passed on through the years. And that could play some part in why we're not seeing much out of Tulsa.

For some info;

The Tulsa Riot in 1921 was one of the contributing events to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. It occurred in what was one of the wealthiest and most stable black communities in the US at the time and was a national shock.

The incident occured accused when a young black man was accused of raping a white girl. Many in the black community feared he'd be lynched. This fear was driven by the lynching of a white man named Roy Belton who shot a white taxi driver the previous year (whites did occasionally lynch other whites back then). Fearing that if a white man could be lynched, then so could a black man the local community (called Greenwood) drove itself to take proactive action. Following a newspaper report calling for the young man to be hanged, rumors rapid surged through the local black community that there was a lynch mob forming to do just that.

Around roughly the same time two mobs (one white and one black) began to converge on the court house. Initially the white mob was much larger, and was mobilizing to lynch the accused rapist Dick Rowland. Both mobs however were armed with rifles and shot guns. Tensions grew between the two mobs, one fearing a lynching of a young black man, and the other fearing a black uprising in the city,. 1000 whites took up arms from a local National Guard armory, while many blacks actually drove in from outside the city to support the local black community. Several times white men attempted to threaten the local sheriff (the same one who handed Roy Bolton over to a mob), but the sheriff refused them each time. Violence broke out when a white man walked up to a black man and ordered him to surrender a pistol he was carrying (according to a witness and to my knowledge there is no other statement over how it started). No one knows exactly what happened after that, but a shot was fired.

The first shot triggered volleys of fire from the two mobs into one another for just a few seconds before the mobs began to disperse. Ten whites and two blacks were killed. The black mob began to retreat back to Greenwood and was pursued by the white mob, who accidentally killed a white man as he was exiting a movie theater. The National Guard organized, and members of the American Legion volunteered to restore order, but they focused only on white neighborhoods, forcibly detaining any black they found and sending them to a local community center in a white neighborhood. Another lynch mob meanwhile formed to lynch Dick Rowland, but the sheriff (he seems to have honestly regretted turning over Roy Bolton) refused them again. Dick Rowland was not killed during the riots.

By midnight firefights were breaking out between whites and blacks. Predominatly along a railroad track that divided the white and black communities there was widespread looting of stores. A white mob started setting fires at 1 AM. A train arriving early in the morning was interpreted by blacks as a new white mob coming to attack them, and by whites as a new black mob coming to attack them. A white man stepping off the simple freight train was shot and killed by a sniper in Greenwood. This prompted an all out assault on Greenwood by white mobs on foot and in cars. It even included biplanes that dropped fire bombs into the neighborhood.

Outside Greenwood there were other mobs storming white houses and demanding the detention of black employees. Most white families agreed, but some refused and their homes were vandalized. By 9 am the riot was over and the National Guard forcibly restored order. Most blacks in the city had fled or were already being detained by white mobs. The actual number of dead has never been very clear. Numerous numbers were reported at the time between 10 and 300. Nearly 2 million dollars in property were destroyed. officially there are recorded only 39 deaths, 19 white men and 20 blacks however this number is almost certainly wrong. How wrong is a toss up. Greenwood was a ruin following the events, and was not fully rebuilt until the 1940s.

The violence of the Tusla riots were a national shock as many Americans perceived race relations as improve at the time. Along with the Atlanta riots in 1906, and several race riots following the return of black WWI veterans to their home towns, these circumstances laid the seeds for what would become the Civil Rights movement in the 50s.

 LordofHats wrote:
Murderers represent a very small percentage of all incarcerated persons, and a small percentage of incarcerated blacks

Of course, you 'muricans love putting people away for menial drug charges, it's probably why you have a higher incarceration rate than any other country (not having looked at the numbers, it's just a guess).

But I didn't talk about incarceration rate, I talked about violent crime rate. Police aren't going to be more likely to shoot blacks because there's more blacks in prison, they're going to shoot them because they're more afraid blacks are involved in violent crime.

Too many pages past since my last post, but I'll say what I said back then, I believe it's a socio-economic problem due to more blacks being in poor socio-economic circumstances. As long as more blacks come from poor homes and single parent families and drug abusing families, it's going to be a problem.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Murderers represent a very small percentage of all incarcerated persons, and a small percentage of incarcerated blacks

Of course, you 'muricans love putting people away for menial drug charges, it's probably why you have a higher incarceration rate than any other country (not having looked at the numbers, it's just a guess).

But I didn't talk about incarceration rate, I talked about violent crime rate. Police aren't going to be more likely to shoot blacks because there's more blacks in prison, they're going to shoot them because they're more afraid blacks are involved in violent crime.

Too many pages past since my last post, but I'll say what I said back then, I believe it's a socio-economic problem due to more blacks being in poor socio-economic circumstances. As long as more blacks come from poor homes and single parent families and drug abusing families, it's going to be a problem.

I agree. However, our current solution to get them out of poverty is social welfare, which is just perpetuating the problem further. Hopefully I don't sound too harsh, but the cruelty of ones own choices should be suffered by less people not more. If people don't change the values causing them such strife, then what good is it to keep throwing money at them?

From my understanding, churches use to be more involved with this sorta thing in the early 20th century, then they progressively handed it off to big momma government. At least with the church model, they could evaluate someones morals and give conditions to them - in order for them to be helped by the congregation.

Not every poor person should be helped. /shrug. Its really tragic when there are kids involved. BUT, even still, if you especially don't like seeing starving kids, then the INDIVIDUAL should do something about it, and risk their own investment. If people can't bother themselves to minister (or support a ministry) to the depravity in their own society, then what on good earth makes anyone think government will do any better?

 CptJake wrote:

 whembly wrote:
At least the family of Keith Scott saw the shooting video...

Not sure why the Police won't release it to the public though.

Police chief said they won't do so during the ongoing investigation.

Which is why body cams aren't really the panacea that I think was once believed. If it was a righteous shoot, they release the video immediately, and if it isn't, they hide the video as long as they can.

More from the Tulsa charges:

http://www.koco.com/news/tulsa-officer-charged-with-firstdegree-manslaughter-in-shooting-of-terence-crutcher/41783626

The indictment doesn't read too well for her.

 d-usa wrote:
More from the Tulsa charges:

http://www.koco.com/news/tulsa-officer-charged-with-firstdegree-manslaughter-in-shooting-of-terence-crutcher/41783626

The indictment doesn't read too well for her.

Yeah, here's the "open window he was reaching into"

Which you think she would have noticed, considering:

The affidavit filed Thursday also indicates that Shelby "cleared the driver's side front" of Crutcher's vehicle before she began interacting with Crutcher, suggesting she may have known there was no gun on the driver's side of the vehicle.

Of course she was also fearing for her life as he was walking away from her with his hands up...

 Ouze wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 whembly wrote:
At least the family of Keith Scott saw the shooting video...

Not sure why the Police won't release it to the public though.

Police chief said they won't do so during the ongoing investigation.

Which is why body cams aren't really the panacea that I think was once believed. If it was a righteous shoot, they release the video immediately, and if it isn't, they hide the video as long as they can.

Just because video footage doesn't get immediately released to the slavering masses doesn't mean it isn't helping. It is an awkward position authorities find themselves in. Firstly, there is a due process, and keeping evidence confidential until after the verdict to avoid trial by media is the logical and correct way of doing things IMO, though now we not only have trial by media but trial by social media, where any fetching imbecile can make a meme and post it on social media and influence the populace that aren't capable of critical thought. Secondly, authorities are always going to be hesitant releasing graphic video. If someone got shot and killed in a video, it's not something that is usually going to get released unless the police think its going to help the investigation.

It would be nice if...
1. There was transparency on the process. (and I will be honest I have no idea how transparent it is given I have never tried to access case data).

2. The general population realized due process takes time and were patient instead of wanting instant satisfaction.

3. The media attempted to report facts objectively instead of incitefully.

I just watched the Terrence Crutcher video. Ummm... I guess I don't understand how many don't see the alarming behavior... of walking away from the police officer (regardless of hands up), then multiple officers appearing, bearing down... and still, HE is bent on getting back into his car. I mean, what do you think is gonna happen?

There's a reason why you listen to lawful orders. If a cop were to tell you to step away from the car, you do it, especially if his gun is aimed at you. Most sane people cower at this.

IT is suspicious when you don't cower, obey or relent.

 kveldulf wrote:

IT is suspicious when you don't cower, obey or relent.

Unless of course, you're a "sovereign citizen"

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 kveldulf wrote:

IT is suspicious when you don't cower, obey or relent.

Unless of course, you're a "sovereign citizen"

Sovereignty means nothing without an authority to legitimize its claim. If from a Christian perspective, there's a balance between knowing when to disobey and when to comply. It took the founders of the US to accrue a laundry list before finally standing on their claim.

I don't think sovereign citizen claims can be so absolute and it remain reasonable - in a free society.

However, I do think that police officers do not have a legitimate right to do whatever, regardless of the legislature. That there are some fundamental things that police cannot do out of sequence and it remain legit. You can disobey in such situations, but be prepared to make a stand... and possibly lose your life or take a life.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

 whembly wrote:
At least the family of Keith Scott saw the shooting video...

Not sure why the Police won't release it to the public though.

Police chief said they won't do so during the ongoing investigation.

Which is why body cams aren't really the panacea that I think was once believed. If it was a righteous shoot, they release the video immediately, and if it isn't, they hide the video as long as they can.

Just because video footage doesn't get immediately released to the slavering masses doesn't mean it isn't helping. It is an awkward position authorities find themselves in. Firstly, there is a due process, and keeping evidence confidential until after the verdict to avoid trial by media is the logical and correct way of doing things IMO, though now we not only have trial by media but trial by social media, where any fetching imbecile can make a meme and post it on social media and influence the populace that aren't capable of critical thought. Secondly, authorities are always going to be hesitant releasing graphic video. If someone got shot and killed in a video, it's not something that is usually going to get released unless the police think its going to help the investigation.

It would be nice if...
1. There was transparency on the process. (and I will be honest I have no idea how transparent it is given I have never tried to access case data).

2. The general population realized due process takes time and were patient instead of wanting instant satisfaction.

3. The media attempted to report facts objectively instead of incitefully.

Good post. And one that is an informed one. When I was a cop, that was the SOP after a police related shooting. The same when I went into corrections after leaving police work. You hold off releasing details until you complete a through investigation, and can paint an accurate picture of what happened. A fact lost on many nowadays, including some in this very thread.

As for as transparency goes, I can tell you that it won't solve anything. First off, it's a boring and, possibly, drawn out process. And it seems that people in the United States nowadays have the attention spans of five year olds. Second, the agency (or agencies) investigating will still be called liars by the rabble-rousers and grievance industry hucksters, accused of covering up for "one of their own". And third, the media hacks and politicos will always find a way to exploit it to their benefit. Some of this was explained in a couple of vids I posted, but a Mod pulled them and deleted the post for whatever reason (but it's no skin off my back. I couldn't care less).

In this age of instant gratification, people have no patience, even with something so critical as this. And the media, politicians, and grievance industry will always find a way to stir up and profit from it in some way.


But the system does work, as Betty Shelby found out in Tulsa. It just doesn't work fast enough, or to the satisfaction, of some people.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But I didn't talk about incarceration rate, I talked about violent crime rate. Police aren't going to be more likely to shoot blacks because there's more blacks in prison, they're going to shoot them because they're more afraid blacks are involved in violent crime.

Yes but that doesn't really get to anything that I was talking about, hence an attempt to tail back. Violent crime has been on the down swing in the US for many years. General crime rates have been going down period. but our incarceration rates kept rising until recently and are still high above violent crime rates;



Yet, even though crime rates hit lows in the 90s, the incarceration rates of black men continued to sky rocket;


Now look at this graph;


Only the incarceration rates of black males mirror those of the US incarceration rates as a whole. Hispanics were effected less, and whites were proportionally almost completely unaffected by the spike that began in the 80s. This is in part because government policy on the Drug War since 1980 arguably specifically target black communities, in spite of blacks having a massively lower rate of committing drug offenses.

I believe it's a socio-economic problem due to more blacks being in poor socio-economic circumstances. As long as more blacks come from poor homes and single parent families and drug abusing families, it's going to be a problem.

There's no real difference between the two. Many blacks live in single parent families because so many black men end up in prison for very long periods of time. They're poor because it's really hard to build up your socio-economic gains when families can't effectively organize for their own benefit, and decades of past events are stacked against you.


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 Ouze wrote:

Come on Ouze. Clearly the "victim" was going to use the speed force to phase his hand through the window

OK, now I am no genius. But is there not a correlation between high incarceration rates leading to the decline of crime rates? If you suddenly stopped incarcerating people, do you think crime rates would continue to be on the decline. It seems like you are tryign to say we incarcerate too many people, while in a parallel crime is going down, but incarceration is bad, crime rate decline is good, and they are not related. Seems like more criminals in jail would lead to a lower crime rate, sincey they are now in jail, doing less crime? I mean sometime if it looks like an apple, it really is just an apple.

-Family saw the video, had no further comment after seeing it. Witnesses on scene said they saw a gun as well.

-many of the arrests made of rioters and looters so far are out of state IDs.

Tulsa-
-She apparently meant to fire her tazer, not her gun. I have seen these "gunslinger" setups cops wear, I have often wondered how many times they draw the wrong one. Most of the tazers I have seen look and draw very similarly to guns. This is probably why they got her on manslaughter charges.

-Further, not saying its right, but the man was refusing orders, put his hand to his waist like he was drawing a gun and I have seen split second draws by bad guys and them getting shots off even on prepared cops. Siucide by cop. This guy knew he was going to jail regardless, maybe after 9 years already served he had enough.

Col. Dash wrote:
-She apparently meant to fire her tazer, not her gun. I have seen these "gunslinger" setups cops wear, I have often wondered how many times they draw the wrong one. Most of the tazers I have seen look and draw very similarly to guns. This is probably why they got her on manslaughter charges.

I'm not overly familiar with the law there, but I think manslaughter is the correct charge for negligence or incompetence in one's job leading to someone's death.

Murder would be if you could prove she did it with malice and/or premeditated intent.

1st degree manslaughter is still a pretty serious charge and carries several years minimum sentence in several (most?) states.

 LordofHats wrote:
Yes but that doesn't really get to anything that I was talking about, hence an attempt to tail back. Violent crime has been on the down swing in the US for many years. General crime rates have been going down period. but our incarceration rates kept rising until recently and are still high above violent crime rates;

Yeah but I don't really see what that has to do with the topic at hand.

Incarceration rates are related to what you put people in jail for which isn't necessarily linked to police violence against a particular people group.

Unless you're trying to make the argument that blacks are specifically targeted for incarceration more than whites, in which case I'd have to ask whether the drug offences in predominantly black communities result in more community related problems and thus are policed more (eg, drug related violence, drug related theft, etc).

For example, is a middle class person who might occasionally do drugs, but still manage to get through college and get a decent job as much of a problem as a poor person who occasionally takes drugs, mugs some people to get money to pay for the drugs and then stabs their dealer when a deal goes awry?

Like, here in Australia you sometimes see police targeting specific areas of a city, it's usually the poor run down areas they target where there's more gang violence. In the past I've seen cops targeting railway stations and it's not the ones in nice areas they target, it's the ones in the bad parts of town. Now if those communities happen to be predominantly black, does it suddenly make it racism to target those communities, or is it simply smart policing?

It does seem to me that the war on drugs in the US is over the top to the point it does more harm than good, but can you prove it's racist policing and not just policing the most troubled communities... which also happen to be predominantly black?

I believe it's a socio-economic problem due to more blacks being in poor socio-economic circumstances. As long as more blacks come from poor homes and single parent families and drug abusing families, it's going to be a problem.

There's no real difference between the two.

Between the two whats? I didn't give 2 options there.

Many blacks live in single parent families because so many black men end up in prison for very long periods of time. They're poor because it's really hard to build up your socio-economic gains when families can't effectively organize for their own benefit, and decades of past events are stacked against you.

Yeah, so what do we do about it? Blame police and cry about events of decades past? That seems somewhat counter productive if your goal is to encourage people that they can get out of their circumstances.

I guess it's easier to apply blame externally than it is to fix the internal problems in a community. Though I don't know what the former achieves, recognition that you're in a crap situation because of things done in generations past? Ok, but I don't see how that helps anyone now.