Police shootings and black on black violence -

[hedgehog]

I'm going to make a wild ass guess here and assume that most black on black violence involves one person shooting another for reasons both persons involved are very aware of. To an outsider, the reasons may be trivial, but my impression is that in most cases, both parties have crossed a certain line placing them in a violent sub-culture akin to organized crime. One may be tempted to say let the bad guys shoot it out amongst themselves, except that all too often they are lousy shots who end up killing and maiming innocent bystanders.

Now here comes the problem of police shootings. Someone from a community will know who the bad characters are and who to avoid. To too many officers, every black male is armed and dangerous. There are bad cops who deliberately start confrontations that lead to shootings. Again, my wild ass guess is that in most cases, the cops haven't been trained or aren't using their training to give themselves time to evaluate a situation. For example, why pull the police car up alongside Tamir Rice? Why not observe and approach from a distance? What would have happened had Tamir Rice been armed? He could have very easily shot both officers as they drove right up to him. It was a bad tactical move by the officers no matter how you look at it.

We need to admit that there are bad officers, and sometimes bad departments, and clean them out.

We need to insist that officers be trained to defuse tense situations, and to use that training.

Most of all, we need to insist that officers become part of the communities where they patrol rather than an occupying force.

I'm certain I've made errors in my assumptions. Have at it and educate me as needed.

[NYC_SKP]

1. I'm not going to argue with your assumptions.

Blacks are disproportionately impacted by poverty and a consequence of this is that they also disproportionately get caught up in drugs and gangs.

There's a lot more to it than that, but it's environmental, not innate.

Cops, then, (and citizens, too) make assumptions about the chances that any given encounter with a black person might be sketchy and react according to their fears, not by objective criteria.

These conditions create a feedback loop; a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: Blacks experience more crime and violence, therefore they experience more profiling and stereotyping and get caught up in the law, further smashing their hopes of successfully participating in society.

When your options look increasingly like some jail time, you tend to gravitate toward that future.

That kind of hopelessness happens to more than just black folks, but it sure happens more to them.

[uponit7771]

2. Black on black crime is no worse than white on white.. what the racist do is pic out black on black

...crime to excuse their racist notions that blacks are more dangerous.

The police in these neighborhoods like Ferguson have no vested interest in seeing the area thrive... they don't live their, have little to no ties and like Wilson said on the stand "those people are anti police" (sic) and he feels threatened....

Like you said, the police need to have some kind of vested interest in their neighbor hoods, get out of their cars ... walk the streets ... shake peoples hands and don't screw with people because they can...

What would happen in those neighborhoods if everyone there new Officers Wilsons first name was

Darren....

[Stellar]

11. So, I'm going to need a link to verify that.

You hardly ever hear about white on white crime and I believe that's because that makes white folk feel better about their environment. I've always read about whites doing the worse things to other people like Asians, American-Indians, Hispanics, African-Americans...did I leave out anybody? But to each other, they are little angels...how does that work? I really would like to know.

[YarnAddict]

3. Maybe your "wild ass guess" is wrong

I wonder what "certain line" these children may have crossed.

http://www.people.com/article/laylah-petersen-shooting-victim-family-donates-heart

The heart of a 5-year-old Milwaukee girl will live on in another child as police search for the drive-by shooter whose errant bullet struck the girl's head while she sat on her grandfather's lap.

http://www.kctv5.com/story/26818277/female-shot-at-convenience-store

Mother mourns 'Angel' killed in drive-by shooting

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) - Angel Hooper, 6, was fatally shot outside a convenience store in south Kansas City, and her heartbroken mother pleaded for the killer to be caught. (snip)
A vehicle drove by and someone inside fired shots at the store, Police Chief Darryl Forte said. In addition to the little girl and her father, others were in the parking lot.

http://www.ktul.com/story/27399338/child-killed-in-drive-by-shooting

http://www.kiiitv.com/story/24744974/two-children-killed-in-drive-by-shooting-identified

CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) -
The two children who were killed in a drive-by in the 4700 block of Cheryl Drive late Sunday night have been identified as six-year old Nevaeh Oliva and two-year old Lilliana Valent.

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/26775567/police-respond-to-fort-myers-shooting

FORT MYERS, FL -
A Fort Myers community is distraught after a five-year-old boy was fatally shot during an apparent drive-by Monday evening.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2014/08/27/child-shot-killed-suspected-drive-shooting/14715273/

A one-year-old child is dead and its mother in the hospital after the pair was shot in an apparent drive-by shooting Wednesday evening.

[seabeyond]

5. could we not outline the same argument with our white shooters, going out massacring innocent whites

seems when there are mass shooters, they go to the area of mostly whites and kill whites, in the same random manner. though, gangs are shooting and killing innocents thru misses shooting at their "enemy". while out white mass murders are purely targeting innocents.

[YarnAddict]

6. True,

and not the issue. The OP made some statements that I don't believe are necessarily true, and even if they are, don't make the violence justifiable, or even understandable.

[seabeyond]

7. no one is justifying, so i think that is an incorrect argument. also, black on black crime,

I believe, is used stemming from inherent racism, so it is an untrue argument used often.

the whole premise to the argument is false.

which I feel is like, way more relevant than your construed false argument.

[hedgehog]

12. As I said in my OP, the temptation is to let the gang bangers take each other out,

but they tend to be such bad shots that I think they shoot more innocent bystanders than they do each other.

[seabeyond]

4. statistically, do whites kill whites more than other races? i would assume.

as we generally hang with our own race, then I would assume it is within our group, we are killing.

if statistically, whites kill whites more than others, ... why do we always bring up black on black?

this has always hit my brain when reading or hearing black on black. and I merely processed that it is just another inherent racist thought. but, without knowledge, I am tired of not know the truth. I could look it up. I will later, but just curious.

[DirkGently]

8. "Black on black crime" is a racist red herring.

Most crimes occur within the same racial demographics. 90-something % of murders of black Americans are committed by other black Americans; 80-something % of murders of white Americans are committed by other white Americans.

What racists try to imply is that black Americans have no right to complain about a "few" wrongful killings by police until "they" clean up "their" crime problem.

There are so many racist assumptions and slanders bound up in that thinking that it's hard to untangle them all. One is that all black people everywhere are the same "group," so it is somehow the black people killing other black people who are also being killed by police, who are also the same people protesting.

Somehow, apparently, Tamir Rice should have been in the streets cleaning up crime in his community instead of, you know, being 12 and playing with a toy before being executed by twitchy police.

Hard to apply given none of the publicized killings involve anyone accused of murder, but racists aren't know for razor-sharp critical thinking. The other big one, of course, is just to imply that the imaginary one group of black people in the world are simply hyper-violent, and perhaps deserve to be profiled and treated as especially dangerous.

It's so stupid it would be funny, if it weren't so malicious and sick.

[seabeyond]

10. It's so stupid it would be funny, if it weren't so malicious and sick.

thank you for stating it so well. I agree, absolutely.

[uponit7771]

16. +1

[hedgehog]

13. Another aspect of this is whether police killings target blacks, or whether they

also target the mentally ill of all races and the poor of all races. The killings are the tip of a pyramid that begins with routine harassment of the vulnerable.

[seabeyond]

15. we know many readily rape, or sexually assault or otherwise, women.

they abuse. best to abuse the weakest or those with the least position and most vulnerability in our society.

[uponit7771]

17. Black Males Are 21 Times More Likely To Be Shot By Police Than White Males

[hedgehog]

19. Let me re-phrase - as seabeyond notes -

there are a lot of vulnerable groups who also become police victims. I was thinking of the all too common tragedy of a family calling the police to help restrain a family member who is mentally ill, only to see that person shot down before their eyes.

Black men do face the on-going threat that a simple walk down the street can end in their death.

.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

18. There are more victims of white crime

Whites commit more crime since they are in the majority, and they certainly commit the vast amount of white collar crime in this country.

Unfortunately, blacks commit more violent crimes per capita than whites or any other group. There is a strong socioeconomic factor involved, but statistically, young black males are much more likely to be involved in violent crime than any other demographic in society.

In 2012 (according to the FBI), the statistics break down like this:

Murder and non negligent manslaughter:

Whites: 48.2%
Blacks 49.4%
Other 2.4 percent

"Other" includes Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Alaskan native. Hispanics are included in the white category if they do not self identify as black hispanic.

In order to understand the gravity of the statistics in the chart linked below, you have to keep in mind that blacks only make up 12% of the population in this country.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/43tabledatadecoverviewpdf

This is why blacks are profiled, and it's not fair Most blacks don't commit violent crime or any crime! Unfortunately, the ones that do, commit crimes way out of proportion to their actual numbers in this country.

It is the elephant in the room that doesn't get discussed.