You’re absolutely right. It probably depends on giving up on the justice system we have entirely.
Then a line by line rework of the entire penal code, with a lot cut and an awful lot more clarified. The same has to be done with police procedure.
We need to figure out how to make our police forces in general way way smaller with a much smaller set of objectives. I think trying to aggressively enforce petty crime laws is pretty far down that list of objectives, particularly while the police have a culture of making pursuing petty crime committed by poor minorities their primary mission.
You aren’t wrong but this is never ever happening in USA #1. I truly thought some of you were exaggerating not long ago when you said the war was already lost and the country along with it. Seeing the Biden media blitz to get the nom + widespread Covid denialism + these recent race events it has become very clear that it’s over. And it’s over on basically every front.
Yeah hyperbole happens and if that’s all that was and I’m not crazy then cool.
For the record, when the question about would you call the cops for a counterfeit $20 was first asked, my initial reaction was “yeah why not?” I’ve since changed my stance on that. I’ll be the first person to admit I’ve lived an incredibly sheltered life and was long ignorant about the perils that minorites still face today. I think my initial reaction suggests that I still have moments where my head is buried in the sand and I make conscious efforts to work in that.
The strong federal government experiment is mortally wounded for sure. How long it takes to die is a good question, but honestly viewed in retrospect it’s pretty clearly been a disaster. The apartheid level in the south is a little bit lower than it otherwise would have (although still extremely high let’s be honest), and we have the blood of millions of innocent people on our hands from our endless foreign adventures since WW2.
It’s almost like the US is too big to be able to make good decisions at the national level. Particularly not with the Senate blocking any good legislation.
So the main thing we need to do now is figure out how to restrict the feds from interfering with the richer states, figure out how we can cap money sent to the feds at the money received from the feds, and go back to thinking of ourselves as being from the state we live in rather than as Americans.
I think flipping Texas blue is a hell of a lot easier than fixing things at the federal level. And one thing I know about Texas is that it’s a one party political system in the same structural way that the US is a two party political system. Once we flip Texas over demographically purple it won’t be.
I work on Lake Street a couple miles down from the 3rd precinct building, showed up this morning and a bunch of businesses had been looted around us. We shut down today for the rest of the week, wish i would have been in the area last night to see the carnage
During the demonstrations, police in riot gear escalated tensions with protesters, firing tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets at the crowd. Several people, including a journalist, were hit by projectiles.
“The response by Minneapolis Police can best be characterized as a coordinated, militarized, guerilla-style effort. Police in riot gear confronted protesters, including positioning themselves along natural escape routes, and deployed flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas upon protesters,” said Legal Observer Matt DiTullio, a recent graduate from the University of Minnesota Law School…
Anti-racist protesters arrested in Minneapolis seeking jail support can call the NLG Minnesota Chapter at 612-444-2654. To support the NLG’s ongoing legal support work, donate to our Mass Defense Program here.
I’m mostly in the same boat as you but I don’t know if my stance has changed.
I think it’s important to note why I would call the police. It’s basically to give them the $20 (or whatever bills are fake). I’m not calling 911 and I’m not expecting the police to show up in a hurry or even on the same day necessarily. I’m not expecting them to conduct an investigation into the “perpetrator” and I’m certainly not expecting that he/she will still be on the premises when the cops show up (if they ever show up at all).
It’s, “hey thanks for coming. dude gave me a fake $20 and I told him to get lost. Here it is. Take care.” End of story.
I do think that figuring how much blame to assign to the shopkeeper is getting lost in the reeds a little. It’s a discussion to have but this is still 99.9% the cops fault for treating someone who may have committed a petty offense like he was restraining a violent felon.
Is anyone watching this news conference? Its unbelievably bad. “There is other evidence that does not support a criminal charge”. The DA or whatever they call him there isn’t really commenting on the tape and just saying he has to complete his investigation before announcing the results. Seems like they’re just inviting more unrest. Seems like they could at least arrest the offending officer on an open charge of homicide and figure out the details later.
The city should be sued into bankruptcy. Absolutely nothing else (except maybe highly organized, nationwide vigilantism with huge numbers of dead on both sides) will make police chiefs, mayors, and governors consider getting rid of professional murderers like this. Minneapolis sent the repeated message to this asshole that there would never be significant consequences.
Yeah and the US Attorney also said Trump and Barr are monitoring it, like that should be reassuring. LOL wat? I’m sure the KKK is feeling pretty chill about that, GJGE lady.
The prosecutor is claiming he needs “more time” to determine if this is a “criminal act”. Good Lord. Do they let every murder suspect walk while they figure this out? Or just cops? This is really stunningly bad.
I hope no locally owned small businesses get looted or destroyed tonight, and I hope nobody is seriously injured or killed. Beyond that, let it burn. Our society is totally fucked, burn it down.
