Kyle Rittenhouse Trial - Page 44 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By Doug64
#15205005
ckaihatsu wrote:Juries, after the fact -- but what about *prevention* -- ?

You have noticed this thread is about the Rittenhouse trial, right?
#15205006
Doug64 wrote:
And you know something interesting about those 1,000+ dead? The vast majority of them are armed, one way or another. In 2020, across the entire nation, police killed 1,126 people. Only 81 were unarmed; of the 1,045 that weren't, 667 were armed with guns, 180 with knives/sharp objects, 66 with vehicles, 60 with some other object, and 72 undetermined. As for race, only 27 were Black--4 were unknown, 2 were American Indians, 2 were Asian/Pacific Islander, 15 were Hispanic, and 31 were White.

But all of that is beside the point I was making, that when the police do act in ways that give people a reason to believe their lives are in immediate danger, juries are able to recognize that those believing they are in danger may be legally justified in shooting back. Or even in shooting first, if they don't realize they are being attacked by cops--something I doubt many cops are all that happy about.



ckaihatsu wrote:
Juries, after the fact -- but what about *prevention* -- ?

Can 'qualified immunity' be knocked-down, everywhere, so that killer cops are no longer protected by government policy -- (!) The idea here is *deterrence*, and also *defunding* those elitist centers of deathly power in favor of *social services* responses.



Doug64 wrote:
You have noticed this thread is about the Rittenhouse trial, right?



You generalized the politics when you mentioned the 1,000+ dead.
#15205030
The problem is that so many on the left side of this argument want to make this about the police or anything other than the violent gun culture we have in this country. I don't know why they are hiding from this.

The problem is not sending armed police to handle calls that do not require force. The problem is sending untrained cops to do this. I agree with having mental health crisis teams to deal with disturbed people. I work with a great many disturbed people and the inescapable fact is that many of them are violent. I have had this violence directed at me before even though I have been trained to deescalate. Sometimes it is quite appropriate to send the police even when professionals are on the scene. With schizophrenic people, for example, things can go south very quickly indeed.

Back during the Reagan administration some well-meaning but uninformed (at best) people, mostly left leaning, became concerned that mental health facilities were warehousing people against their will and without sound medical reason. They prevailed despite the warnings of the medical community and the result was that many mental health facilities were closed and the patients kicked outdoors.

So rather than be compelled to get the medicine that makes their lives bearable, these poor (often) paranoid schizophrenics were left to sleep hungry in their own filth, constantly terrified of everything around them. A truly miserable existence for them and often a danger to the rest of us.

Some of these former patients require interventions that are just too much for mental health workers to handle outside of a controlled environment. Some of them must be subdued. I have had weapons pulled on my by SMI people. So far I have avoided serious injury but that is not always the outcome.

The state of mental health care in the US is appalling. We basically do not have any outside of our individual medical insurance and that usually extremely limits coverage. We have few mental health inpatient facilities and even fewer long term care facilities. And the few we have tend not to be geographically dispersed.

So what does this have to do with Rittenhouse? As long as we have a system that is so loose that a 17 year old child can get a firearm and carry it past the police and into a protest, we are going to continue to have these kinds of incidents. There is no doubt in my mind that Rittenhouse was/is mentally ill and that he is just the tip of the iceberg. Homes across America are stuffed with firearms, owned by mostly far right people who think that they need to arm themselves AGAINST the police.

I see POD did not read my post and decided to post a response to a question he prefers to address rather than my point.
#15205036
Drlee wrote:The problem is that so many on the left side of this argument want to make this about the police or anything other than the violent gun culture we have in this country. I don't know why they are hiding from this.


The Kenosha killer and cause celebre of US conservatives was shooting people at a protest against police brutality.

The same cops that thanked the killer for his work.

The problem is not sending armed police to handle calls that do not require force. The problem is sending untrained cops to do this. I agree with having mental health crisis teams to deal with disturbed people. I work with a great many disturbed people and the inescapable fact is that many of them are violent. I have had this violence directed at me before even though I have been trained to deescalate. Sometimes it is quite appropriate to send the police even when professionals are on the scene. With schizophrenic people, for example, things can go south very quickly indeed.


Again, I invite you to look at the evidence and provide any good reason to not continue and develop these programs that have proven so effective.

Here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... al-workers
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3zpqm/ ... thout-guns
https://www.route-fifty.com/public-safe ... ce/166557/

Back during the Reagan administration some well-meaning but uninformed (at best) people, mostly left leaning, became concerned that mental health facilities were warehousing people against their will and without sound medical reason. They prevailed despite the warnings of the medical community and the result was that many mental health facilities were closed and the patients kicked outdoors.

So rather than be compelled to get the medicine that makes their lives bearable, these poor (often) paranoid schizophrenics were left to sleep hungry in their own filth, constantly terrified of everything around them. A truly miserable existence for them and often a danger to the rest of us.

Some of these former patients require interventions that are just too much for mental health workers to handle outside of a controlled environment. Some of them must be subdued. I have had weapons pulled on my by SMI people. So far I have avoided serious injury but that is not always the outcome.

The state of mental health care in the US is appalling. We basically do not have any outside of our individual medical insurance and that usually extremely limits coverage. We have few mental health inpatient facilities and even fewer long term care facilities. And the few we have tend not to be geographically dispersed.


People with mental health issues are 16 times more likely to be killed by police than the rest of us. Studies estimate that between one quarter and one half of all people killed by police have mental health problems.

Police killings and mental health are an intertwined problem in the USA.

https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org ... forcement-

So what does this have to do with Rittenhouse? As long as we have a system that is so loose that a 17 year old child can get a firearm and carry it past the police and into a protest, we are going to continue to have these kinds of incidents. There is no doubt in my mind that Rittenhouse was/is mentally ill and that he is just the tip of the iceberg. Homes across America are stuffed with firearms, owned by mostly far right people who think that they need to arm themselves AGAINST the police.


The Kenosha killer is not mentally ill.

He is simply the very rational outcome of a history and culture.

I see POD did not read my post and decided to post a response to a question he prefers to address rather than my point.


@Drlee

Please, clarify your argument and I will address that.
#15205103
Drlee wrote:Qualified immunity does not protect "killer cops". If a cop breaks the law they go to jail. I am not clear how you see sending a social worker to a 'man with a gun' or 'armed robbery' call is going to help.


They wouldn't be? The fact of the matter is that the police are designed to resolve disputes with force and represent the monopoly of force the state has. And not all situations can be resolved with force unless you consider incarceration or murder to be the optimal outcomes in all situations.

Drlee wrote:Back during the Reagan administration some well-meaning but uninformed (at best) people, mostly left leaning, became concerned that mental health facilities were warehousing people against their will and without sound medical reason. They prevailed despite the warnings of the medical community and the result was that many mental health facilities were closed and the patients kicked outdoors.


Yes it was the leftists who really got things accomplished under the Reagan administration by doing exactly what the president wanted, which was shuttering social welfare programs.
#15205122
SpecialOlympian wrote:Yes it was the leftists who really got things accomplished under the Reagan administration by doing exactly what the president wanted, which was shuttering social welfare programs.

Interestingly enough, the same thing happened in Britain during the 1980s under Thatcher, another centre-right administration. I believe they even used the same "left-leaning" excuse too. Lol.
User avatar
By MadMonk
#15205130
Potemkin wrote:Interestingly enough, the same thing happened in Britain during the 1980s under Thatcher, another centre-right administration. I believe they even used the same "left-leaning" excuse too. Lol.


To be fair, Sweden also closed down mental hospitals during the 1980s while being governed by the Social Democratic Workers Party (SAP) under first Olof Palme and after his assassination Ingvar Carlsson. SAP have never been stronger in modern history than during the 80s but were definitely affected by international trends and combatting a failing economy. The medical community of the time were split on this question but many left-leaning doctors and nurses supported the closing of these facilities citing concerns of warehousing, segregation and poor living conditions. There were cases of the mentally ill living on the streets after this and only in the recent decade have conditions improved for the vulnerable. I can't imagine that the US had a better experience, especially with all their veterans who suffers from PTSD.
#15205133
MadMonk wrote:To be fair, Sweden also closed down mental hospitals during the 1980s while being governed by the Social Democratic Workers Party (SAP) under first Olof Palme and after his assassination Ingvar Carlsson. SAP have never been stronger in modern history than during the 80s but were definitely affected by international trends and combatting a failing economy. The medical community of the time were split on this question but many left-leaning doctors and nurses supported the closing of these facilities citing concerns of warehousing, segregation and poor living conditions. There were cases of the mentally ill living on the streets after this and only in the recent decade have conditions improved for the vulnerable. I can't imagine that the US had a better experience, especially with all their veterans who suffers from PTSD.

Indeed. It seems to have been the "received wisdom" in the 1980s that the mentally ill were better off outside institutions than inside them; an idea which we now know to be somewhat questionable at best. Thatcher called it "care in the community". The only problem with that phrase is that, usually, the community doesn't care.
#15205213
Yes it was the leftists who really got things accomplished under the Reagan administration by doing exactly what the president wanted, which was shuttering social welfare programs.


Unbelievably, yes it was. Custodial care fell to law suits brought by patient "advocates" and civil rights organizations that did the job for Reagan. He did not have to do anything short of "reorganizing the Public Health Service nearly out of existence.

The fact of the matter is that the police are designed to resolve disputes with force and represent the monopoly of force the state has. And not all situations can be resolved with force unless you consider incarceration or murder to be the optimal outcomes in all situations.


That is what police have become but it wasn't always that way. Last time I looked, we owned the police departments. We can morph them into far more effective organizations and pass some duties along to those with much more targeted expertise. But often the first step to getting someone help is to prevent them from committing a crime. And the first order of the day, and responsibility of government is to protect its innocent citizens.
#15205398
It is important to point out that Mr. Rosenbaum, the first person killed by the Kenosha killer, was mentally ill.

His killer is not mentally ill.
By Doug64
#15206757
Image

@Pants-of-dog, when someone is chasing you down with clear intent to inflict serious bodily harm if not death, their mental state is irrelevant.

And just breaking today, the last of the cases dealing with the Rittenhouse's clear case of self defense is closing out with a misdemeanor deal:

Man charged with buying gun for Rittenhouse takes plea deal
The man who bought Kyle Rittenhouse an assault-style rifle when he was only 17 has agreed to plead no contest to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a non-criminal citation, and avoid convictions on the two felonies he’d been facing.

The Journal Sentinel reports Dominick Black, 20, was charged in November 2020 with two counts of delivering a dangerous weapon to a minor, resulting in death. The two counts related to Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, the protesters Rittenhouse fatally shot the night of Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha.

Black was 18 when he purchased the rifle for Rittenhouse at a hardware store in Rusk County in May of that year. At 17, Rittenhouse was too young to legally purchase the weapon.

In August 2020, Rittenhouse used the rifle to kill two people and wound a third during protests in Kenosha. In November, a jury found him not guilty, based on his claim of self-defense.

Black was the first prosecution witness at Rittenhouse’s trial, but the status of his own charges were up in the air after Judge Bruce Schroeder agreed to throw out one of the charges against Rittenhouse — that he unlawfully possessed a firearm as a minor. The defense convinced Schroeder that an exception in the law allows 17-year-olds to possess rifles and shotguns, or at least left the law too vague to be enforceable.

On Friday, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger filed a proposed plea agreement. It suggested Black would plead no contest to a pair of citations, and pay a $2,000 fine, and the felony counts would be dismissed.

A hearing is scheduled Monday morning. Schroeder could reject the deal, or dismiss the original felony counts based on his ruling about the minors-with-firearms law in the Rittenhouse case.

It isn't likely that Judge Schroeder is going to reject the deal and leave the felonies in place, but dismissing the felonies entirely is certainly a possibility--after all, if Rittenhouse could legally carry the gun, then even if Black had immediately given the gun to Rittenhouse rather than holding on to it until Rittenhouse turned eighteen it wouldn't be a case of making a straw purchase.
#15206782
Doug64 wrote:[
@Pants-of-dog, when someone is chasing you down with clear intent to inflict serious bodily harm if not death, their mental state is irrelevant.


If you are arguing that Mr, Rosenbaum was going to hurt the killer, you are making a baseless speculation.

Mr, Rosenbaum was obviously mentally ill and should have been receiving medical treatment. If the killer had been there to help people as he claimed, he should have helped Mr. Rosenbaum find medical attention, not killed him.
#15206784
Pants-of-dog wrote:If you are arguing that Mr, Rosenbaum was going to hurt the killer, you are making a baseless speculation.

Mr, Rosenbaum was obviously mentally ill and should have been receiving medical treatment. If the killer had been there to help people as he claimed, he should have helped Mr. Rosenbaum find medical attention, not killed him.

Lol. Rosenbaum was mentally ill, and was clearly trying to induce someone to kill him. All the more reason why Kyle Rittenhouse should not have put himself in that situation - rioters and looters tend not to be the most stable of people. Acquiring a rifle and strutting around pretending to be Rambo in a riot zone was terminally dumb.
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