[Pants-of-dog]

--------the cops shoot more whites than blacks.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/aft ... -by-police

After Ferguson, black men still face the highest risk of being killed by police
Health Aug 9, 2019 5:10 PM EDT
Five years after Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, launched a national conversation about race and police brutality, black men are still more likely to die by police violence than white men.

According to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, over the course of a lifetime, black men face a one in 1,000 risk of being killed during an encounter with police, a rate much higher than that of white men.

What the study found

Black men and boys face the highest risk of being killed by police–at a rate of 96 out of 100,000 deaths. By comparison, white men and boys face a lower rate of 39 per 100,000 deaths, despite being a bigger portion of the U.S. population. Overall, men faced a rate of 52 per 100,000 deaths.

Lead author Frank Edwards, an assistant professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, studied federal data from 2013 to 2018 that was pulled from the National Vital Statistics System. Each year, those numbers are compiled from death certificates. He also used Fatal Encounters data, which uses media reporting and social media to count how many police-involved deaths occur nationwide and identify each victim’s demographic information.

That risk is greatest between ages 20 and 35 for men and women overall, and men are far more likely than women to be killed by police, Edwards said. He noted that the numbers they have are “conservative” and said that many killings likely go unreported. More data is needed to understand the scale and scope of this problem, he said.

[Political Interest]

Thank you, I've had an epiphany...

Yes, I truly have. Like the tolling of an iron bell striking midnight, I have heard what you have said, and it's total projection of shrieking hatred and nonsense, wrapped up in a bundle of self-righteous and un-reflective cant, complete with the identity politics and anti-semitism that has doomed the modern ''Left''. That is, there is no Left, just a nullity, nihilism and impotent rage against the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, against civilization and morality itself.

You could care less for all the George Floyd's of the world, they are just a means to tear down, to kill, and to destroy. No, justice for George Floyd would mean an end to this particular carnival of destruction, and the show must go on, abetted by (irony of ironies!) the shameless and immoral meanstream media of global plutocratic capitalism....

I am unspeakably disgusted.

It does not matter the ideology, it is misanthropy.

Far left and far right are two sides of the same coin. Over the last year or so I have come to realise that Bolshevism was of two types, the far left Marxist internationalist type of the far right fascist/National Socialist type. They both need each other.

the boomer nazbol thinks he's left wing. The fuck out of here, fash

So you just insult people who disagree with you?

I have read post after post of his where he has condemned fascism and the Axis powers, to a much greater extent than many other posters.

Nobody has the slightest clue what the fuck you're even talking about, and that's because neither do you. You're just repeating yourself like a mindless insect.

Or maybe it's just you who doesn't understand. I understand perfectly well.

[Donna]

lol

[Julian658]

Black men and boys face the highest risk of being killed by police–at a rate of 96 out of 100,000 deaths. By comparison, white men and boys face a lower rate of 39 per 100,000 deaths, despite being a bigger portion of the U.S. population.

POD:

Besides skin color: Do you think there are other variables that may affect the describe rate? or do you think this is unidimensional?

[Pants-of-dog]

@Julian658

Your ploy to change the subject away from racism is transparent and (in the context of this thread) looks like an attempt to justify police brutality against black people.

The history of racist police violence in the US is long and continues to this day.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithson ... 180964098/

Modern policing did not evolve into an organized institution until the 1830s and '40s when northern cities decided they needed better control over quickly growing populations. The first American police department was established in Boston in 1838. The communities most targeted by harsh tactics were recent European immigrants. But, as African-Americans fled the horrors of the Jim Crow south, they too became the victims of brutal and punitive policing in the northern cities where they sought refuge.

In 1929, the Illinois Association for Criminal Justice published the Illinois Crime Survey. Conducted between 1927 and 1928, the survey sought to analyze causes of high crime rates in Chicago and Cook County, especially among criminals associated with Al Capone. But also the survey provided data on police activity—although African-Americans made up just five percent of the area's population, they constituted 30 percent of the victims of police killings, the survey revealed.


"There was a lot of one-on-one conflict between police and citizens and a lot of it was initiated by the police," says Malcolm D. Holmes, a sociology professor at the University of Wyoming, who has researched and written about the topic of police brutality extensively.

That same year, President Herbert Hoover established the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement to investigate crime related to prohibition in addition to policing tactics. Between 1931 and 1932, the commission published the findings of its investigation in 14 volumes, one of which was titled “Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement.” The realities of police brutality came to light, even though the commission did not address racial disparities outright.
....

[Julian658]

@Julian658

Your ploy to change the subject away from racism is transparent and (in the context of this thread) looks like an attempt to justify police brutality against black people.

POD: Please stop the strawmen, you are a stem man.
There is plenty of racism POD. And the police is violent.

However, the media and lefties like you are harming black people . You guys are inflicting massive racial PTSD and anxiety on black America. The level of racism is going down however, the PTSD is going up. Why not discus both angles?

[Pants-of-dog]

@Julian658

Your PTSD argument is stupid (in that it makes no sense when considered logically) and wrong (in that it is contradicted by reality) and irrelevant (in that it has nothing to do with the police brutality) and a little bit racist (in that it assumes black people are stupid and impressionable).

From the previous link:

...
During the Civil Rights Era, though many of the movement's leaders advocated for peaceful protests, the 1960s were fraught with violent and destructive riots.

Aggressive dispersion tactics, such as police dogs and fire hoses, against individuals in peaceful protests and sit-ins were the most widely publicized examples of police brutality in that era. But it was the pervasive violent policing in communities of color that built distrust at a local, everyday level.


One of the deadliest riots occurred in Newark in 1967 after police officers severely beat black cab driver John Smith during a traffic stop. Twenty-six people died and many others were injured during the four days of unrest. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson organized the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to investigate the causes of these major riots.

The origins of the unrest in Newark weren't unique in a police versus citizen incident. The commission concluded "police actions were 'final' incidents before the outbreak of violence in 12 of the 24 surveyed disorders.”


The commission identified segregation and poverty as indicators and published recommendations for reducing social inequalities, recommending an “expansion and reorientation of the urban renewal program to give priority to projects directly assisting low-income households to obtain adequate housing.” Johnson, however, rejected the commission’s recommendations.

Black newspapers reported incidents of police brutality throughout the early and mid-20th century and the popularization of radio storytelling spread those stories even further. In 1991, following the beating of cab driver Rodney King, video footage vividly told the story of police brutality on television to a much wider audience. The police officers, who were acquitted of the crime, had hit King more than 50 times with their batons.


Today, live streaming, tweets and Facebook posts have blasted the incidents of police brutality, beyond the black community and into the mainstream media. Philando Castile’s fiancée, Diamond Reynolds, who was in the car with her daughter when he was shot, streamed the immediate aftermath of the shooting on her phone using Facebook live.

"Modern technology allows, indeed insists, that the white community take notice of these kinds of situations and incidents," says Pretzer.


And as technology has evolved, so has the equipment of law enforcement. Police departments with military-grade equipment have become the norm in American cities. Images of police officers in helmets and body armor riding through neighborhoods in tanks accompany stories of protests whenever one of these incidents occurs.

"What we see is a continuation of an unequal relationship that has been exacerbated, made worse if you will, by the militarization and the increase in fire power of police forces around the country," says Pretzer.

The resolution to the problem, according to Pretzer, lies not only in improving these unbalanced police-community relationships, but, more importantly, in eradicating the social inequalities that perpetuate these relationships that sustain distrust and frustration on both sides.

'There’s a tendency to stereotype people as being more or less dangerous. There’s a reliance upon force that goes beyond what is necessary to accomplish police duty," says Holmes. "There’s a lot of this embedded in the police departments that helps foster this problem."

[Drlee]

Cardiopulmonary arrest" is a heart attack man.

No its not.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

It took several excruciating days before the county’s chief prosecutor, Michael Freeman, finally saw fit to file criminal charges against Chauvin, and then only for second-degree manslaughter, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison but usually resulting in a much lighter sentence, as well as something Minnesota calls third-degree murder, a crime punishable by up to 25 years but applicable only where someone unintentionally causes death by “reckless or wanton acts … without special regard to their effect on any particular person” — like shooting aimlessly into a crowd.

No one remotely familiar with Minnesota law would regard either of those charges as the right ones to bring in this case — a case where, even if intent cannot be proven, a second-degree felony murder charge, punishable by 40 years in prison, is manifestly justified. Under a quirk in Minnesota law, second-degree murder can be charged where an assault — such as the first-degree assault evident from Chauvin’s placement of his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes — unintentionally results in death.

However, it was third degree murder for which Mohamed Noor was convicted when, as a police officer on duty, he shot Justine Damond without challenging her in any way when she approached his car after calling the police about a possible attack on a woman.

The statute says "Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree". A Minnesota Supreme Court ruling of 1970 says that "without intent to effect the death of any person" must mean there can be no action directed toward a single person, and that is what the Boston Globe article is arguing, but the more recent conviction of Noor has remained, presumably because he didn't intend to "effect the death" of whom he shot at, but did perform "an act eminently dangerous to others" "without regard for human life". Those same circumstances could apply here. The "depraved mind" is what the jury will have to decide about.

[Rugoz]

POD:

Besides skin color: Do you think there are other variables that may affect the describe rate? or do you think this is unidimensional?

This often-cited study finds racial bias in non-lethal violence but no bias in lethal violence.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upsh ... tings.html

[Pants-of-dog]

@Prosthetic Conscience

I would assume that it is easier to convince a jury to ignore legal details when dealing with a black officer shooting a white woman. A white officer killing a black man? I can see the DA using this loophole to convince at least one jurist, or the judge, to dismiss this.

[skinster]

The Treason of the Ruling Class
The ruling elites no longer have legitimacy. They have destroyed our capitalist democracy and replaced it with a mafia state. What the Roman philosopher Cicero called a commonwealth, a res publica, a “public thing” or the “property of a people,” has been transformed into an instrument of naked pillage and repression on behalf of a global corporate oligarchy. We are serfs ruled by obscenely rich, omnipotent masters who loot the U.S. Treasury, pay little or no taxes and have perverted the judiciary, the media and the legislative branches of government to strip us of civil liberties and give them the freedom to commit financial fraud and theft.

The loss of control over our system of rulership, the misuse of all democratic institutions, the electoral process and laws to funnel money upwards into to a handful of oligarchs while stripping us of power, ominously means that the ruling elites can no longer claim the right to have a monopoly on violence. Violence employed by police and security agencies such as the FBI, which have devolved into occupying forces, to protect the exclusive interests of a tiny, ruling criminal class exposes the fiction of the rule of law and the treason of the ruling elites.

“In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience,” Stokely Carmichael warned. And if your opponent is bereft of a conscience, then state violence is inevitably met with counter-violence. Tyranny takes the place of reform. The danger of widespread sectarian violence in America is now very real.

There are three options: reform, which, given the decay in the American body politic, is impossible; revolution; or tyranny. The more things deteriorate, the more the elites feel threatened, the more brutal the police, the National Guard and the organs of state security will become. The longer the serfs defy their masters the more the populations in the jails and prisons, which are already the largest in the world, will swell.

If the mafia state is not overthrown, then America will become a naked police state where any opposition, however tepid, will be met with draconian censorship or force. Police in cities around the country have already thwarted the reporting by dozens of journalists covering the protests through physical force, arrests, tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray. The huge social divides, largely built around race, will be used by the neo-fascists in power to divert a legitimate rage by a betrayed working class to set neighbor against neighbor. Neo-fascist “patriots” will be unleashed like attack dogs against people of color, Muslims, feminists, intellectuals, artists, the media and liberals. Dissent, even nonviolent dissent, will become treason.

The uprisings in the streets of American cities are not only about the wanton murder by police of yet another person of color, but a frantic fight to wrest back power over our own lives. They go far behind police brutality, a daily reality for those trapped in our internal colonies where 1,100 citizens are murdered by police every year, almost all unarmed. The uprisings are fueled as well by the seizure of the institutional and structural mechanisms that once made some form of equality, always imperfect and always colored by an animus towards the poor and people of color, possible.

Half the country lives in poverty or a category called near poverty. The working class and the working poor are priced out of the health care system. The schools do not educate their children, who live without adequate food and often clean water, are repeatedly evicted from their homes, have their utilities shut off, cannot find jobs, are crippled by punishing debt peonage and with the pandemic are dying at disproportionally higher rates. They get the message the oligarchs are sending. They, and their children, are expendable. They don’t count. Their lives are of no consequence, unless they are locked in a cage where their bodies can generate as much as $60,000 a year for the multitude of corporations, including the for-profit medical services, food services, money transfer services, commissary services, phone services, private prisons and prison contractors, not to mention the large corporations and state governments that exploit the cheap and bonded labor of 1 million of our 2.3 million prisoners.

The prison system is a multi-billion dollar a year industry with lobbyists in state capitals and Washington making sure these bodies remain in cages or are put back into cages soon after they are released. The neo-slavery in our prisons is the corporate model envisioned for all of America.

The two ruling parties are equally complicit in this assault. The Democratic Party, in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, is trying to sell us a presidential nominee, Joe Biden, who was one of the principal architects of de-industrialization and responsible for the loss of hundreds of thousands of good, union jobs. Biden and Bill Clinton also destroyed our welfare program, where 70 percent of the recipients were children, and orchestrated the doubling of our prison population and the tripling and quadrupling of sentences.

Biden, as Naomi Murakawa points out in “The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America,” was a driving force behind the notoriously harsh penalties in the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988, and the three-strikes legislation in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which also provided funding for 100,000 new police officers and the aggressive prosecution of 60 new capital crimes. He sponsored legislation to dramatically curtail the ability of those in prison to appeal and led the passage of the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 and The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. He oversaw the militarization of the police and the massive expansion of death-eligible crimes, which he has repeatedly bragged about.

Biden was also at the forefront of the re-segregation of our public school system and has repeatedly called for cuts to Social Security. He was instrumental in the disastrous trade deals such as the North American free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and austerity programs as well as establishing the most pervasive system of mass government surveillance in human history. Watching Stacey Abrams, who certainly knows better, twist herself into contortions to lavish praise on Biden, even tossing the #MeToo movement overboard, is another sad example of the corrosive disease of careerism. Biden, one of the most important architects behind the wars in the Middle East, where we have squandered upwards of $7 trillion and destroyed or extinguished the lives of millions of people, is personally responsible for far more suffering and death at home and abroad than Donald Trump.

If we had a functioning judicial and legislative system, Biden, along with the other architects of our disastrous imperial wars, plundering of the country and betrayal of the American working class, would be put on trial, not offered up as a solution to our political and economic debacle. The myopia of the ruling elites is that they think they can foist Biden on us because he is not Trump. But the game is up. The façade of democracy no longer works.

It is only the dwindling and largely white middle and professional classes who still believe the fiction that this election offers a choice or that we live in a democracy. The working class and the working poor know better. Their lives were, as Barbara Ehrenreich wrote, one long emergency before the pandemic. Now they face the prospect of bankruptcy this summer when unemployment and stimulus checks run out, the moratorium is lifted on evictions to double or triple the unhoused population of 11 million people and unemployment skyrockets to 25 percent. Forty-eight percent of front line workers remain ineligible for sick pay, and some 43 million Americans have just lost their employee-sponsored health insurance. Food banks are already overrun with tens of thousands of desperate families.

And in the midst of this crisis, what did our kleptocratic rulers do? They looted $4 trillion on a scale unseen since the 2008 bailout overseen by Barack Obama and Biden. They gorged and enriched themselves at our expense, while tossing crumbs out of the windows of their private jets, yachts and palatial homes to the suffering and despised masses.

The CARES Act handed trillions in funds or tax breaks to oil companies, the airline industry, which alone got $50 billion in stimulus money, the cruise ship industry, a $170 billion windfall for the real estate industry, private equity firms, lobbying groups, whose political action committees have given $191 million in campaign contributions to politicians in the last two decades, the meat industry and corporations that have moved offshore to avoid U.S. taxes. The act allowed the largest corporations to gobble up money that was supposed to go to keep small businesses solvent to pay workers. It gave 80 percent of tax breaks under the stimulus package to millionaires and allowed the wealthiest to get stimulus checks that average $1.7 million. The CARES Act also authorized $454 billion for the Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund, a massive slush fund doled out by Trump cronies to corporations that, when leveraged 10 to 1, can be used to create a staggering $4.5 trillion in assets. The act authorized the Fed to give $1.5 trillion in loans to Wall Street, which no one expects will ever be paid back. American billionaires have gotten $434 billion richer since the pandemic. Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, whose corporation Amazon paid no federal taxes last year, alone added $34.6 billion to his personal wealth since the pandemic started.

How long can you expect people to watch their children go hungry? How long can you expect people to watch their loved ones suffer and die because they can’t get medical care? How long can you expect people to be abused by lawless police and a court system designed to railroad the poor into jails and prisons? How long can you watch the rich profit from your misery?

I would prefer that our revolution eschew the poison of violence, which I know too intimately from my two decades as a war correspondent. But I also know that when everything around you conspires to crush you, the only way left to affirm yourself is to destroy, not only the structures and institutions that have oppressed you, but often yourself. I saw this when I lived in the impoverished neighborhood of Roxbury in Boston and when I worked as a reporter in Gaza. This understanding was something Malcom X, who came out of poverty, always understood and Martin Luther King, a product of the black bourgeoisie, learned later.

It is ultimately the ruling elites who will determine the mechanics of resistance. When they close every escape route, when they speak exclusively in the language of force, then the language of force becomes the only form of communication. Trump’s demand that states use the National Guard to crush the protests and threat to deploy the U.S. military in the streets of American cities only heightens the anger and frustration that led to the uprisings.

The ruling elites are, at the same time, desperately seeking scapegoats. The idea that Antifa, which on the spectrum of terrorist groups would rank alongside the Boy Scouts, is behind these clashes is as ridiculous as the idea that Russia is responsible for the election of Trump. This desperate search for explanations that absolve the ruling elites saw Susan Rice, who was Obama’s national-security adviser, blame the violence on “foreign actors,” adding that “this is right out of the Russian playbook.” This trope is always trotted by despotic rulers to discredit dissidents who are branded as the enemy of the people.

The longer the ruling elites refuse to address the root causes behind these protests, the more they loot the treasury to enrich themselves and their fellow oligarchs, the more they engage in futile and absurd efforts to deflect blame, the more unrest will spread. The last desperate resort by the oligarchs to save themselves will be to stoke the fires of racialized violence between disenfranchised whites and disenfranchised people of color. This, I fear, is the next chapter in this saga. I saw this tactic used to deadly effect in the former Yugoslavia. These are dark times. They are about to get darker.
https://scheerpost.com/2020/06/02/the-t ... AhGy4NwN-Q

BLAH BLAH BLAH

I am unspeakably disgusted.

I don't know why you pretend to be on the left still . I already told you can't be while supporting the rightwing racist Apartheid State. Here you prove again that you support racism by crying in defence of racist killer cops. I don't care about your disgust at me, but thanks for sharing your self-importance and as usual, boring and inscrutable nonsense.

the boomer nazbol thinks he's left wing. The fuck out of here, fash

Your analysis is completely retarded armchair pseudo-philosophical bullshit.

That it is.

[wat0n]

You can start a thread about it.

Why? It's certainly part of what's going on.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/31/opinion/minnesota-prosecutors-charges-might-lead-an-unjustly-easy-sentence-george-floyds-killer/

....

It took several excruciating days before the county’s chief prosecutor, Michael Freeman, finally saw fit to file criminal charges against Chauvin, and then only for second-degree manslaughter, an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison but usually resulting in a much lighter sentence, as well as something Minnesota calls third-degree murder, a crime punishable by up to 25 years but applicable only where someone unintentionally causes death by “reckless or wanton acts … without special regard to their effect on any particular person” — like shooting aimlessly into a crowd.

No one remotely familiar with Minnesota law would regard either of those charges as the right ones to bring in this case — a case where, even if intent cannot be proven, a second-degree felony murder charge, punishable by 40 years in prison, is manifestly justified. Under a quirk in Minnesota law, second-degree murder can be charged where an assault — such as the first-degree assault evident from Chauvin’s placement of his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes — unintentionally results in death.

More critically, anyone steeped in Minnesota law would recognize that the third-degree murder charge would likely be summarily dismissed for the ironic reason that Chauvin clearly aimed his acts at Floyd. Such a miscarriage of justice would surely trigger still more chaos and violence from coast to coast as people across the political spectrum come to see American justice as unworthy of the name.

One of us (Albert Goins) is a criminal law practitioner with decades of experience in criminal defense and the civil prosecution of police misconduct in Minnesota. The other (Laurence Tribe) is a legal scholar, teacher, and advocate with a half-century of experience in interpreting legal texts and applying constitutional principles to their enforcement. Both of us are baffled by what’s going on in this explosive case — one that has reopened the deepest wounds imaginable in our nation’s four-century-long struggle with race and that has triggered violent riots throughout the country.

Perhaps the Hennepin County prosecutor has simply made a gross filing error. Maybe he meant second-degree murder when he said third-degree murder. But somehow that seems unlikely. There is just too much well-settled precedent in Minnesota dealing with the inapplicability of third-degree murder charges where “all the blows were directed towards the victim.”

Besides, it seems a bit too convenient for this “error” to have come atop a coroner’s report that goes out of its way to note that Floyd’s death may have resulted not from asphyxiation alone but from a cessation of his ability to breathe compounded by various preexisting medical conditions. The idea that with a somewhat healthier victim, Chauvin’s knee might have had to remain in place a bit longer to cause death doesn’t seem particularly well calculated to exonerate Chauvin of second-degree murder.

....

The article includes link to the case law that supports this.

I clicked the URL and sent me to a sign in page. Is their cite from the following ruling?

An opinion cited in a Maryland appeals court case, Debettencourt v. State, said a depraved mind involves "a knowingly dangerous act with reckless and wanton unconcern and indifference as to whether anyone is harmed or not." It was also described as "a state of mind just as blameworthy, just as anti-social… just as truly murderous as the specific intents to kill..."

The charge was used two years ago to charge a Baltimore police officer with the murder of Freddie Gray, who died in police custody after he was driven to jail in a police van. The officer was found not guilty.

According to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, between 2007-2016 in Minnesota, 14 offenders have been sentenced for murder in the third degree involving a "depraved mind." Thirty-eight others have been sentenced in that period under a different section of the statute charging drug dealers in overdose cases.

A couple weeks ago, a grand jury indicted Eric Coleman for third degree murder, who was allegedly drunk on a snowmobile when he killed an eight-year-old boy. The charge was used years ago against Stephen Bailey, who called himself the true master and suffocated a man during a sadomasochistic sex act.

In the end, prosecutors had to settle for second degree manslaughter, death by someone's culpable negligence, which is a secondary charge Noor faces as well.

“I think what we're saying in this charge is that Officer Noor did not act reasonably, did not act objectively reasonably and abused his authority to use deadly force,” said Freeman.

The average sentence for third degree murder, if convicted, and without a previous criminal history, is in the range of 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission. In Minnesota, inmates typically serve two-thirds of their sentence while incarcerated.

Noor was charged with third degree murder, but it's interesting that there was a charge for a case of suffocation in the past. I can't quite find the case, so I'm not sure why that charge was thrown out but in the case of the snowmobile accident:

CENTER CITY, Minn. (FOX 9) - A jury found Eric Coleman guilty Tuesday nearly a year after the snowmobile driver fatally struck an eight-year-old Alan Geisenkoetter Jr. on Chisago Lake. He was found guilty on all seven counts, including third degree murder.

Coleman was facing one count of third degree murder, two counts of criminal vehicular homicide, two counts of criminal vehicular operation causing bodily harm and two counts of driving while intoxicated.

...

During the trial, prosecutors argued Coleman was guilty of third degree murder and that he recklessly caused Alan’s death by “perpetuating an act eminently dangerous without regard for human life,” meaning he drove drunk knowing the consequences.

I don't know about you, but in this case people were filming and telling Chauvin George Floyd couldn't breathe. I don't see how it would be any different: He knew the consequences of his actions, and didn't care (on top of the recklessness necessary for the second degree manslaughter, which also applies).

I also find their argument that second degree murder would be appropriate not all that obvious since intent is hard to prove:

609.19 MURDER IN THE SECOND DEGREE.
Subdivision 1.Intentional murder; drive-by shootings. Whoever does either of the following is guilty of murder in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 40 years:
(1) causes the death of a human being with intent to effect the death of that person or another, but without premeditation; or

(2) causes the death of a human being while committing or attempting to commit a drive-by shooting in violation of section 609.66, subdivision 1e, under circumstances other than those described in section 609.185, paragraph (a), clause (3).

Subd. 2.Unintentional murders. Whoever does either of the following is guilty of unintentional murder in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 40 years:
(1) causes the death of a human being, without intent to effect the death of any person, while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense other than criminal sexual conduct in the first or second degree with force or violence or a drive-by shooting; or

(2) causes the death of a human being without intent to effect the death of any person, while intentionally inflicting or attempting to inflict bodily harm upon the victim, when the perpetrator is restrained under an order for protection and the victim is a person designated to receive protection under the order. As used in this clause, "order for protection" includes an order for protection issued under chapter 518B; a harassment restraining order issued under section 609.748; a court order setting conditions of pretrial release or conditions of a criminal sentence or juvenile court disposition; a restraining order issued in a marriage dissolution action; and any order issued by a court of another state or of the United States that is similar to any of these orders.

Although, of course, if Derek Chauvin and George Floyd did know each other, and there's evidence they didn't get along, then subdivision 1(2) could apply (and one would even start considering a first degree murder charge). But how could prosecutors know this within 24 hours or even within a week?

Not quite.

We have two autopsies, one of which has been carefully written to introduce reasonable doubt. Wulfschilde is already arguing this in the thread, so it will work on many US jurists, and you only need one.

Why does it introduce reasonable doubt? He's clearly misreading it, and plenty of other posters (even those who aren't even particularly progressive) are saying that reading is nonsense.

I highly doubt that it was grans juries who decided that 100% of these killings were justified.

No, and I don't think I claimed so. But it is true that many of the most iconic cases ended with a grand jury acquittal, and it is also true that it seems it has historically been a relatively common outcome in these trial. The question, then, is why.

It seems like you are trying to ignore the systemic racism and other factors.

What I'm saying is that such racism has a lot to do with public attitudes towards these matters, since regular citizens participate in the legal process in the form of juries, and that these attitudes have been changing since BLM and the introduction of compulsory use of bodycams. This is keeping in mind that the added visual element is important for any regular person to have an opinion on what happened.

It is consistent with the broader statistics on police violence as well.

Feel free.

I have already provided evidence showing that cops routinely get away with shooting people.

In Minnesota specifically? How do you know it's routine there?

Please quote the relevant text.

Sure:

Over the night of September 9–10, the city witnessed an outbreak of hooliganism and looting. Some was rowdy behavior that scared respectable citizens, such as youths throwing rocks at streetcars and overturning the carts of street vendors. More overtly criminal activity included the smashing of store windows and looting their displays or setting off false fire alarms. Such activity was restricted to certain parts of the city and, according to the New York Times, "throughout the greater part of the city the usual peace and quiet prevailed."[22] In the morning the mayor asked the governor to furnish a force of State Guards; Coolidge promptly agreed and eventually provided almost 5,000 men under the command of Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Parker.[23] Commissioner Curtis later praised the State Guards' performance in his Annual Report: "The whole community is now aware of the effectiveness with which the Massachusetts State Guard worked when it came into the city. I cannot add anything to the universal chorus of commendation that has greeted their work."[24] The morning papers following the first night's violence were full of loud complaints and derogatory terms for the police: "deserters", "agents of Lenin."[1]

Violence peaked the next evening, the night of September 10–11. Businesses were better prepared. Some had boarded up and others stayed open all night with armed guards visible to discourage thieves taking advantage of the strike. Gamblers played dice in open view, and women had their handbags snatched. But the Guard's inexperience at handling crowds resulted in dangerous attempts to assert control. Gunfire in South Boston left two dead and others wounded. One person died in a riot at Scollay Square, a center of amusement halls and theaters.[25] Whether the crowds were threatening property or making trouble because they were in sympathy with the strikers is unknown.

The death total ultimately reached nine.[23] In the "cavalry charge" of State Guard troops in Scollay Square on the 10th, Robert Lallie was shot and killed;[26] Miss Margaret Walsh was wounded and died the next day.[27] Henry Groat (or Grote), age 20, was killed near the Armory near Jamaica Plain for refusing to abandon a game of craps.[28] On the 11th a striking policeman, a nine-year veteran named Richard D. Reemts, disarmed two strikebreaking policemen at Columbus Avenue and Buckingham Street then was fatally shot by an auto parts dealer.[29] Passerby Arthur E. (or E.B.) McGill was shot to death in Howard Street. Three other men, Raymond L. Barnen[30] (reported elsewhere as Bayers or Barros), Robert Sheehan, and Anthony Carr, were also killed on the 11th. The final fatal casualty may have been 25-year-old Gustave Geist on the 13th.[31] All but Reemts were shot by members of the state militia.

City life continued relatively normally, especially during daytime hours. Schools remained open. Later claims against the city for losses incurred during the two nights of disorder ran to $35,000, of which the city paid $34,000. Those figures represent a non-partisan calculation of the costs of the strike to the Boston business community.[32]

...

Effect on crime
After the walkout on Thursday, July 11, the BPD and the fire department received increased reports looting and arson. Trash fires (facilitated by the sanitation workers' strike) were the most common violation reported. These fires intensified immediately in southwest Baltimore, where all 22 officers on the night shift had walked off.[25] Fire alarms increased to hundreds per day, and some fire fighters were harassed when they arrived on the scene.[37] Neighborhoods already high in crime saw more of it.[32]

Police reported that the city was particularly quiet on the night of Friday, July 12.[36][38] This abrupt halt in reported crimes coincided with the visible arrival of outside forces.

One man, identified as a looter, was shot and killed by a nonstriking officer on July 12.[38] Commissioner Pomerleau declared, "We're in a semi-riot mode, similar to the 1968 riots."[39] However, activity in the streets never reached the same levels, and much less damage resulted.

Yes, in at least one case, I just ignored the guy and left because I had no other cash and did not feel like talking to some strangers about my private financial life.

Did you return the items you were trying to buy? In Floyd's case, it seems he went away without doing so. Not with a conscious intent to do so, since it turns out he wasn't particularly sober, but the store clerk couldn't quite know that.

If you were the clerk in that situation, what would you do? Also keep in mind Floyd was a bouncer and I won't say he wouldn't have been able to beat me up because that would be a lie.

They won't do anything. They'll blame it all on Trump if they win, and then they will do nothing. That's how the establishment operates all over the US and Europe. Someone like @noemon will say, "The fish rots from the head," but only when a Republican is president. Did Obama make Darren Wilson shoot Michael Brown? Did Obama make the NYPD choke hold Eric Garner? Did Obama make the OPD shoot Oscar Grant? See? All that rhetoric goes away when the welfare state people are on top. When they aren't, it's all name calling all the time. What happened in Minneapolis is standard Democrat urban political machine.

On the other hand, and this is to Obama's credit, those cases and the rise of Black Lives Matter also had a discernible effect on police violence, even if it didn't outright eradicate it. Now it's become pretty standard for police to wear bodycams, and police killings against unarmed individuals has trended down across the board. Police killings of blacks (in general, regardless of context) have also trended down since then.

There's been a steady improvement in this regard that if anything should be acknowledged. And I hope these trends continue, so the problem will disappear - and if it doesn't, then we need to keep researching why, and take the appropriate measures.

[Pants-of-dog]

I clicked the URL and sent me to a sign in page. Is their cite from the following ruling?

Noor was charged with third degree murder, but it's interesting that there was a charge for a case of suffocation in the past. I can't quite find the case, so I'm not sure why that charge was thrown out but in the case of the snowmobile accident:

I don't know about you, but in this case people were filming and telling Chauvin George Floyd couldn't breathe. I don't see how it would be any different: He knew the consequences of his actions, and didn't care (on top of the recklessness necessary for the second degree manslaughter, which also applies).

I also find their argument that second degree murder would be appropriate not all that obvious since intent is hard to prove:

Although, of course, if Derek Chauvin and George Floyd did know each other, and there's evidence they didn't get along, then subdivision 1(2) could apply (and one would even start considering a first degree murder charge). But how could prosecutors know this within 24 hours or even within a week?

I have already discussed why I think that the DA et al are trying to get the murderer off.

You can have faith that the police will proceed in good faith against one of their own, but the ongoing brutality of the last few days suggest against such faith.

Why does it introduce reasonable doubt? He's clearly misreading it, and plenty of other posters (even those who aren't even particularly progressive) are saying that reading is nonsense.

Because it does not acknowledge the choking as cause of death. It cites heart problems and the stress of the arrest, as well as the possibility of drugs.

The cops can claim that his heart stopped from the stress of being a gangster being caught.

No, and I don't think I claimed so. But it is true that many of the most iconic cases ended with a grand jury acquittal, and it is also true that it seems it has historically been a relatively common outcome in these trial. The question, then, is why.

Why has almost every single unjustified killing by police not been taken to court and convicted?

What I'm saying is that such racism has a lot to do with public attitudes towards these matters, since regular citizens participate in the legal process in the form of juries, and that these attitudes have been changing since BLM and the introduction of compulsory use of bodycams. This is keeping in mind that the added visual element is important for any regular person to have an opinion on what happened.

It is consistent with the broader statistics on police violence as well.

Yes, constant demands to keep police accountable have helped.

This does not change the fact that systemic racism has been a large part of the ongoing police brutality and why cops get away with it.

In Minnesota specifically? How do you know it's routine there?

It is routine everywhere.

Sure:

Notice how the vast majority of killings were by the police.

Did you return the items you were trying to buy? In Floyd's case, it seems he went away without doing so. Not with a conscious intent to do so, since it turns out he wasn't particularly sober, but the store clerk couldn't quite know that.

If you were the clerk in that situation, what would you do? Also keep in mind Floyd was a bouncer and I won't say he wouldn't have been able to beat me up because that would be a lie.

This is just getting silly.

There is no way to pretend that a white.persin would end up killed by police for this even if the white guy deliberately stole a few things.

[XogGyux]

Drug trafficking surges at southern border, illegal immigration down
New Data: Legal Immigration Has Declined Under Trump
Both legal and illegal immigration are down.

No thanks to anything tangible that he has done so far. Unless you want to argue that he just made the country shittier and people don’t want to come here legally or illegally. Maybe then you’d have a point but I would argue that setting your house in fire so that you stop getting visitors is not a reasonable solution.
The reality is that immigration was coming down long before Trump ever got to be president.
That stupid wall that he cried so much never got built, and I would not be surprised if he starts recycling this material soon enough.

Yes. Do you remember that many of his supporters were happy about that shutdown, including me?

No actually. It does not even make sense. Why would his “supporters” be happy for him throwing a tantrum and still getting his way denied by congress. What I remember is many of his right-wingers supports, such as Ann Coulter and others starting to realize that this guy was a con artist.
So if for some reason you were “happy” that a bunch of people lost or had their paychecks delayed because of a non-sense tantrum that culminated with him caving... then you are more disturbing that I thought. The only people I could think would be happy about this are enemies of the US. Tell me, are you an enemy of the US?

Like what? You are upset about police harassment, except if you can get them to go after Republican pols and supporters?

I don’t know. Let’s get them and find out. Probably more embarrassing shit than illegal. He is probably in deep debt and has a shitty net worth or something like that because that is the kind of shit that he cares about, appearances. If it was merely something criminal he probably wouldn’t care as much, after all he has been already subject of criminal investigation and not charged solely because of the office that he hold hostage.

Violating the Privacy Act is a criminal offense. I see that doesn't bother you.

Frankly not much in this case. He has asymmetrical power that he is abusing so I say let the gloves come off.
If he had cooperated and behaved like every single other president/politician before him sure, but that is not the case.
And it is not like this information is not relevant... financial conflicts and/or possible leverage and/or fraud/illegalities is something that voters SHOULD have access to.
So no, it does not bother me.

The majority in this country isn't far left, but they are now a significant faction in the Democratic party

LOL, compared to the facists idiots that have become Trump sheeps everyone is far left. But even “far left” Bernie would probably be as centrists as it comes if he were in any other of the democratic countries. “Medicare for all, super far left” except canada has it, the UK has it, Germany’s has it, Japan has it... so yeah... all of those countries are far left.
Dude...

U.S. enjoys best manufacturing jobs growth of the last 30 years
The Wuhan coronavirus, Democratic lockdowns and rioting Democrats are harming the economy now, but people saw wage increases and low unemployment for the first time in 30 years.

Call it like you want. Both democratic and republican governors shut down the economy and trump himself took the earlier steps and his government gave the guidance/blessing.
Yeah, keep trying to blame only democrats when it is the whole country that is going in flames, likely due to having a maniac at the driving wheel.

Ok. How many people on this board who voted for Trump do you think are going to switch to Biden. I'm guessing the number is 0 or close to it.

This board is not representative of the population at large.
And frankly, that is not the path to victory. Turnout is going to be the path to victory. That is how democrats have demolished republicans, including some in deeply red states up to now. Plenty of research have been done on this topic, it is far more efficient to make sure those that already agree with you to show up than to try to convince people that vaccine is not a cause of autism, that immigrants are not the cause of economic problems and that big foot does not exist.
I have a hunch that the young voter turnout and the African American turnout will be particularly high this year. We will see.

I don't think that's going to make a dime's worth of difference. Trump's poll numbers reached an all time high during impeachment.

I guess we will see.

The Whiskey Rebellion, Shay's Rebellion, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Great Depression were worse. This is more on par with 1968.

Oh wow, you have made a list of the all time records of misery of this country so that we can beat them...
Are you actually cheering for the destruction of the US?

I think they are going to make sure this guy gets convicted. At least the Feds will.

Maybe, frankly the bland reaction by the police does not inspire much confidence and it would not be the first time that after outrage and clear evidence of wrong doing they walk.

You are quite naive about the justice system. I'm pretty sure, unless he pleas out, his defense will have an expert witness testifying to the exact opposite.

There won’t be an “expert” testifying that fentanyl causes heart attacks.
Opioids are routinely used for the treatment of pain in patients with myocardial infarction.
If you think you can reasonably argue that the guy had a heart attack in part because of a drug that is often used for the treatment of pain of people that are having heart attacks, good luck with that. I’d want to see who is the Doctor willing to destroy his/her reputation and any credibility in order to save a guy that has sparked so much pain and so many protests.

It doesn't matter what we believe.

It does not matter what YOU believe, given that you believe in bullshit.

What Al Franken did is far less serious than what Biden is accused of by someone who used to work for him.

Yes... and he still had the decency of leave.
What Trump has already admitted on video is far worse than what Al Franken did... yet he has done nothing.
Biden accuser suffers from not having a consistent story, having no evidence, and making an accusation that describes a character that nobody else has described (or believes) Biden is capable of. Joe Biden is more of the creepy old dude than the violent asshole that this lady is describing.
And make no mistake, if there was a video clearly showing Joe Biden doing what he is being accused of him doing, and it came to vote for him or trump, I’ll still vote for Biden and then demand his resignation, impeachment and prosecution the second that he is sworn in. Trump is a dangerous person AND a criminal.
If I had to choose between two rotten apples for me to eat, I’d choose the one that is not covered in cyanide. There is nothing that Biden has been accused of (without evidence) that Trump haven’t (with plenty of evidence) and on top of that he is chaotic, ignorant, divisive, bully... The choice is obvious. Not saying that Biden is guilty, In fact I am reasonably comfortably confident that he has not done what he is being accused of, but if he was... there is still no comparison, Trump himself has admitted of doing what Biden is being accused of and much more.

I want to see the guy convicted, not just charged. You don't remember the Rodney King cop trials, because you're too young for that.

The nation, the world, remembers. That is why there is protests and riots.

Biden is an establishent guy. This is the shit you are voting for.

Newsflash sir... these trigger words don’t provoke an emotional response on me. This “establishment” that you are talking about is exactly the same “establishment” that Trump was born into. He might have no formal political tenure but he is very well part of the establishment. Go vote for fucking Brad Pitt or Madonna if an outsider is what you really want.
No, you don’t want an outsider, you want someone who “your enemy”, those disgusting liberals, find repugnant to their core.
Trump is not an outsider, if anything he is more of an insider than any other politician. Unlike other politicians that had to work to get to where they are, and got corrupted over decades, Trump was born into this world, grew into this “establishment” and is very much part of this establishment. Your words are nonsense.

Yes, but you can't be tried twice for the same crime. No double jeopardy unless a mistrial is declared.

You see? You are already assuming acquittal and then you wonder why people are protesting. Out of touch.
This cannot happen, there is objective, undisputed evidence of the crime and the protests are a demand for this as well as a prelude for what would likely come as a result of a rigged trial.

I'm sick of the establishment.

No you are not. Your guy is the establishment. Except for his own family, every people that he brought to his administration are also establishment. These are the stupid shit you guys masturbate to while pretending that you are been some sort of ideological revolutionary when in reality the reality is more like IDIOTical revolutionary Not to mention dangerous.

The Democrats not only didn't learn from 2016, they went considerably farther to the left.

Really? You are telling me Biden is to the left of Hillary?
Do you brainstorm your ideas before putting them into words or do you spit whatever nonsense that pops into your mind. For one, even the most extreme of the Democratic Party fall shorts of what the rest of 1st world countries is considered “left”, let alone “far left”.

Much of what you consider unprecedented has precedent. It's just that you either don't know much history or you are too young to remember.

Perhaps. Or perhaps you are too demented to use your brain.

Democrat states forcing people into lockdowns.

And so are republican states.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... virus.html

Hoax to cover-up establishment wrongdoing.

The cover up was trump reverting witnesses to testify.
The cover up was republican senators submission and blind following of their “leader.”

Manufactured by Russian intelligence and paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Right, Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid the Russian intelligence to collude with Trump to win the election against Hillary Clinton’s. By the way, they paid with money earned by a pizza parlor that sold children as sex-slaves to democratic pedophiles.
It is time for you to take your Seroquel and Olanzapine.

Government is enormously wasteful, so shutdowns are good.

Good. We should not be trading with communist dictatorships.

But we should be selling weapons to the Saudi

Iran is bad.

Are you regressing to your toddler stage?

China lies about it stats. The WHO lied. In spite of that, the US did better than all the major countries in Europe, except Germany. And that's with Democrat run states forcing sick people into nursing homes, killing thousands unnecessarily.

Nonsense and excuses. We are by far the worse country in terms of our reaction and subsequent outcomes.

Democrats run cities being burned by Democrat voters.

National problem, during a republican administration.

A better candidate who will stop illegal immigration, decouple from China, get an infrastructure bill passed, cut the cost and price of medical care, prosecute rogue FBI agents, federal prosecutors, dirty cops, dirty DAs, and dirty judges, break up the big tech monopolies, and I'm sure I can think of a few other things.

So basically anyone but trump right? Because he has done nothing of what you want. You are a joke.

[noemon]

This board is not representative of the population at large.
And frankly, that is not the path to victory.

For information purposes, the 3 most important and most high-profile right-wingers of this board who provided either direct or indirect(by trashing Hillary) support to Trump and that is myself, Saeko & Rei Murasame have all switched sides. That alone represents a significant switch to whoever is on the other side and is in a way representative of society at large. These are also not just the most important right-wingers but the effective leaders of PoFo's right wing faction at the time and the people that all the right-wingers in here would follow like puppies.

[XogGyux]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/29/george-floyd-who-was-he-his-friends-words


So the real George Floyd was an ex-burglar, a meth user, had two heart conditions and was on fentanyl (one of the most dangerous recreational drugs ever created) when he died. We really do have two Americas when people are rioting, looting, burning down buildings and being cheered on for it because a guy like this died when the cops pinned him down.

I once read an article about a black accountant who got fatally shot by the police when they invaded an apartment on the wrong floor. Total fuckup. There were no riots. But people see the weepy cell phone footage of a guy like this and riot. Bizarre and shallow.

All of this is nonsense.
First, as I have said earlier. Fentanyl played absolutely no role in this death. You need to be commatose to die from an opioid overdose and withdrawal is rarely ever lethal. Either way he was neither ODed nor withdrawing because we CAN SEE THE FKING VIDEO.

Second. IT DOES NOT MATTER IF HE WAS A CRIMINAL (or alleged for that matter).

Let’s see if the 8 year olds understand better with an analogy.

Let’s say that there is a building with many apparent with people inside them. A arsonist lights the building on fire and he is clearly caught on video doing so. Then we find out that some of the apartments inside the building had evidence of drugs and drug paraphernalia inside.
Question... does the arsonist deserve a lesser charge because the dead people were criminal?

Let me chew the information a bit more for you because I suspect that you still wont get it.
The building is George Floyd. The Fire is his death. The arsonist is the Cop and the drugs inside the building is the drugs detected on the autopsy.
IT DOES NOT CHANGE A FUCKING THING.

Also, fentanyl had nothing to do with this.

I am under the belief that he had a heart attack from the stress of the arrest due to his two heart conditions and fentanyl use, not that he was suffocated. This is what the medical report says.

He did not have a heart attack.
Cardiopulmonary arrest is not a specific term and it is inevitable in all of us. Everyone will have cardiopulmonary arrest, that simply means your heart stops and you stop breathing. Cardio = heart, Pulmonary = lungs, arrest = stop.
A heart attack can lead to cardiopulmonary arrest, cutting someone’s head can also lead to cardiopulmonary arrest, septic shock can lead to cardiopulmonary arrest, a stroke can lead to cardiopulmonary arrest.

A heart attack is not really a medical term. It colloquially refers to what in medical terms we call Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS), and this in term can refer to either an NSTEMI or a STEMI. These are caused by blockage of the heart arteries by cholesterol plaque and thrombi. This is a mechanical blockage, something that is not typically caused by drugs (in theory some drugs could lead to hypercoagulable states that could promote the formation of clot inside the arteries) but to my knowledge there is nobody using these kind of drugs recreationally.
Sometimes, drugs like cocaine can increase the blood pressure, cause vasospasm and damage the inside of the vessels and allow some of the arthereosclerosis plaque to rupture and and promote platelet aggregation and form thrombi, thus occluding the vessel and causing myocardial ischemia (heart muscle death). This is not terribly common however, and fentanyl is not a drug known to cause this.
What you are saying is plain simple nonsense.
Also note that:
“Other significant conditions” do not imply that either of those conditions had a role in the cause of death. Unless they have some other evidence that they have shared, this is just incidental findings that are non-contributory as currently described. A distraction.

"Cardiopulmonary arrest" is a heart attack man. You wrote "suffocation."

No it is not. Read above.

Do you think having two heart conditions and being high on fentanyl could be contributing factors when someone has a heart attack due to weight being placed on their neck? Neither of us are doctors but usually neck pressure does not cause a heart attack in normal people, or so I would assume.

But I am and I just explained it to you for the bizillion time. And don’t take my word at face value either, stop reading about eusocial insects and read a bit about the topics that you are ignorantly talking about.

[XogGyux]

For information purposes, the 3 most important right-wingers of this board who provided either direct or indirect support to Trump and that is myself, Saeko and Rei Murasame have all switched sides. That alone represents a significant switch to whoever is on the other side.

That is great to hear. There is hope for humanity then.

[Julian658]

This often-cited study finds racial bias in non-lethal violence but no bias in lethal violence.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upsh ... tings.html

Search white people killed or murder by cops in You Tube and you see plenty of killings. However, the narrative of the left is RACISM 24/7 which has caused PTSD in many black Americans. I suspect POD will not believe the data. IN fact POD thinks there is very little looting going on.

[noemon]

Search white people killed or murder by cops in You Tube and you see plenty of killings. However, the narrative of the left is RACISM 24/7 which has caused PTSD in many black Americans. I suspect POD will not believe the data. IN fact POD thinks there is very little looting going on.

The facts are obvious:

Between 2013 and 2019, police in the United States killed 7,666 people, according to data compiled by Mapping Police Violence, a research and advocacy group. On May 25, 2020 at 9:25pm (02:25 GMT, May 26), George Floyd, a 46-year-old resident of Minnesota, became yet another victim of police brutality as he was killed in police custody while unarmed. Floyd's death has prompted thousands of protesters to march in cities around the country demanding justice and an end to police violence.

The number of police killings in the US disproportionately affects African Americans. Despite only making up 13 percent of the US population, Black Americans are two-and-a-half times as likely as white Americans to be killed by the police.

The map below shows how disproportionate these killings are across the US's 50 states.

Unsurprisingly, the three largest states - California, Texas and Florida - have the highest total number of killings of Black people by police officers. Once these figures are adjusted for the population size and demographics, in nearly every state, African Americans face a significantly higher risk of being killed by police officers than white Americans.

In Utah, the African Americans comprise just 1.06 percent of the population but they accounted for 10 percent of police killings over the past seven years - a disproportional rate of 9.21 times. In Minnesota, Black Americans are nearly four times as likely to be killed by law enforcement, with Black victims comprising 20 percent of those killed, despite comprising only 5 percent of the overall population.

When confronted with these facts, racists then blame "Black criminality(such as jaywalking, smoking a spliff & speeding)" by pointing out the prison population without ever of course putting these data into perspective:

“Other notable stats
Drug offences make up roughly 46 percent of all sentences.
Homicide and related offences make up 3.2 percent of all sentences.
Immigration offences make up 7.5 percent of all sentences.
The US has more correctional facilities than any other country on Earth.


Louisiana is “the prison capital of the world”
In Louisiana, one in 86 adults is currently in prison. 53 percent are housed in local, for-profit private prisons, which are usually insufficiently staffed and therefore more dangerous than state-run facilities. The situation is even worse for minorities – one in 14 adults is serving a prison sentence, with one in seven currently in prison, on probation or out on parole. Louisiana claims the harshest prison system in the US, with many non-violent offenders serving lengthy sentences for relatively minor crimes (minor drug possession can land an arrestee a life sentence).

...

The high costs of low-level offenses
Most justice-involved people in the U.S. are not accused of serious crimes; more often, they are charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal violations. Yet even low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole, can lead to incarceration and other serious consequences. Rather than investing in community-driven safety initiatives, cities and counties are still pouring vast amounts of public resources into the processing and punishment of these minor offenses.

Probation & parole violations and “holds” lead to unnecessary incarceration
Often overlooked in discussions about mass incarceration are the various “holds” that keep people behind bars for administrative reasons. A common example is when people on probation or parole are jailed for violating their supervision, either for a new crime or a “technical violation.” If a parole or probation officer suspects that someone has violated supervision conditions, they can file a “detainer” (or “hold”), rendering that person ineligible for release on bail. For people struggling to rebuild their lives after conviction or incarceration, returning to jail for a minor infraction can be profoundly destabilizing. The national data do not exist to say exactly how many people are in jail because of probation or parole violations or detainers, but initial evidence shows that these account for over one-third of some jail populations. This problem is not limited to local jails, either; in 2019, the Council of State Governments found that 1 in 4 people in state prisons are incarcerated as a result of supervision violations.

Misdemeanors: Minor offenses with major consequences
The “massive misdemeanor system” in the U.S. is another important but overlooked contributor to overcriminalization and mass incarceration. For behaviors as benign as jaywalking or sitting on a sidewalk, an estimated 13 million misdemeanor charges sweep droves of Americans into the criminal justice system each year (and that’s excluding civil violations and speeding). These low-level offenses account for over 25% of the daily jail population nationally, and much more in some states and counties.

Misdemeanor charges may sound like small potatoes, but they carry serious financial, personal, and social costs, especially for defendants but also for broader society, which finances the processing of these court cases and all of the unnecessary incarceration that comes with them. And then there are the moral costs: People charged with misdemeanors are often not appointed counsel and are pressured to plead guilty and accept a probation sentence to avoid jail time. This means that innocent people routinely plead guilty, and are then burdened with the many collateral consequences that come with a criminal record, as well as the heightened risk of future incarceration for probation violations. A misdemeanor system that pressures innocent defendants to plead guilty seriously undermines American principles of justice.

The principle of racism remains the same systemic denial, systemic victim-blaming and institutional discrimination.

A whopping 46% of the prison population of the US is in prison for drug-related offences, a 1/3 of those for possession only.

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/st ... fenses.jsp