Essay talk:Do not trust viral videos of police incidents

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"If a guy says they can't breathe, that means they can breathe." Said guy choked to death btw. — Oxyaena Harass  04:16, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Please provide a citation for your claim. Cosmikdebris (talk) 04:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oxyaena is probably referring to how Eric Garner died from a chokehold, but he was able to breathe before his death. Try choking yourself and see how well you can talk, anyone who shouts that they can't breathe can breathe. I say that Eric Garner IS a high media event that shouldn't get discredited though, but if you see other videos of people screaming that they can't breathe while being detained, they can breathe. 04:29, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * They may not be able to breathe easily, or enough. That's a pedantic point. cough Eric Garner cough — Oxyaena  Harass  04:33, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, btw, read the Wikipedia article about Eric Garner, specifically the Disciplinary hearing and termination of Pantaleo section. Medical examiners say that Garner's other medical issues such as asthma and heart disease is what made a lethal cocktail than the chokehold in of itself, as they said that even a "bear hug" can lead to the same effects. 04:34, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Pedantic, again. He shouldn't have been put into a chokehold, for selling loose cigarettes, and it still lead to his death. — Oxyaena Harass  04:35, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The chokehold itself was a problem but it didn't restrict his breathing to kill him. You can't extrapolate what happened here, which had specific circumstances, to other incidents where people yell "I can't breathe". I'm not excusing the use of a chokehold but rather you're disputing the general "I can't breathe" using a very specific incident where a person's death was compounded by heart disease and asthma. 04:40, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Look, if someone shouts "they can't breathe" that means they can't breathe, or they're having difficulties breathing. You can still technically breathe while having difficulties doing so, have you ever had a panic attack? It feels like a loss of breath, like you're breathing but your body's not accepting the oxygen. This is a very nitpicky thing to point out, it's not as clear cut as you make it out to be. — Oxyaena Harass  05:27, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes people tend to get crushed when being put in cuffs. It happens a lot. 08:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

A relevant quote
Sitting on the stoop I notice an immobile young man lying limply at the feet of the police with his hands cuffed behind his back. They ignore him while they search the vicinity. A police flashlight illuminates the blood-stained concrete near the youth, and I see that he is lying with his neck at an odd angle; his face totally covered in blood. He doesn’t move for several minutes, and I wonder if he is conscious.

One of my neighbors tells me that there has just been a shootout which I had mistaken for fireworks: “Four black guys got out and went to their trunk, pulled out guns and cocked them and then walked down the block. I went inside, and then I heard the shots.” Another neighbor adds that the young man lying on the concrete had run from the police, even though he didn’t have anything to do with the shoot-out. “He tripped and dove halfway under a car. The police caught him, and kicked him in the face, hard, pulled him out, and beat him to a pulp right on the street.”

Someone suggests that he might’ve had “work” [drugs] on him, prompting him to flee, even though “the cops weren’t gonna do shit to him if he had just stood around, but he panicked.” I suggest that they probably didn’t find anything on him since they were looking for so long. Someone else informs us that he only ran because he was on probation and was afraid they would think he had something to do with the shooting.

Instead of calling an ambulance, the officers roughly bundle the handcuffed young man into the back of a police car, half-carrying him since he can barely walk. They slam the door shut without securing him to his seat and without saying a thing to us, they speed off leaving a puddle of coagulating blood on the street and the stench of burnt rubber from their tires. Everyone standing around agrees it was “fucked up” that the cops beat someone so savagely “when he hadn’t done anything.” Someone suggests we should call a lawyer, and another suggests calling “the supervisor” of the officers to report an incident of brutality. “Fuck that,” someone says dismissively, “there was a white shirt [captain] out here when it happened. No point in complaining to the perpetrators!” A couple of kids come by to take pictures of the pool of blood, furious that their friend had been brutalized so badly by the police. I just watch in shock.

- Friedman et al 2019

Yes, pigs are such sympathetic characters. My heart bleeds for the little piggies. Oink oink. — Oxyaena Harass  17:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh look an anecdote, that totally adds credibility to viral Twitter videos. This isn't relevant. If you have nothing to add except stories to continue castigating cops without really addressing the problems of viral videos and passive-aggressively attacking my efforts then just leave. 18:48, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Try reading the citation in question for added context, this kind of police brutality isn't rare among inner city Philadelphia cops. — Oxyaena Harass  19:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, what does this have to do with viral Twitter videos. Also wtf am I reading: "the death-toll of conflict is strongly influenced by the leading eigenvalues of the gangs’ conflict adjacency matrix, which serves a proxy for unstable self-excitation from revenge attacks" 19:50, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm with Oxy on this one. There is a very clear pattern of violent and arbitrary police behavior across the entire country. Police are untrustworthy thugs, and I'm shocked to see someone like you defending these murderous pigs. Police exist to kill, coerce, and steal. Then they use their cronies in the DA offices to cover up for them. All cops are bastards. They either accept cultures of racism and murder or they're drummed out of the force. Fuck 'em all. 19:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Oops, wrong link. — Oxyaena Harass  20:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * DuceMoosolini: The essay isn't to downplay police brutality, as stated, it's what my sister and I found out about viral Twitter videos. You guys probably saw several of these already without really being critical and went "wow these police are thugs" over and over until you have it cemented. A lot of you are really ignorant of these weapons. There are questions: "Why shoot a guy charging a knife at you? Why not tase him, why not pepper spray him, why not beanbag him, why not shoot him in the legs?" The police know none of these are any reliable guarantees of preventing an officer getting injured; the Hyattsville police shooting involved a man, armed with two knives, who failed to get repeatedly disarmed (taser three times, pepper spray, beanbags) and charged at an officer, which they shot, but that prompted angry Twitter response, some not even knowing the man is armed if they saw helicopter footage. Again, these responses are just confirming my suspicions about this whole thing: any attempt at deconstructing viral police brutality videos get met with angry responses about general police brutality rather than even dealing with the misleading content of these videos. After all we've went all in on Blue Lives Matter for the same reasons, misleading content, but we didn't get any angry responses on how criminals are thugs and why are you shitting on cops. Why do you guys just accept our criticisms on Blue Lives Matter but jump on us whether we try to point out that viral videos should not be relied on? That's a double standard. The issue of police brutality has been dealt in other articles. The point is not to excuse police brutality or to downplay it. The essay is supposed to give a word of caution on viewing videos of alleged police brutality as some of them are prone to sensationalization while also imploring those to educate themselves on police procedures. I don't see how this is interpreted as a general defense of police, but to try to help navigate through media. I'm on your side BUT you have to deconstruct what you find especially if it confirms your prejudices and see if any relevant context is left out. 20:14, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I have wrote an entire article shitting on cops for the right reasons, I've read about Rodney King, I've read about the shooting of Jean, I've read about the killing of Eric Garner, I've read about kids in schools being take to juvie detention, I've read about how police ridiculously fail at dealing with mental-health, especially with kids I've seen cops overstep their boundaries in detaining. We've also pointed out in the essay how police brutality can manifest in other ways, like the systematic scandals that racially profile people. However, I've also seen a lot of stories also get painted a different way due to blatant cherry-picking and overall ignorance about the entire incident and the history involved. I appreciate how the response for the criticism of viral Twitter videos specifically engineered for an emotional response is a heavy generalization of a necessary force that can use a shitton of reform without actually addressing the reasons the article is made, in that one should exercise the proper methods of skepticism when dealing with these incidents on social media, such as reading links and getting knowledge about how these are typically supposed to be played out. Well done. 20:31, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

It takes a psychopath to write this essay.
What the fuck. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 20:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You do know there are countries where people don't get killed by the police at all right?  Spitting in the face of murder victims because some videos don't include marginally exonarating information is stupid.  At best.   ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:03, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * if that's what you got from "video doesn't seem to show complete story", okay 21:05, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Again, I'm mostly with ikanreed on this one. This essay asks us to dismiss video evidence and just take the cops' word at face value. 21:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "Man was driving too fast, might as well shoot him and laugh at the corpse." Perfectly acceptable behavior from America's finest. 21:13, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh wait, he also had a gun, so the cops can definitely shoot him. After all, the Second Amendment is for whites only, right? Can't let blacks carry guns, 'cause then the pigs are gonna "fear for their lives" or whatever. 21:14, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

"That's a double standard," no, it really isn't. You have to take the power dynamics into account, after all those pigs get to go home at the end of their shift, their victims don't. They didn't choose to interact with the pigs, and they paid the ultimate price. — Oxyaena Harass  21:17, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's great, shooting someone for lighting a joint and running. How quaint. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  21:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Duce: No it doesn't. I've outlined clear ways to evaluate a video, and I've even encouraged to use these videos if they pass all checks. This is the same for images/news you see circulated on the internet: they're prone to being fabricated. Do not trust the news, do not trust images shared online, do not trust videos. 21:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Man endangered other lives by driving recklessly. Man got chased by cops. Man went out of the car. Man had a gun in the car. Shots are heard being exchanged. There's no way this would've ended well. 21:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Duce: Have you actually seen the viral Twitter videos? I have. A lot of times, they're blatantly cherry-picked and they leave out other parts of the recording. The one I saw recently was a guy speeding his car, bragging about escaping the cops, but the only part actually shown on viral media was the part where it appeared he got tased and shot for no reason and it looked like he was unarmed and innocent. 21:39, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Again, running from the cops does not justify taking someone's life. Taser? Sure! Lethal force? Absolutely not. 21:48, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That depends on how they're running away. If they're running away, holding a dangerous weapons themselves and you don't knock them down, they can easily barricade themselves in buildings and take hostages. There are laws that address this, they specifically say that it's situation dependent on how allowed they are to shoot them. Tasers also don't always work, they're short ranged weapons and require both prongs to hit someone, and they're prone to getting caught in heavy, loose clothing. In that situation I was describing, the guy was driving 90 mph and blatantly doing traffic violations. The best way to deal with those guys are stingers. 21:51, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Ikanreed: Do other countries have this horrific gun culture as well? Because it certainly contributes to the countermeasures employed to combat possible encounters of them. Like, British cops are typically unarmed because guns aren't common occurrences, unlike the US. 21:39, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, the main point of this essay isn't to discuss when a shooting is justified or not. It's to address how viral videos of these incidents are prone to the same tactics of misrepresentation to solicit an emotional response as any other media might be, and it's definitely worth an examination to see how news sources spin an interaction (like, compare police incidents reporting from the NY Post to MSNBC). Cherry-picking is one of them, as lot of these are taken at the height of interaction. Lack of evidence is another, especially when there's no released body cam footage due to ongoing investigation that cannot be shared at the moment. Use of loaded language and headlines are another tactic of shaping your views before you actually read the story and are an attempt to reinforce audience expectations. I fail to see how, when applying these same tactics of skepticism as I would for any other piece of media I encounter, as well as reading further links in the story, makes us labeled as a "psychopath". 22:41, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

the debate is bizarre and very ugly
not merely bizarre, its idiotic. a viral video appears on twitter, likely grainy mobile phone footage. 30 seconds long maybe. ones that I have seen, of genuine egregious police murder, I would not know what I was looking without the accompanying text. even then its still difficult to pick out whats going on. its a mobile phone video, shot from a distance away. what other witnesses have said clears things up. the vid might depict the event, but clearly enough to prove or disprove anything. its one piece of evidence. if you picked it up from twitter and its all you have, screaming about revolution and pigs doesn't make you che guevara it makes you an imbecile. declaring it false on the same basis is similarly foolish, giving the police the benefit of the doubt when all said and done, given the things they have done, seems a little naïve. I can understand dealings with police can colour ones views of them. I can understand why it would be easy to jump to conclusions based on those dealings.

you have a viral video. you watch it. you then read up about at various news sources. to fill in the blanks. don't you people do that already? are we not always bitterly complaining about fox viewers and assorted fuckwits for not doing that? its the advice in this essay. im surprised it was necessary to say. certainly not a psychopath to suggest it.

not sure of the examples given, as with the viral videos, they need further examination. they arnt really necessary though. one dodgy video that is misleading does not make another video false. an unambiguously clear video showing what actually happened, doesnt mean another does.

what the fuck are you people arguing about? arguing the toss over details of one case, where reference to what is known and where seemingly minor details can significantly impact what happened, is not helpful. yes it is answered with no it isn't, proves what exactly? a forensic examination of any one case proves what here? that one case is clear police brutality? clearly misleading of what is an appropriate response? well done you've proved that was poor example for this essay, or maybe not and its a good fit, I said above its irrelevant. examples can illustrate a point but here one example cannot prove or disprove the validity of another.

the problem seems to me that this essay does not loudly and unambiguously declare all police evil murdering scumbags, and for some people a suggestion that in some cases, the police might have done something not obviously horrible is too much to bare. the us police, its various depts. across the country have done some horrible things. proven to have done so. they have done some dreadful things disproportionately more to some segments of society than others. it suffers from systemic problems, refuses to accept responsibility for things have done, shielded murderers, lied, covered up and stonewalled, we cannot have trust they will fix their problems. good police, even if the majority, are tainted by this. there is good reason to not trust them. good reason for a lot of people to fear them. and that's on the police.

this essay does not address police failings, its not the point. its not whitewashing police crimes. not condoning murders. piling onto its authors like some have, is making some of you look very ugly. it merely asks people to not jump to conclusions and investigate further. what the fuck is wrong with you people? get a fucking grip. AMassiveGay (talk) 01:28, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm very pleased you understand what I've been painstakingly trying to communicate in the essay. 02:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I swear I'm not going crazy because I'm typically a strong left winger and that's the one part of the left-wing camp I disagree with. That Fox News comparison is very apt: we love to larp on conservatives who drink the Fox beverage without looking at any further resources and investigating how they may twist their news to garner an emotional response from people, but when the same train of thought gets applied to these viral police incidents, about how I should apply skepticism to the sources and look into them before arriving to conclusions, suddenly I get attacked and accused of being a Trumper (yes I was called that). I use the exact same tactics whenever I see a Twitter post about a police incident. I look it up in the news thanks to Google, I read several articles, and then I comment on it and point it out. I also watch Donut Operator's videos on some viral incidents, as he does break-downs and he was a cop himself, not to similar how to we watch YouTubers cite professionals who had firsthand experience in the job teach us about things we may be ignorant about such as global warming and GMO's. What I also find strange is that right-wingers become the opposite of what they typically are and say, "we should look for further information before we jump to conclusions" rather than immediately jumping onto things. I really don't know what the fuck is going on here, why the rationalization gets reversed when a police incident occurs.
 * Also, I would love to write more articles about police brutality but writing these crap is a huge time eater as I want everything I write fully fact-checked and sourced and not just plagiarizing from Wikipedia. I would love to write more about Rodney King for example. And all of that said, I firmly believe that ANY cop who participates in planting of contraband to frame people deserve penalties worse than serial killers, I am dead serious about that. My point is, you should attack cops on things that SHOULD get attacked on AFTER scrutiny, and those incidents are already highlighted on the essay. FUCK cops that accidentally shot a baby, fuck cops that over-exert themselves when dealing with mentally impaired children, and especially fuck the cops involved in the Rampart scandal; why no one talks about the Rampart scandal or Cal Gang scandal or any other more insidious, less blatantly incriminating scandals beats me. 03:30, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

By the way it's particularly striking that the Blue Lives Matter article doesn't get anywhere near the vitriol even though my sister and I are highly critical of the subject and approached that with the same mindset. 02:30, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Again, the power differential. Pigs get to go home at the end of the day, their victims don't. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  07:26, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * if you want to believe sensationalized twitter videos without a critical eye, then don't criticize fox news or any tabloid, okay? 08:18, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * ”pigs”? Oxy sounds like a 15 year boy who has just listened to the Dead Kennedy’s for the first time and thinks he’s a punk. AceModerator 08:36, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "she," and why single me out in particular? — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  09:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * it applies to both you and duce 09:04, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yea she but you still sound like a 15 yr old boy who just discovered the Sex Pistols. AceModerator 09:09, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Continue to ignore the power differentials, be my guest. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  09:10, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * again you don't get to complain about fox news and tabloids. that's a fair deal if you're going to ignore the point we're trying to make. 09:16, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Guess you'll unconditionally accept what you watch on Twitter as long as you agree with it. You're no better than cop-sucking folk when it comes to vetting what you see on the Internet. 09:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Why are you defending cops? — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  09:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * our goal isn't to defend cops but to curb the spread of sensationalized misinformation that abuse the same tactics tabloids do. 09:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not defending cops you illiterate fool. 09:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Now you’re personally insulting other users for disagreeing with you? 15:34, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Calling someone an illiterate fool may be a bit crass, but it's not an unfair word to use if the other person isn't listening to your counter-arguments but is instead just repeating their original argument back at you without acknowledging it. 16:12, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The thing is no one was acknowledging my points either. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  16:39, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Wrong. Duce also you were told what's wrong with you and I stand firmly by that when you continue doubling down on your willfully misunderstanding shit. You, Oxyaena, and Ikanreed are no better than the one-sided-narrative right-wing propaganda consumers when it comes to this issue, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for holding a double standard for accusing others of being a psychopath or an apologist when they suggest to vet evidence you find. 18:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't have had a problem with the essay if it weren't for the examples you give and the reasons you gave for calling those incidents misleading. You dismiss the ACLU statement and give the cops a pass on antagonizing a man and then shooting him. In the second section you excuse the NYPD for stomping on a black kid because the kid was using marijuana. Apparently he had it coming then? Third incident I've already mentioned, and even then you rather disturbingly try to excuse the gross "jokes" the cops made over his corpse. These are real people who suffered, and you're here apparently saying that this brutality is excusable. That's what I take issue with. And yet you sidestep me and tell me that I'm wrong because you're just saying to take videos with a grain of salt. If you were just saying that, I wouldn't have a problem. But you just had to go and make excuses for actual murders and beatings. That's what I have a problem with. That and the fact that you're now escalating to personal insults. 18:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Not to mention how she ignored every single one of my points, would regular citizens get away with this as much as cops do? Nobody's even acknowledged that. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  18:57, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Two unarmed black teens doing nothing wrong were targeted by racist pigs specifically because they were black. "They were trespassing after dark," does that mean they deserved to be shot? — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  18:58, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * He was interrogated, and then beat for no reason, long after they knew he had done nothing wrong. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  18:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep. And the essay excuses those actions. But when we call that out, we're the bad guys. We're apparently the ones who deserve to get insulted and called illiterate fools and told we're just stupid media consumers. What the fuck. 19:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Insulted and belittled by a mod no less, who ought to know better. As I've said about Ace, mods shouldn't provoke and insult people. It hurts their ability to manage conflicts later. Next time LGM tries to step in on a heated moment, I'm going to remember this. 19:04, 10 May 2020 (UTC)


 * The viral video show the moment where the NYPD seemingly apprehend and tackle a guy for no reason (or as you said, for smoking marijuana). What's left out is shots fired being reported (i.e. potentially dangerous criminal), a cop then seeing two people that shouldn't be there fleeing, a cop apprehending one guy and then calling for backup because the guy was resisting being frisked (again, shots were fired, this guy could be holding a gun and could discharge on that single officer, would you want to play guessing?). The guy also continued to resist being cuffed, and that's when several cops jumped and piled on him. He was screaming and flailing while saying "I'm not resisting" but he's clearly panicking and resisting by flailing and screaming. It's a lot harder than you think to cuff someone who doesn't want to get cuffed. The cops shouldn't have kicked him or stepped on his hand, but in the end, the guy got some scratches and charges. The other guy got caught too, and he was given a ticket for marijuana smoking without all the handling, may I add. That's starkly different from what the viral Twitter video suggested and also completely disproves your statement that the got tackled just for possessing marijuana, which is exactly what viral media is indicating. The ACLU turned this into a very broad, sweeping statement about this whole thing and I have to disagree, that's all.
 * Third incident you mentioned but that's largely deconstructed too. The joke shouldn't have been made, poor taste/gallows humor, however you interpret it. But you haven't actually looked into this either. The man had a specific gun with him. He was driving recklessly, almost hitting people and running over road signs. If you check his Facebook history, he was shown brandishing a gun and he was committing drive-by with that gun by shooting nondiscriminately into people's houses. There's an object in the video that matches this gun in both colors, pattern, and holster placement. His texts indicate he "plans to shoot" or something like that, but it's not clear if he's referring to shooting a video. He also gets out his car, gets tased, and then you hear shots being exchanged. However, the video's sound quality makes it difficult to discern where shots are coming from. Again this is a lot different from the viral video that just shows the part where he gets out of the car, gets tased, and you hear shots being exchanged, and it tries to tell you that, wow, someone got shot for running away, and also, oh boy he's unarmed. There's no way you'll know he had a gun or you know his prior record involves shooting at people's houses haphazardly.
 * While in the first incident, the guy got roughhandled, he also tried to resist arrest especially when the police were responding to someone having a gun and seeing two people not being where they were supposed to be, these people fleeing (indicating guilt?), one person resisting being detained (indicating guilt?) AND were near the area that a detector registered a shot fired. This incident isn't anywhere near as one-sided as depicted in viral media and certainly didn't get brutalized.
 * The second one is also nowhere near how viral media shows the victim. He's reckless as evidenced in his history (has a criminal record too), drove in a way that endangers others, and very plausibly tried to shoot (there's also shell casings being ejected from his end) after getting tased given his prior reckless record. Should the police have shot and killed him? In a heat of that situation, it's a lot more difficult than you think. That you're still constantly framing these narratives as one-sided with cop brutalizes and murders innocent people while still disregarding all the background of them, that's led to the frustrating accusations. 19:18, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The police are professionals. They should be expected to exercise good judgement and treat violence as a last resort. It's not unreasonable to have higher expectations of them than you would have from the general public. They wanted to be cops. Similarly, as I've expressed in the Discord, you should also have expressed better judgement than to personally attack three active RW users multiple times and suddenly do a 180 and agree with Ace antagonizing Oxy. It's why I no longer trust you as a mod. I'm no longer interested doing this over and over again, so those are my last words. I'll be the one who disengages. You can have the last word, I guess. 19:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry for insulting you, Duce. I shouldn't have went in like that and it goes against what I've said earlier about civil discourse. I was particularly grouchy staying up until 4 am, being called a psychopath that stressed me out all day, and trying to type out lengthy responses while also having Ace rub against BLOF and Oxyaena for dealing with a troll. However I believe your statement is a talking point. The police haven't seriously hurt the teenager during the pinned incident except inflicting huge stress (however the police probably don't know if this resisting teenager had a gun or not hence this interaction), and the police were very likely getting shot at from a tasered man. I didn't agree with Ace antagonizing Oxy, which even last night I thought he was just poking her again, but that wasn't conveyed clearly. Anyhow I want you to consider that perspective as I've considered the other side, as in I feel sympathetic for the teenager who certainly knew about the police relations in America and panicked because he was fearing they would seriously hurt him and he had no clue what the police were doing (and also for the young man who died but that one is far more difficult because he shot at occupied houses and drove with such little disregard, so I'm feeling more sad he endangered others for no reason and then thrown away his short life and devastated his family rather than angry at the police who killed him. I wish they didn't shoot at him but he, treating the encounter like some game he could get away with, was shooting at them too and at that point it could either him or one or more of them). 20:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Question
Do you think normal people would get excused for this behavior? Shooting unarmed teenagers? Beating innocent people to a bloody pulp? Planting evidence? No, they wouldn't. Only cops do. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  09:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You mean like George Zimmerman? AceModerator 09:26, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you think it's okay to cherry-pick videos that are explicitly designed to solicit an emotional response that confirms your biases? 09:29, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * My "biases?" The saying isn't "it's only a few bad apples," it's "a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch." — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  09:36, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you really that unaware of yourself? 09:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a culture of impunity and silence among police, the reality of the situation is that cops as a whole are crooked, no matter which way you look at it. To say otherwise is a rejection of reality. Regular people aren't able to get away with shit like COINTELPRO, but cops? Being state sanctioned, yes, they are. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  09:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I also think Twitter breeds a culture where people just read headlines and base their entire judgement out of only the headlines. 09:43, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * This isn't going anywhere, let's just agree to disagree. — <font color="Absolute Zero">Oxyaena <font color="Magenta">Harass  09:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but just stop with the ranting on this talk page unless you have valid critiques of our methodology. Also, you sure seem passionate about the subject, why don't you write articles about the shootings of Eric Garner, Attania Jefferson, Botham Jean, Kinsey or expand the police brutality article? 09:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Great essay. (User:IRonMan) iRonMan (Excelsior!) 19:12, 9 February 2021 (UTC)