Dennis Plante writes:WM: Mr. Nolley, you're jumping to a conclusion which is not supported by anything loosely called a fact. Where I live, people do not support police brutality, but they do have a very clear picture that acting the fool (gang banging, selling drugs on corners, etc.) has more awful consequences for people of color than it usually does for whites. We also know that it isn't just people of color, but poor whites who can be the victims of police brutality, particularly young poor whites. Be young, poor, white, and dress as a grunger or heavy metal or whatever style out of line with Penney's catalog and you can feel the lash. My housemate was put through the wringer (maced, cuffed, smacked around) a few years back because some other guy similarly dressed flipped the bird to a couple of cops in the fifth precinct. My roommate is a peaceful sort of guy.
Take THIS to the bank - the very best the accused
officers (in the Porter case) can hope for is that they and the city won't be
sued successfully, regardless of how innocent they are in this particular
case. They will NEVER be exonerated. What does THAT say about us as a
society??
Tamir says:
What does that say about us as a sosciety is a good
question. To me, it says that there are a lot of neighborhood residents who (although they don't have the guts to say it out loud and honsetly) support and approve of police bruality for a variety of reasons.
We also know that we are surrounded by drugs &/or alcohol and other dysfunctional behaviors which have us calling 911 on a regular basis. Around my house it's rare to pass two weeks without a "shots fired" call to 911. On more than a few occasions the shots were fired at someone who immediately became the victim. Sometimes the victim is another dope dealer or gangbanger, but sometimes it just someone walking home from the bus stop who refused to hand over their money and/or goods.
We've had a fire bombing and an arson within two blocks this past summer. The gang/dealers are nested in on the block behind me and on my block. There isn't a man jack among us who does not know the ins and outs of the gang/drug trade's effect on our lives. Are we standing on soap boxes about police brutality? No, though some right here are involved in the struggle against police brutality in a big way, like my neighbor Pauline Thomas. And good on her! This is not to say that we don't support a change of behavior on the part of some police officers and wish for a change of thinking processes on the part of most police officers. However, I do refuse to see them as a stampeding herd of the bludgeoning blue meanies.
At the same time, heroine, crack, cocaine and ice junkies (and ten other drugs I've never heard of) are difficult to deal with even for people who have police officer training. (I once watched a crack whacked person jump James Walker's six foot fence in one leap from a standing still position.) They seem to have the strength of ten and apparently feel capable of feats that might put a comic book super hero to shame. When they need a fix they are damned dangerous people, make no mistake. You may think it's a good time to do the cha cha with a town bully when he's whacked outta his skull, but I sure don't.
We walk a delicate balance here on the fringes, and we daily and nightly deal with the fuzz on the end of the fringe. double entendre intentional
WizardMarks, Central
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