StriderShinryu said:
Paradox SuXcess said:
Albetta said:
This is 100% the fault of the police. If they had just accepted wrongdoing and given their officer a fair trial for Garner's death, this wouldn't have happened.
So two wrongs make a right? Really? 100%? You are going to mark and judge an entire group by the actions of a small few? and I am talking about both sides here. NO ONE deserves to be killed and NO ONE should be killed through revenge and thinking, "Well they did it to us, so we can do it back to them". That's not how problems are sorted.
There should be a fair trial yes but not with more blood being spilt.
The statement also completely muddies the water on what happened with the lack of indictment in both the Garner and Brown cases. It wasn't the police who were tasked with finding the associated officers potentially at fault. Could you argue that it's a problem with the system itself? Sure. Could you argue that it's an issue with the individual officers? Absolutely. It's a large and complex issue with many fault points, but it's not the fault of "the police" that the officers who killed those unarmed black men weren't indicted.
That's an interesting debate, and I could argue that a lot of the blame does fall on the police's feet for brainwashing.
Did you know that it's actually been a decades old law that lessened the criminalization of weed possession in New York City to an extent? [http://www.vocal-ny.org/blog/drug-policy/tale-of-two-cities-racially-biased-marijuana-arrests-in-ny/] Yup, in 1977 (not a typo, before a lot of us were even born), NYC passed a law to make weed possession as almost heinous as running a red light. It's right here [http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S5187-2011] to read. Having weed for personal use concealed on your person should have the most serious and horrible punishment of... a fine. No more than a hundred dollars.
That's it. If weed is on your person and you're just trying to get to point A to B to smoke it, you really should be good to go. It's as bad as people having police scanners in their car.
Now, here comes the bad thing.
It becomes a Class B misdemeanor once it's out in plain sight of a cop. But why would it be out in plain sight when people know they could get a fine just for having it. Well, that's where it gets a little tricky. A.) Not a lot of people know of this law. I lived in New York State most of my entire life, a third of it in the Bronx, and I literally never heard of the law until an hour ago. and B.) Stop and Frisk
Stop and Frisk is a hundred percent unconstitutional. Unless given notice of a criminal act, or if a police officer witnessed a subject doing a criminal act, the police has no right to search your person. Suspicion of a criminal act without any cause, evidence, or reason other that "Not liking how someone looks and using that as bias as a search of your person has as legal basis as a cop coming into your home and saying "well, it looks like a Meth House..."
However.
According to data from the Division of Criminal Justice Services, in 2010, a total of 54,813 people were arrested for this offense in New York - and fully 50,383 of these arrests took place in New York City. One out of every seven arrests in New York City is for marijuana possession, comprising 15 percent of all arrests in that city. From 1977 -1994, few people were arrested for 221.10. But from 1997 to 2010, the New York City Police Department arrested and jailed more than 525,000 people for this offense. Those arrested were charged with the lowest level criminal offense - a misdemeanor-- and nearly every person was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police car or van, and taken to the local police station, where they were photographed, fingerprinted, and then held, often for 24 hours or longer, in one of city's jails.
Numerous studies and media stories demonstrate that many of those arrested for marijuana in public view were improperly charged - they possessed small amounts of marijuana in their pocket or bag, and thus were subject to a violation and fine. Instead, they were arrested and charged with possessing marijuana in public view, often after following a police officer instruction to remove the marihuana from their pocket or bag.{1}
Many of these arrests are the result a stop-and-frisk encounter and contribute to stark racial disparities in the criminal justice system. In 2009, for example, the NYPD stopped 574,304 individuals. Of those who were the subject of a police stop that year, nearly ninety percent were people of color; and nine of every ten persons stopped were released without any further legal action taken against them. Of the 50,383 people arrested in New York City for marijuana possession in public view, nearly eighty six percent were black and Latino, and nearly seventy percent were between the ages of 16 - 29 even though U.S. Government surveys of high school seniors show that whites use marijuana at higher rates than blacks and Latinos.{2}source [http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S5187-2011]
Look at the site address. That isn't some news article. That isn't someone's blog. That's a website maintained by the New York State Senate. About New York State's laws.
New York State Senate is admitting that Police Officers are shirking the law and targeting minorities.
Now, at this point you might be asking me what does this have to do with why police might be held accountable in the case of Eric Garner's murder not going to trial. Well, it's simple. I read a lot of articles about stuff like this, and more over, I read the comments. A lot of it sounds like "Blacks are dangerous, that's why the prisons are over flowing with them".
Everyone does crime. I don't think one race does it more or less. There will be blacks in the system regardless because everyone has the capability to commit crime. But if it takes 2, not one, but 2 flagrant miscarriages of justice to put these 43,329 blacks and latinos in prison in 2009 alone... there's a problem.
Think about it. Police stop you and you have weed on your person. He instructs you to take it out. You know that if it stays in your pocket, you just get a fine. But if you do not follow the police's order, you'll be sent to jail for failure to follow police procedures. For doing something that only should give you a ticket, you're going to jail regardless. You realize that because you know the law. Once you take it out, it's a Class B Misdemeanor, but it was the police order to do so. Failure to do so will get you arrested anyway. And you know what? If I just learned about the law an hour ago and I lived here most of my life, I'm sure other people don't know even know of the law, so they took it out to comply with Police in efforts of being lawful to an extent.
Now, all other citizens hear is that 43,329 blacks and latinos went to jail that year. "Something is wrong with their community. Good on the Police for catching them." That kind of half information creates biases. It creates trust in the Police and distrust in a community that seems alien to them. So, yeah, there is a bit of fault on the police's doorstep for the failure to indict.
Oh, one last thing. the New York Senate itself admits that around 1 in 7 of all arrests in New York was due to weed possession. Well that number before 1977-1994 was around 221 people, that number saw a dramatic spike in 1997? Why? Because Mayor at that time was Rudy Giuliani. This Rudy Giuliani [http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/12/21/3606040/rudy-giuliani-2-nyc-cops-were-killed-because-obama-told-everyone-to-hate-the-police/]
