Originally Posted by
1080Rider
Then you live in a pretty fucked up state... here, we have sentencing guidelines, you get the same amount of time for the same crimes. Did you wait around to find out what happened in their cases? Did you know their criminal histories, which determines what sort of bond they get? I take it you don't have a long criminal history, that means your not a threat to the community and you are likely to show up for future court hearings, thus, a judge would likely release you, just like he/she would do to a minority.
You can argue that blacks are arrested disproportionately than other groups, and there's a good amount of evidence to that argument, but after years of being poor, blacks live in the most crime ridden areas, the areas that are patrolled more heavily and have more contact w/ police. It's to be expected. We need to fix the economy as much as the police.
Our police force has about 300 officers. I have had contact w/ a handful, I'd say 30, and I'm friends w/ a few. I've encountered exactly one officer that fits your description...
The other thing that needs to be taken into account when discussing the "system" is how policing is carried out. In bigger cities officers "walk the beat" and in places like NYC they have the freedom to randomly fuck w/ people. It seems they tend to fuck w/ minorities more in places like that. In smaller communities, officers respond to 911 calls, there's no racial bias here, they just go where the emergency is... I suggest giving the men in blue the benefit of the doubt. It's a shitty, shitty job.
As I said earlier, none of these cops should be given leeway if they have violated someone's rights, the Mini shooting was waaaaaay wrong from what I've seen. The Baton rouge shooting looks like terrible tactics but when confronting a known felon who is reported to be armed (and turns out to be armed) officers are going to be real jumpy. That's why I say tactics, they should have stayed back and kept a safe distance til they could get the guy to comply, going hands on was going to end up badly for someone and in the end I suspect the officers will end up in jail...