Dallas Police Shooting

[pumpdog20]

He's never been interested in anything but his narrative, stirring emotions, and dividing people... on any issue... you can say he is just another bullshit politician but he won election, in part, on a platform of unity, post-political and post-racial leadership and change... he's been the exact opposite of all of these. He's by far the number one reason the country is so polarized currently and it's among his greatest failures imo... anyway, just wait until this espn bullshit drops... I can smell the stench already.

To be fair, he did win a Noble Peace Prize. LOL

 

[Buster Bluth]

He's never been interested in anything but his narrative, stirring emotions, and dividing people... on any issue... you can say he is just another bullshit politician but he won election, in part, on a platform of unity, post-political and post-racial leadership and change... he's been the exact opposite of all of these. He's by far the number one reason the country is so polarized currently and it's among his greatest failures imo... anyway, just wait until this espn bullshit drops... I can smell the stench already.

Wat

 

[Bogtrotter07]

I agree Buster!

I cannot believe the last page or so of comments, as well as many media quotes, including some of the media posts quoted.

Some people need to have their vision and hearing, or intelligence tested. Something.

I heard Obama's speech; In it he called the black shooter of the Dallas police officers acting from a racist agenda. He also clearly painted a picture of the twitter feed that showed, as he described a black cop and a white cop standing together, smiling with a protested holding a sign saying life matters.

I though his speech was an attack on violence and division. And I don't think it added to it, as some would have you believe. Instead, the only reason I think some of those who paint it so radically different do it to deceive. They can't afford conciliation getting that kind of good press.

It is clear there are a lot of people that would have you believe they are against racism and violence, but there agenda is (deep down inside) influenced by hatred, and adds to the divide that seems to be widening between many Americans.

I think the lack of honesty today is shameful. And I think unless we take steps to change things fast, we will reap its rewards. All of us.

This phenomena of attacking Obama, in this case, or anyone who stands for conciliation, while pointing out the nut jobs, and making them appear to be the majority are incredible fools.

Standing on self-righteous feelings of indignation, now, they bitch, moan, and cast aspersions; but will wail a different tune when their efforts boomerang. Wait until the violence affects them personally, when it becomes clear they became the victims of the violence they promoted.

I think the only way a rational person can approach all these events is to say enough. Differences don't matter, ALL individual lives do.

We ain't there yet. I hope we get there. For now we have to live with the idiots that get more pleasure out of being right and pointing out how right they are by demonizing those they disagree with, down to every move, and down to the core. The poor sad individuals don't even realize that their vision is seen through the filter of their own self-loathing, and fueled with the rage of the dysfunction and disease of their own backgrounds!

 

[Bogtrotter07]

I thought these deserved including in their entirety :

The Embarrassment of Racism


By Terry Fitzgibbons ‘04

Gathering with extended family or old friends often seems to churn up different versions of the same story.

From the vantage point of the distant northern suburbs, our conversation dips down into Philadelphia: who lives there now, where someone else used to live, how this neighborhood has changed, how that neighborhood has changed back. “We grew up near Olney,” we say, “but we don’t think of driving through there today.”

It’s never a sustained or deliberate treatise about American cities—just casual conversation—and later, someone happens to share an anecdote from Baltimore: “Camden Yards is beautiful, but after the game, we tried to get out of that city as soon as possible.”

Or the scope shifts north to Newark, New Jersey, where my wife and I live. Newark’s reputation earns an “Ohhhhh, Newark…wow, how’s that?” Or, even an, “Ewww, Newark.” I too easily succumb to the expectations of the conversation: “Well, we live in this great part…it’s the old Portuguese neighborhood.”

This story carries with it the same implied yet unstated subjects: black people. In post-Freddie Gray Baltimore, we mean recently angry black people. In Newark, we mean historically angry black people. And when I qualify our particular neighborhood, I mean to say, “Don’t worry, fewer angry black people.” This conversation recycles, sometimes with different cities or neighborhoods. On the tip of my tongue sit my ready rebuttals: history; segregation; white flight; redlining; deindustrialization; economy… racism. I rarely contribute or rebut, however, and instead just wish for the discussion to pass.

This conversation has swirled for a long time. Recently, though, it has grated on me in a particular way, and I now realize it is because those comments—with their laden assumptions, vantage point of privilege, and ultimate indifference—are me. I am part of this legacy of separation, distance, and ignorance-at-best. I am prejudiced, I am racist, and it is embarrassing.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great rabbi and social critic of the 20th century, writes, "The cure of the soul begins with a sense of embarrassment—embarrassment at our pettiness, prejudices, envy, and conceit…I am afraid of people who are never embarrassed.”

Having been raised in the distant suburbs and having graduated from a homogenous Catholic prep school and then from Notre Dame, I didn’t know many black people growing up. Thus, for the most part, most of the black people I encountered were on television: athletes; entertainers; or more insidiously, night after night, black faces as criminal suspects on the local news. I also encountered black people—a disproportionate number of them—asking for help outside the train stations or the stadiums when we attempted to skirt back to our suburban refuge after a game or a concert in the city.

As much as I have attempted to repress it over the years, this combination of distance and prejudice flows in my blood. It is not only in South Carolina. It is in me. And, it is embarrassing.

Even as a teacher at a racially integrated school, I all too often congratulate myself for having moved beyond the suburban sanctuaries of my youth, only to find that those sanitized walls were not only built around me but within me. The consequence: the students I struggle with teaching the most are young black men. How can I learn to teach them better?

Heschel encourages us, “Embarrassment not only precedes religious commitment; it is the touchstone of religious existence.”

Since moving to Newark, I have been attending the meetings of a community organizing and civil rights group, whose members happen to be primarily black. One evening, a Newark mother shared the story of her son, unarmed, being gunned down by police the previous year. Her story moved me. I was a tangential witness to her grief that evening. It was the closest that I had ever been to that type of Marian-mother heartbreak before, and, privileged, I still got to observe it from a safe vantage point.

On the way home from that meeting, I stopped to pick up a late dinner in our neighborhood. As I walked back to the car, a young black man crossed my path. My heart jumped and, out of my ingrained prejudice, I worried for a split-second that he was a danger to me. The man walked quietly by. I hoped he had not seen my heart jump.

In an instant, my fear reared its head, and it was embarrassing. The moment was particularly embarrassing juxtaposed to the meeting I had come from, let alone any embarrassment the young man might have felt and any embarrassment he has surely undergone in his life.

We are to “die daily” as Paul professed (1 Cor 15:31). Fear, however, does not die easily. Nor does prejudice. Nor does privilege. Yet, if we bring them out of the shadows and wrestle with them in the light—in prayer, in meditation, in honest conversation—the dying will bear much fruit, or at least, better fruit than before.

Terry now teaches in Bayonne, NJ; he served as rector of Duncan Hall from 2011-2014. For more resources on the legacy of racism, see these documents from the Church in America: "Brothers and Sisters to Us;" "Dwell in My Love;" and "Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself."

and;

Matters, in Black and White


By Don Wycliff ‘69


In 1899, the poet James Weldon Johnson wrote “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Twenty years later, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People unofficially dubbed it the “Negro National Anthem.” We still sing it when black folks gather in formal settings (listen to it here).

Among the lyrics are these words of bitter remembrance:

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered

But the lines that resonate most powerfully and are sung most lustily are these:

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Johnson wrote those hopeful and determined words only 34 years after the end of the Civil War. He wrote them at a time when lynching was widely practiced and treated in many places as a form of public entertainment. He wrote them only three years after the U.S. Supreme Court gave the green light to segregation with its infamous ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, enshrining “separate but equal” as the law of the land. He wrote them 55 years before another Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, would begin dismantling that pernicious doctrine. He wrote them 65 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 66 years before the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He wrote them, in other words, at a time when there was far greater reason to be pessimistic about the future for blacks in America than there is now.

Bad as things are today—the mass incarceration, the unjustified police killings, the poverty, the unemployment—African Americans as a people have known worse. And have overcome worse.

But bridging the black-white racial divide is a two-way project. And it needs to be said straightforwardly: As in the early days of the abolitionist movement, white Americans need to take the initiative.

The cold truth is that African Americans have never resisted peaceful social contact with whites. On the contrary, we have often been pathetically, embarrassingly eager for it (think, for example, of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple). There has been no “black flight” from advancing whites, unless they were wearing hoods and burning crosses. There has been no black stereotyping of whites as lazy, undesirable and intellectually inferior, even when they were living off the fruits of uncompensated black labor. There has been no large-scale black terrorization of whites, or black incarceration of whites in numbers far out of proportion to their numbers in society. And black people do not possess the ability to, with a single vicious word, deflate white people, remind them of their wretchedness, and make them feel demeaned.

Black people do not, in short, possess the power and privilege that white people do.

White privilege. Like it or not, the term captures perfectly the dominant racial reality in the United States in 2015. White skin confers on its possessors privileges and immunities that those of darker hues do not routinely enjoy, whether they be manifest in contacts with the police or in opportunities for wealth-accumulation through home ownership or in good education.

Racial progress in America is real and continues to be made. It’s not perfect and it too often seems to come only after the shedding of innocent blood, such as that of Rev. Pinckney and eight others in Charleston last June. But it is real. And it affirms that, as Dr. King used to say, paraphrasing a 19th century Unitarian minister, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Don Wycliff is a retired journalist and co-editor of the 2014 book of essays Black Domers: Seventy Years at Notre Dame. This essay is excerpted from a longer piece that appears in the fall 2015 issue of Notre Dame magazine—read the full text here. For more resources on the legacy of racism, see these documents from the Church in America: "Brothers and Sisters to Us;" "Dwell in My Love;" and "Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself."

 

[NDgradstudent]

I thought these deserved including in their entirety :

The liberal view is that it is racist to notice how high black crime rates are and to make decisions about where to live and where to send your kids to school based upon this knowledge. There are almost no black-majority neighborhoods that have lower crime rates than white-majority neighborhoods. There are almost no black-majority schools that have higher test scores than white-majority schools. Liberals would prefer we live in crime-ridden neighborhoods and send our children to chaotic schools (although they often exempt themselves from these rules).

 

[tussin]

I think the only way a rational person can approach all these events is to say enough. Differences don't matter, ALL individual lives do.

That's fantastic and a feel-good message, but let's actually address and acknowledge the root of the problem.

It's not a coincidence that almost all of these shootings occur in low income, high crime areas. The problem with BLM is that they attempt to explain all of these shootings with a blanket of "institutional racism" while not acknowledging the other side of the coin.

Being a cop in a high crime area is an incredibly challenging job. These individuals are literally putting their life on the line every day. They deal with murders every day, many have experienced instances where they were confronted or even shot at by suspects. This isn't an environment where they spend their entire career handing out speeding tickets. So it really isn't surprising when these incidents occur, as the police have to make split second decisions as to what the appropriate action is -- and these decisions are guided by a career full of experiences as an officer in a low income, high crime area.

It's not fair when something like the Alton Sterling incident happens and activists immediately portray the cop as "racist." Can you say for certain that the officer truly didn't believe that Sterling was reaching for his gun? No one can ascertain exactly what that cop was thinking at the time. Do bad cops exist? Absolutely, and it's a problem that needs to be exposed and addressed. But IMO, the real root of the problem is the culture of crime and violence that plagues our inner city communities.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

That's fantastic and a feel-good message, but let's actually address and acknowledge the root of the problem.

It's not a coincidence that almost all of these shootings occur in low income, high crime areas. The problem with BLM is that they attempt to explain all of these shootings with a blanket of "institutional racism" while not acknowledging the other side of the coin.

Being a cop in a high crime area is an incredibly challenging job. These individuals are literally putting their life on the line every day. They deal with murders every day, many have experienced instances where they were confronted or even shot at by suspects. This isn't an environment where they spend their entire career handing out speeding tickets. So it really isn't surprising when these incidents occur, as the police have to make split second decisions as to what the appropriate action is -- and these decisions are guided by a career full of experiences as an officer in a low income, high crime area.

It's not fair when something like the Alton Sterling incident happens and activists immediately portray the cop as "racist." Can you say for certain that the officer truly didn't believe that Sterling was reaching for his gun? No one can ascertain exactly what that cop was thinking at the time. Do bad cops exist? Absolutely, and it's a problem that needs to be exposed and addressed. But IMO, the real root of the problem is the culture of crime and violence that plagues our inner city communities.

Hard as you tried . . . you just made my point.

And it is not a 'feel good' message. It is a KISS for the less intellectually gifted.

Does this work better?

Gospel

Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

[phgreek]

That's fantastic and a feel-good message, but let's actually address and acknowledge the root of the problem.

It's not a coincidence that almost all of these shootings occur in low income, high crime areas. The problem with BLM is that they attempt to explain all of these shootings with a blanket of "institutional racism" while not acknowledging the other side of the coin.

Being a cop in a high crime area is an incredibly challenging job. These individuals are literally putting their life on the line every day. They deal with murders every day, many have experienced instances where they were confronted or even shot at by suspects. This isn't an environment where they spend their entire career handing out speeding tickets. So it really isn't surprising when these incidents occur, as the police have to make split second decisions as to what the appropriate action is -- and these decisions are guided by a career full of experiences as an officer in a low income, high crime area.

It's not fair when something like the Alton Sterling incident happens and activists immediately portray the cop as "racist." Can you say for certain that the officer truly didn't believe that Sterling was reaching for his gun? No one can ascertain exactly what that cop was thinking at the time. Do bad cops exist? Absolutely, and it's a problem that needs to be exposed and addressed. But IMO, the real root of the problem is the culture of crime and violence that plagues our inner city communities.

I agree...BUT, I gotta say that if cops are exposed to combat like situations daily we should look at ways to transfer them around to less hot assignments...at least within a state. Because sometimes I think what passes for experience is really PTSD kinds of issues that cause a quicker trigger. Not saying I know for sure...but I am trying to think of ways where we minimize occurrences of a bad shoot due to constant exposure to peril. AND YES, people in those communities need to own some of the responsibility...they need cops, but if cops are constantly in a combat posture, what do you expect?

I think the other thing we all need to insist on is body cameras, so we can see and evaluate events as they unfold...and not just selected clips designed to vilify police.

 

[tussin]

I agree...BUT, I gotta say that if cops are exposed to combat like situations daily we should look at ways to transfer them around to less hot assignments...at least within a state. Because sometimes I think what passes for experience is really PTSD kinds of issues that cause a quicker trigger. Not saying I know for sure...but I am trying to think of ways where we minimize occurrences of a bad shoot due to constant exposure to peril. AND YES, people in those communities need to own some of the responsibility...they need cops, but if cops are constantly in a combat posture, what do you expect?

Completely agree with the bolded - violence breeds violence. It's human nature.

I too have thought about a rotation and transfer scheme as well. There are benefits and drawbacks to have cops with less experience in high violent crime areas -- not sure which outweigh the other.

 

[phgreek]

Completely agree with the bolded - violence breeds violence. It's human nature.

I too have thought about a rotation and transfer scheme as well. There are benefits and drawbacks to have cops with less experience in high violent crime areas -- not sure which outweigh the other.

ah...good point.

 

[RDU Irish]

Fort Madison bank robber shooting justified | News | dailygate.com

Wonder why they don't mention the race of this guy. Not even making state wide news in Iowa for a pretty dramatic confrontation.

 

[arrowryan]

Here we go again.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BREAKING: 2 officers confirmed dead in Baton Rouge <a href="https://t.co/gwv4Vn91QO">https://t.co/gwv4Vn91QO</a> <a href="https://t.co/DeeUhmvyAX">pic.twitter.com/DeeUhmvyAX</a></p>— CBS News (@CBSNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/754698355515817984">July 17, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NEW: Video of alleged shots fired at officers in Baton Rouge <a href="https://t.co/gwv4VmRqse">https://t.co/gwv4VmRqse</a> <a href="https://t.co/7HGD5AuECW">https://t.co/7HGD5AuECW</a></p>— CBS News (@CBSNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/754701305872908288">July 17, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Voltaire]

Somewhere out there NJNP is popping bottles again today.

 

[wizards8507]

I don't know who this guy is but Barack Obama follows him.

https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/754708241200787456


Sent from my Galaxy Note4 using Tapatalk.

 

[wizards8507]

 

[Bishop2b5]

Several news sources confirming three officers dead and three more wounded. This crap needs to stop.

 

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

I don't know who this guy is but Barack Obama follows him.

https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/754708241200787456


Sent from my Galaxy Note4 using Tapatalk.

If if if if if he had a son, that could be him

 

[BGIF]

Baton Rouge Update

Baton Rouge Update

Shooter being identified as Gavin Long, 29 today (Happy B'day asshole), black male, ex marine, from Missouri.

 

[BGIF]

https://gma.yahoo.com/three-police-...ng-baton-193805741--abc-news-topstories.html#

By EMILY SHAPIRO and MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN
1 minute ago

 

[Bogtrotter07]

If the video I saw and heard was genuine, and accurate, the police faced a shooter with a fully automatic weapon, and knew how to really use it.

My heart goes out to all the families of anyone involved in this or any of the situations making the news. How awful. Nothing less than hell on earth.

 

[Voltaire]

Shooter being identified as Gavin Long, 29 today (Happy B'day asshole), black male, ex marine, from Missouri.

Do any of you people know who Charles Whitman was?... Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was?... Do any of you people know where these individuals learned to shoot?... In the marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! And before you ladies leave my island, you will be able to do the same thing!

All-time great lines from Full Metal Jacket

 

[phgreek]

I don't know who this guy is but Barack Obama follows him.

https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/754708241200787456


Sent from my Galaxy Note4 using Tapatalk.

Jeremiah wright not have twitter?

 

[BGIF]

I'm tired physically and emotionally. Disappointed in some family, friends, and officers for some reckless comments but hey what's in your heart is in your heart. I still love you all because hate takes too much energy but I definitely won't be looking at you the same. Thank you to everyone that has reached out to me or my wife it was needed and much appreciated. I swear to God I love this city but I wonder if this city loves me. In uniform, I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform, some consider me a threat. I've experienced so much in my short life and these last three days have tested me to the core. When people you know being to question your integrity you realize they don't really know you at al. Look at my actions they speak LOUD and CLEAR. Finally, I personally want to send prayers out to everyone directly affected by this tragedy. These are trying times. Please don't let hate infect your heart. This city MUST and WILL get better. I'm working in these streets so any protesters, officers, friends, family, or whoever if you see me and need a hug or want to say a prayer. I got you.

Montrell Jackson
July 8, 2016

Written by Officer Montrell Jackson on his Facebook page on July 8th after the murders of the Dallas police officers.

Officer Jackson was the first responder killed in Baton Rouge today. He leaves behind a wife and and 4 month old baby ... and words we need to live by. The world is a lesser place today.

 

[phgreek]

Several news sources confirming three officers dead and three more wounded. This crap needs to stop.

How many more times? How many more radicalized losers is the BLM's, Media's, "Leader's" rhetoric going to deliver us???

Mr. Obama's original response to this Baton Rouge incident was on the money...too bad it didn't come sooner. No equivocating, no blame spreading...just condemnation of losers being losers. Just clean clear recognition that killing cops that had nothing to do with your "BEEF" helps nothing. Finally.

 

[ohara831]

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the officers killed and injured. Please, let this insanity stop.

 

[NDgradstudent]

You're not crazy...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Am I crazy or does the New York Times article on the Baton Rouge shooting not mention the shooter was black? <a href="https://t.co/g3Qm56TGcD">https://t.co/g3Qm56TGcD</a></p>— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/754822233307086849">July 17, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[pkt77242]

You're not crazy...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Am I crazy or does the New York Times article on the Baton Rouge shooting not mention the shooter was black? <a href="https://t.co/g3Qm56TGcD">https://t.co/g3Qm56TGcD</a></p>— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/754822233307086849">July 17, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

And?

For a long time no one knew his skin color. Now people probably assumed his color but that information wasn't out there for a while, so nice try but your bias is pretty evident.

 

[IrishLax]

We live in a world where literally every time a black person dies at the hands of a white cop it's directly attributed to "evil racist white cops out to intentionally murder black people"...

...and then when black people (who are avowed BLM supporters) go out and murder police officers in cold blood it's blamed on "white supremacy" not the hate group and racists who foster these attitudes.

 

[wizards8507]

We live in a world where literally every time a black person dies at the hands of a white cop it's directly attributed to "evil racist white cops out to intentionally murder black people"...

...and then when black people (who are avowed BLM supporters) go out and murder police officers in cold blood it's blamed on "white supremacy" not the hate group and racists who foster these attitudes.

BLM is a religion of peace, you bigot.

 

[BGIF]

CNN's Don Lemon and Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke got into it tonight on Lemon's program over BLM and it's claims of police abuse. Lemon was addressing the conciliatory/let's work together attitude that so many had leaders were stating in the media. He asked Clarke what message he would like to add.

Clarke was quite for a moment that said, "You don't beleive that, do you?" Lemon surprised responded, "Yes." Clarked asked Lemon if there had been any riots or protests today over the killing of cops in Baton Rouge and Dallas. Lemon said he didn't follow. The others had a message of peace what message did Clark have. Clark said that hate filled message of BLM had started two years ago and that he (Clarke) had predicated the problems that developed from that hate message.

Clarke stressed that the killing/war on police has to stop. Lemon tried to talk him into a conciliatory message but Clarke wasn't biting. He again was quite for a moment, then looked directly at Lemon with his jaw set. In firm tone of voice Clarke noted that BLM was built on a lie and had been since Ferguson with the now disproved "Hands Up. Don't Shoot" slogan.

Lemon asked how Clarke could deny the statistics that show widespread police abuse. Clarke challenged those statistics. Lemon asked him how he could deny those stats. Clarke claimed the stats were not well defined as to the circumstances of arrests, etc. When Lemon again took up the police abuse gauntlet, Clarke turned the tables and challenged Lemon to prove that there was a pattern of nationwide abuse. Lemon hemmed that this was a national show and he was a professional and didn't have to justify himself and he wasn't going to argue with Clarke. Lemon called for a commercial break and the screen faded to black.

I found Lemon's dodge interesting as about a half hour earlier I had watched him and a 3 member panel discussing conciliation and police/community interaction. One of the panel members former NYC Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik took issue with Lemon over "facts" Lemon referred to generally but never stated. Kerik strongly disagreed with Lemon. Lemon took the same I'm a professional journalist tact with Kerik.

With Kerik it worked, he backed down. Clarke didn't.

Wisconsin sheriff on recent shootings: I predicted this - CNN Video