You quite literally just spelled out the definition of victim blaming. Here's the deal:
If police are in a situation where they're being fired upon or someone is attacking them with a deadly weapon, and those police respond with deadly force, virtually no one complains about police misconduct and everyone rallies around law enforcement.
In your comment you highlighted 6 areas to blame victims:
1) Criminal behavior
2) Resisting arrest
3) Attempting to flee
4) Fighting with police
5) Obey lawful commands
6) Brandishing weapons
Numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 almost never require excessive force, and certainly not deadly force. There's more gray area in number 4 and even more in number 6. Lumping in 1, 2, 3, and 5 as justification for a shooting is exactly part of the problem with police. For most of the country understanding this problem is elementary to American justice.
The problem with the Victim Blaming crowd is that when there are accusations of police misconduct there's a reflex to act like law enforcement are always in situations where excessive/deadly force is necessary--and when that runs counter to the facts as we're seeing clearly with Adam Toledo--the next step is to blame the victim even further to a more personal degree (he was a gang member, dealt drugs, used drugs, had a record, where were the parents, etc) and other tropes with racist origins to excuse police misconduct.
Just in the last 2 pages of this thread on Toledo's shooting we have such comments as:
"But his nickname was Lil' Homicide."
"Mother was not mothering."
"Gangbanger."
"Sympathy goes to the officer."
"Not all heroes wear capes."
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."
"Would've been killed by another gang member anyway."
Zero moderate voices in this thread are saying these things. It's exclusively right-wing posters. It makes you wonder why? If right-wingers wanted to stick to the defense that Chicago is dangerous and it was a difficult situation with Toledo dropping the gun at the last second, that's acceptable. But, they're taken it even further with the vilification of the victim. Again, why?
In many of these cases, the more personal the victim blaming gets the greater the relationship between police misconduct. In the year 2021, if you see a white person using the term "gangbanger" in regards to an incident it's a dead give away where their motivation is w/r/t police and shootings. Americans with empathy don't need to say these things if the facts of the case line up in favor of the police.
If anyone made those above comments and they worked for Notre Dame, they'd likely be fired (oh no cancel culture!).
And yet, the handful of posters who made them will complain about the media going overboard and that it's the media's fault that they're bringing race into it to stoke the fire when in reality you can't find a more politicizing event than excessive victim blaming after shootings. Thick irony. Police reform will continue to be impossible when such a large bloc of voters think victim blaming is okay (even encouraged, especially within police themselves) and that less victim blaming means those against it are the greatest victims of all.
First, great news. The disgrace Derek Chauvin is getting what he deserves. Guilty on all counts.
So it’s been awhile since I’ve posted on here. I’ve read dozens of posts and all offer valid points and some are a little, and rightfully so, emotional. I can speak from experience, the vast majority of cops detest Chauvin. And, moving forward, most cops can agree that use of force standards and policing needs to change. But, even the most progressive states struggle on how exactly to do it. Cases like Derek Chauvin are easy to spot but there are many gray areas that need both cops and non cops to come to together and find someone common ground. I am not picking on you specifically, your post just captured and summed up many other posts.
So id like to address a few things
So the term excessive force. Excessive force is never justified because it’s excessive. Police use of force, on the other hand, has to be equal/proportionate to the resistance/force used against the cop. Also, once the person is detained, the force must stop. Example is Chauvin. Once Floyd was detained, the force should’ve stopped. He wasn’t a threat.
So I’m not sure if you meant excessive force or use of force. I’ll assume you meant use of force.
To your points about 1, 2, 3, and 5 never needing excessive force, again, I’m assuming you mean use of force:
1. Criminal behavior. I’m not sure what you mean by Criminal behavior but I’ll assume you mean during a crime. Petty crimes you’re probably right unless it evolves into something more serious. But violent crimes (robbery, gun violence, sex assault..etc) can involve completely justified proportionate use of force depending on the crime and what the suspect is doing.
2. Resisting arrest. Resisting arrest can be running away (fleeing) or being non compliant. Refusing to be handcuffed. The cop tackling the person to get the person handcuffed is justified. Resisting arrest also includes fighting police FYI. But again everything has to be proportionate. And it depends what the person is fleeing for? What if the person is running because they just shot, sexually assaulted, or robbed someone? All things that need to be considered and the proportionate use of force should be used.
3. Obeying lawful commands shouldnt involve force because the person is obeying what the cop is telling them.
Use of force isn’t just deadly force. There’s a lot of in between from no force to deadly force.
It’s really not as elementary as you believe and I don’t mean that as an insult in anyway. That’s why even the most progressive DAs and state government are having trouble finding a solution and why their positions involves better training and the hiring of better more qualified candidates.
Also, an interesting tidbit of information, only until recently could cops reactions to race when using deadly force be somewhat accurately measured with the use of technology. Michigan state I think did a study in 2015 I believe and found that cops are faster to shoot white people than people color. I can find it if anyone would like to read it. I used it for my research.
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