Police State USA

[GoIrish41]

Sounds like the city should have recording cameras inside transport vans.

And on the bodies of cops!

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

I propose the same question to those who cry for more "equality" and "fairness" in K-12 education funding. We all know the inner cities are always struggling for money, and the rich suburban kids are living it up with Promythean boards in every room, fancy labs, and turf fields.

What is the solution in this government designed, mostly state run and funded system? Take taxpayer money away from the suburban schools and redistribute it to the inner cities? Will that really solve the issue of failing inner city schools?

As of 2011, the average school district in PA spent about $8000 per pupil for education every year. My alma mater (Catholic high school) conducted a study and they spent about half of that per pupil, and had 94% of its students graduating to a 2 or 4 year college.

 

[wizards8507]

Crazier things like cops breaking the guy's back before throwing him into the van? Because that would be some crazy shit! Believable but crazy as opposed to crazy and simply unbelievable.

Catch up with this afternoon's reports. He was a-okay when he was put in the van. I know it's hard when facts conflict with the narrative, but there you go.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 using Tapatalk.

 

[BGIF]

I'd imagine they would say something like

a) it's tough to believe someone could severe their own spine while handcuffed and in a van
and b) even if that is possible, when the police have someone restrained (read: cuffed) they have a responsibility to secure them so they can't do something like this either accidentally or deliberately.

In a society where a coffee vendor is responsible for a person being stupid enough for placing a highly flexible styrofoam cup of hot coffee between her legs next to their vagina for support while she drives away in a car on city streets with bumps, paving irregularities and potholes I suppose a patrolmen should be responsible for transport safety design. The person that poured that too hot cup of coffee wasn't arrested for injuring the stupid one nor was the pourer sued. There was no malicious intent, no motive to harm or cause injury, no racism or brutality, the last two being the motives the protesters are protesting, AND the poster asked about.

The seat belt was to protect the detainee from a rough ride or traffic accident, not from the detainee banging their own head against the wall. Do you envision head restraints for all detainees? Padded seats and walls? Should the gray family be suing the van manufacturer for racism and brutality for a possible safety fault in design or execution like MacDonald's was? Should the van manufacturer have placed warning notices at seat advising of the need for belting and head harnesses ala Hannibal The Cannibal to prevent injury?

Is that van only used for black detainees or is it an equal opportunity conveyance used for all races, creeds, genders, and religions?

bunch of whiners, if you ask me. Hell, they might even have the gall to point out that a fellow prisoner separated by a metal divide doesn't seem like the best witness to rely on. Crybabies.

The autopsy identifying the injury and the bolt was performed by the Medical Examiner, an MD, not by a fellow detainee in a separate compartment with audio capability only. The DOJ will be reviewing that autopsy looking at procedures, photos, x-rays, tissue samples, clothing, and other evidence and whether there is any evidence another person caused those injuries, such as, handprint on the head or torso of Gray. This isn't Neshoba County in 1964.

 

[Booslum31]

Catch up with this afternoon's reports. He was a-okay when he was put in the van. I know it's hard when facts conflict with the narrative, but there you go.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 using Tapatalk.

Ha...like facts have ever mattered. Takes all the fun out of it.

 

[NDgradstudent]

Hey NDGradStudent, I've said multiple times that I live in the south side of chicago. Most of my neighbors are black. What point are you trying to make?


Anyway, came here to post this link: the economist imagines if white and black America were two different countries. The differences are stark.


Daily chart: Two nations | The Economist


e. also from the Economist, though I don't have time to find the link, due to the heavy reliance on local funding for schools, America is one of three countries in the Western world that spends more money on public education for rich students than it does for poor students. The other two are Turkey and Israel.

Assuming that your kids did/will/would go to the local public schools, I give you plenty of credit, but we have to acknowledge that you are the exception that proves the rule, especially in Chicago. My point is that there is in general massive gap between what white liberals say and what they do, which reveals the folly of social engineering projects designed to integrate schools or neighborhoods. It is unfair for white liberals to expect everyone else to go along with some program that they would not themselves go along with.

As for education spending, we don't have to look for too far for data that challenges the conventional liberal view. More money for schools does not replace the lack of a stable family.

 

[NDgradstudent]

At least these riots are bringing together the divided Baltimore community. From the NY Times:

A couple of the young men wore bandannas to hide their identity. The young men identified themselves as members of the Crips, Bloods and Black Guerrilla Family street gangs. One of the Crips members, who called himself Charles, wearing a red Chicago Bulls Derrick Rose T-shirt, said the gang members had taken to the street because “there is only so far that you can push people into a corner.”

“We’re frustrated,” he continued, “and that’s why we’re out there in the streets.”

Then he described how he and some Bloods had stood in front of black-owned stores to protect them from looting or vandalism. He said they had made sure no black children, or reporters, were hit by rioters. They pointed them toward Chinese- and Arab-owned stores. Charles said Mr. Gray had brought gangs together.

“I rolled over here on a truck, and I was the only Crip and everybody else was Bloods. And they didn’t do anything to me. We’re together in this.”

Ron Nixon, "Amid Violence, Factions and Messages Converge in a Weary and Unsettled Baltimore," N.Y. Times, April 27, 2015 [Emphasis added]

I've seen this movie before...

 

[Buster Bluth]

The key with Buster and the other lefties is to examine their behavior, rather than their opinions.

I kinda think Buster and the Lefties would be a decent indie band name.

Fun fact since you haven't been around IE very long: I voted for McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. Even in the 2016 Presidential thread I've made my disgust for the Clintons known. Basically, you don't know anything about me.

Talk about "racism" requires no thought, effort, or originality, but the game is given away by the decisions that they make. I am still waiting to hear from anyone here who chose to move to a heavily black neighborhood, or to send his child to a heavily black school.

Are you on acid? Pointing out some of the factors that got these places into the mess they are today isn't prodding people to move into the ghetto. It doesn't make me a lefty to bring up the fact that a huge reason why these neighborhoods fell into disrepair is that their access to capital was explicitly denied by the federal government from 1934-1968. Sorta tough to function in a capitalist society without capital, chief. The government literally drew lines around black sections of cities and said "these places won't get FHA loans." Last I checked, criticizing big government when it steps on it's own dick doesn't make someone a lefty.

Where is your disgust for social engineering when the federal government refused to back black communities starting in the 1930s and then in the 1950s subsidized 91% of the freeway costs to move the white people out of the city? In suburbia, the FHA only offered mortgages to non-mixed developments. You couldn't integrate if you tried. And of course, it wasn't illegal to discriminate in the private sector until 1968, so suburb after suburb barred blacks ownership and even rentals, relegating them to remain in the neighborhoods that the government refused to give capital to for the previous twenty years.

But oh yeah let me guess it all comes down to a lack of dads and personal responsibility. Not the openly racist housing policies and the current War on Drugs. How about all of the above?

Incredibly, these same lefties seem to think that the government can somehow "desegregate" these cities and convince whites to move to black neighborhoods, or something. If they had their way, every city's public schools would look like Boston's. Or maybe this is worth it to win the war on racism?

I'd trade your presence on IE for one hundred keunjnjhas.

Convincing white people to move into black neighborhoods isn't even something the government would need to encourage these days. It's a little thing called gentrification.

 

[IrishinSyria]

NDGRAD, nobody will argue with you that a stable family isn't important. But the issues go way deeper that. It's really easy, but not exactly helpful, to stand back and say that black people need to have more traditional families. But that doesn't solve anything.

 

[IrishinSyria]

Jacking up the gas tax is long overdue.

 

[BGIF]

I want to know the people who think a guy may have broke his own back and neck so that I can do business with them.

Start with the M.E.

Neck injuries are common. Drivers, cyclists, skateboarders, trampoline users, gymnasts, falls, Darwin Award nominees, fighters, drunks, etc, etc. There have been football players that have broken their own necks making tackles not being tackled.


My wife took a nap one day and woke up screaming in pain. Her arms were flailing wildly. I thought she was having a seizure. Turned out she had a damaged C-3 vertebrae. Now she has a surgical titanium C-3. There was no recent prior trauma but she had been in a couple of car wrecks and an airplane crash in her lifetime, and she was an avid roller coaster rider. Bone density and strength isn't the same in all people.

Tom Krug, ND QB, had a congenital neck condition that terminated his football carreer. He wasn't injured when he went to the doctor. He had an x-ray taken looking for something else or as part of a physical and the doctor fortunately stumbled on the congenital condition which could have resulted in paralysis.

Gray's neck could have been injured for the first time when he was taken down. There is no video of him going down but there is a knee high wall right behind him. If he hit the wall or pavement cracking a vertebrae there should be signs of that at autopsy. IF the cops had used a choke hold snapping a vertebrae, there should be trauma to Gray's neck skin indicating that.

Gray could have been injured at the take down and been writhing in pain in the van, trashing about, rather that purposely trying to hurt himself. IF thrashing in pain, he could have hit his head accidentally.

Gray could also have been looking for a lawsuit. The BPD and City have a history of settled lawsuits dealing with injury. I learned today that Gray received a settlement saw years ago for lead paint.

There are several possibilities in addition to police abuse. One of the reasons for autopsies. And the M.E's conclusions will have to stand up to further scrutiny. I don't see an M.E. under this international spotlight falsifying an autopsy to protect a cop on the street nor the city coffers.


Brief but worthwhile video on the spinal injury.

How did Freddie Gray injure his spine? - CNN Video

 

[BGIF]

Catch up with this afternoon's reports. He was a-okay when he was put in the van. I know it's hard when facts conflict with the narrative, but there you go.

.

"He was a-okay when he was put in the van."

What afternoon reports? There was no on-scene medic. We only have a snippet of the M.E. Report about the bolt. Have you seen a quote that Gray was 100% OK prior to entering the van? Please provide a cite rather an a glib one liner.


Really, he doesn't look OK.

It took 3 cops to transport him to the van. He didn't appear to be assisting them. That could have been an act, feigning injury to set up a lawsuit. It looked like he was incapacitated to me if he was only groggy from the chase/takedown but we only have the video AFTER he's being raised up.

I gather you've seen more. Does ESPN have a copy of the M.E.'s report or have the boys in the office spoken with some trainers they know? Again, I'd appreciate a cite.

 

[Rhode Irish]

BGIF, how many of those people broke their own neck on purpose? We are talking about a guy that died quickly from his injuries. Not someone that slept on his neck wrong.

 

[Irishcop]

I want to know the people who think a guy may have broke his own back and neck so that I can do business with them.

Hahahaha.

 

[Irishcop]

I have no clue what happened in the wagon, However I do agree with BGIF that Gray did not look ok when he was being put in the wagon. Or maybe his neck was broken due to a break check. Does anyone know if the other prisoner stated anything about a sudden abrupt stop?

 

[Booslum31]

NDGRAD, nobody will argue with you that a stable family isn't important. But the issues go way deeper that. It's really easy, but not exactly helpful, to stand back and say that black people need to have more traditional families. But that doesn't solve anything.

I disagree. I think that to try to remedy things that occur BECAUSE of the break up of the traditional family is like treating symptons but not addressing what's causing it.

 

[NDgradstudent]

NDGRAD, nobody will argue with you that a stable family isn't important. But the issues go way deeper that. It's really easy, but not exactly helpful, to stand back and say that black people need to have more traditional families. But that doesn't solve anything.

In response I will quote Thomas Sowell:

The higher rate of imprisonment among young men in black ghettos of America today as compared to the 1950s…undermines the very argument in which these imprisonment rates are cited. Surely the supposed “root causes” of crime –poverty, discrimination, and the like– were not less in the 1950s, before the civil rights laws and policies of the 1960s. And what of those blacks who do not drop out of high school but who go onto college instead, and seldom end up in prison? It should also be noted that, from 1994 on into the twenty-first century, the poverty rate among black husband-wife families was below 10 percent. Are these blacks living in a different external “system” or do they have a different internal culture, representing different values in their families or among others who have influenced them? Yet such questions are seldom asked, much less answered. Instead, today’s higher rate of incarceration is blamed on drug laws, tighter sentencing rules, and a general failure of society. In short, society is to blame, except apparently for those members of society who actually commit the crimes.

Intellectuals and Race (Basic Books, 2013), 116.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

In response I will quote Thomas Sowell:

Good post but I liked Buster's before it as well. I haven't read anything on this yet but iI'm interested in following this discussion.

 

[irishff1014]

I have no clue what happened in the wagon, However I do agree with BGIF that Gray did not look ok when he was being put in the wagon. Or maybe his neck was broken due to a break check. Does anyone know if the other prisoner stated anything about a sudden abrupt stop?

Local media reports that the van driver wasn't driver wreckless or making drastic stops or turns. That came out either late last night or this morning with the info about the 4th stop.

 

[irishff1014]

And on the bodies of cops!

Don't quote me on this but I do believe about 3 weeks ago the new Gov. Hogan was trying to force all police agencies in MD to have them And I do think j read an article that the city mayor shot them down.

 

[Rhode Irish]

In response I will quote Thomas Sowell:

Your analysis on this is like me showing up to a fight in which you're getting your ass kicked and offering that the reason you're losing the fight is that you have two black eyes, a broken jaw, a broken nose and a ruptured ear drum. You're confusing symptoms for the disease.

 

[pkt77242]

In response I will quote Thomas Sowell:

Is he talking about the federal poverty level? Because if so it would be shocking to find a large number of two parent households under the federal poverty level. The federal poverty level for a family of four is $24,250 for 2015, not exactly a high bar to clear and not exactly shocking that they would exceed that number.

Of course the higher rate of incarceration is blamed on drugs. The only number I have been able to find reliably so far (in a 10 second internet search is that in 1980, about 25% of federal prisoners were in for drug offenses and by 2013 it was 50%. Since black disproportionately go to jail for drug offenses (even though both whites and blacks use drugs at about the same rate), and our prison population has been drastically increasing during this time period, is it really any wonder that the higher incarceration rate is blamed on drug laws.

Now one thing that I agree with is that education is an important part of keeping people out of prison. Fixing our education system is probably one of the best things that we can do to lower incarceration rate.

 

[NDgradstudent]

Is he talking about the federal poverty level? Because if so it would be shocking to find a large number of two parent households under the federal poverty level. The federal poverty level for a family of four is $24,250 for 2015, not exactly a high bar to clear and not exactly shocking that they would exceed that number.

Of course the higher rate of incarceration is blamed on drugs. The only number I have been able to find reliably so far (in a 10 second internet search is that in 1980, about 25% of federal prisoners were in for drug offenses and by 2013 it was 50%. Since black disproportionately go to jail for drug offenses (even though both whites and blacks use drugs at about the same rate), and our prison population has been drastically increasing during this time period, is it really any wonder that the higher incarceration rate is blamed on drug laws.

Now one thing that I agree with is that education is an important part of keeping people out of prison. Fixing our education system is probably one of the best things that we can do to lower incarceration rate.

First, to your question about poverty, I assume that he is talking about the federal poverty rate, but looking at median household income makes clear that being married matters in absolute terms.

Second, to your point about the war on drugs being the driver of black incarceration, I can only reply that the violent crime rate increased dramatically from 1960-2012, too, so it cannot just be drugs. The violent crime rate was 160.9 in 1960 and it was 386.9 in 2012; the murder rate is slightly down from 1960, but the rates of rape, assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft are all up substantially (for this data, see here). Bear in mind that looking at federal prisoners is dubious because these crimes are essentially all handled by state law.

Third and relatedly, let me offer a specific counterexample: if the higher incarceration rate is blamed on drugs, how do you explain the fact that Oregon, where marijuana has been decriminalized since 1973, has a higher black-to-white incarceration rate than the national average? See "Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity," Table 6, pg. 11. Notice too that the more liberal a state is the higher the disparity between white and black imprisonment.

Finally, I encourage people to examine these reports from Brookings (liberal) and Heritage (conservative) on the out-of-wedlock birth rate issue. Notice that neither one denies that this is a major driver of poverty, although they disagree about which policies will remedy it.

 

[IrishinSyria]

Tracking violent crime from the 60's to present day is bound to be fruitless because there was this tiny little shift in our economy during that period (the move from being an expanding industrial economy that put a premium on unskilled labor to being an information based economy that put a premium on education). Crime has fallen pretty dramatically in the last 20 years despite relatively little economic disruption in that period- is there a matching rise in the rate of 2 parent households?

Anyway, literally nobody is saying that the downfall of the traditional family structure has not exacerbated the problem (for poor Americans in general, not just blacks). However, unless you come with solutions, that's not a very helpful line of analysis. To run with RhodeIrish's analogy, it's like a doctor looking at a patient and saying, "well his problem is that he got his ass kicked" and walking away.

 

[goldandblue]

Anyway, literally nobody is saying that the downfall of the traditional family structure has not exacerbated the problem (for poor Americans in general, not just blacks). However, unless you come with solutions, that's not a very helpful line of analysis. To run with RhodeIrish's analogy, it's like a doctor looking at a patient and saying, "well his problem is that he got his ass kicked" and walking away.

I seem to remember him stating some general ideas of government incentives and tax benefits.

 

[kmoose]

Your analysis on this is like me showing up to a fight in which you're getting your ass kicked and offering that the reason you're losing the fight is that you have two black eyes, a broken jaw, a broken nose and a ruptured ear drum. You're confusing symptoms for the disease.

What is the disease, exactly, in your opinion?

 

[Irish#1]

I kinda think Buster and the Lefties would be a decent indie band name.


Where is your disgust for social engineering when the federal government refused to back black communities starting in the 1930s and then in the 1950s subsidized 91% of the freeway costs to move the white people out of the city? In suburbia, the FHA only offered mortgages to non-mixed developments. You couldn't integrate if you tried. And of course, it wasn't illegal to discriminate in the private sector until 1968, so suburb after suburb barred blacks ownership and even rentals, relegating them to remain in the neighborhoods that the government refused to give capital to for the previous twenty years.

But oh yeah let me guess it all comes down to a lack of dads and personal responsibility. Not the openly racist housing policies and the current War on Drugs. How about all of the above?

NDGRAD, nobody will argue with you that a stable family isn't important. But the issues go way deeper that. It's really easy, but not exactly helpful, to stand back and say that black people need to have more traditional families. But that doesn't solve anything.

Gentlemen, The lack of the traditional family is at the core of the problems with drugs, poverty, etc. Teach and discipline the kids early and often. I won't argue about the past and how some of this came about, but if we had a lot more traditional families with a father and mother to parent kids, I think you would see a reduction in the problems we see today. I applaud the mother who became a hero when she pulled her son out of the rioting, but you have to wonder if the boy would have even been there if his dad would have been around.

Build the interstate highway system so whites could flee the cities? That's stretching things. The highway system was introduced to stimulate the economy, create jobs and allow the US to continue to grow. At that time the subdivisions being developed in the suburbs were still close enough that it didn't require an interstate highway to reach them.

 

[IrishinSyria]

I seem to remember him stating some general ideas of government incentives and tax benefits.

Color me monumentally skeptical that the tax code is the problem here.

 

[Irish Insanity]

All 6 officers charged. His death has been ruled a homicide.

 

[kmoose]

All 6 officers charged. His death has been ruled a homicide.

Biggest surprise to me; the arrest was illegal. The knife they found was a legal folding knife, NOT a switchblade. All 6 of them(assuming that all 6 of them were aware of the type of knife) ought to go to jail just for that alone.