Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, moments after shocking police video was released showing an Illinois officer fatally shooting Sonya Massey after she called police fearing a home intruder.

In his first public statement since dropping his bid for re-election, Biden said the shooting of Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by white Sangamon county sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson, in her home in Springfield, after a dispute over a pot of boiling water, “reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not”.

Biden, who is recovering from Covid at his home in Delaware, said Massey, “a beloved mother, friend, daughter and young Black woman … should be alive today”.

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    That was worse than I was picturing. She immediately dropped to her knees while saying sorry (twice, panicked) , with her hands up and they shot her. She had released the pot the moment they got aggravated. It’s such a shame that this keeps happening and the only response police have is “more money please.”

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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      There’s a reason ACAB is a thing. They’re the most destructive gang in the world.

      Start at the top, every chief, superintendent and supervisor should be on trial. They should all serve time and lose their chance to police…

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      Just tired of reading about this shit while our DOJ twiddles its thumbs and our legislature waves little “Blue Lives Matter” flags in the faces of the survivors.

  • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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    Just glad they’re not messing around with this one, and went ahead with the three charges of first degree murder.

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        But she picked up the pot… so she was just following orders! Conservatives love people who were just following orders!

        Yea, it’s fucking ridiculous. Hopefully it turns voters off Trump and we can get actual legislation in place to enforce body cam usage.

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      And wouldn’t you know it, it’s thanks to bodycam footage that we have irrefutable proof of this clear and unquestionably excessive use of force against an innocent victim.

      The bodycam footage that thousands of police departments throughout the US are still pushing back against because they want people to think it impedes their ability to appropriately deliver justice, when it is actually, finally, allowing justice to take place. The necessity of which was caused primarily by police brutality against people of color, just like this situation, where there was no witness account other than the cop’s side of the story.

      If this happened ten years ago, back before bodycams became more widespread, the cop would have gotten off with a short paid suspension and no other punishment, because all there would be is the cop’s one-sided account of how she clearly assaulted him with a deadly weapon and reached for his gun.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        If I were a cop I’d be happy to have a body cam because it would help me cover my ass in case someone accused me of something.

        But this attitude is probably why I’m not a cop.

        • I had a similar experience with something that Lemmy would generally oppose. I used to be concerned that Google kept track of my location and nearly everything I do on my phone. However, I was accused of something serious that typically cannot be disproven otherwise, and since it’s something perpetrators often get away with, people tend to believe the accuser without evidence. When that happened, I was so happy that Google had a record of my location because it would have demonstrated that I wasn’t where the accuser said I was, nor did I have the contact they said I had. I not only offered to show my location history to investigators, but asked them to so it would clear my name. I guess my sincerity was evident because they didn’t even bother and dropped the whole thing shortly after.

          I agree with you. If I were a cop, I’d want every second of my day indisputably recorded to clear my name in case I’m ever falsely accused of something. I don’t know what it is about me. Maybe my autistic traits make me seem suspicious or like a careless asshole to others, maybe my evident self-doubt make me an easy target for predators, or maybe my lack of conformity and unique style of accomplishing things give people an uncomfortable intuitive feeling about me, but I think I get accused/blamed for a lot of things I didn’t do or had any intent of doing more than normal. I know I would eventually be accused of some bs and would need evidence to demonstrate my innocence.

      • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Are body cams really providing justice? Where is Sonya’s justice? Hailing body cams as the ultimate police reform is the type of thing I’d expect a cop to say. For people who have been experiencing this racist police violence for generations, it’s clear that body cams are at best a half measure, and at worst a means of documenting all of the brutal murders that pigs continue to carry out on innocent people while body cams are running. The answer isn’t in body cams, but in comprehensive police reform. So long as the pigs are running around with sus norse tattoos, toxic masculinity (“nah im good” -cop who just developed a tremor in has hand after holding in the brains of a gasping woman for 5 min), guaranteed firearms, no psychological training, gang support via departments, body cams aren’t really going to do shit to protect at-risk people.

        I am very critical of this ultra pro body cam discourse. It seems like a distraction. Make no mistake, there is no justice today because of the body cams present for Sonya’s execution.

        • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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          I suppose the definition of justice is flexible, between preventative justice and restorative justice and so on, but in this case I am referring specifically to holding guilty people accountable for their actions. There will be no making right what happened here, not by any stretch of the imagination, and there is still a lot more work that needs to be done to make sure this sort of thing never happens again. But while I am sure it is of little consolation to Sonya’s family, her murderer is going to prison.

          I know there are long-standing charicatures in media of the “corrupt cop” type of character shooting some innocent person and then planting a knife or drugs on them to make it look like self-defense, but that wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t some grain of truth to it.

          With the body cam footage that had been released, there is no question of his guilt. There’s no way for the police to cover this up by painting another innocent victim as a criminal, dragging her name through the mud, just to keep this racist scumbag on payroll and free to keep terrorizing the people he’s supposed to protect. The racists don’t have to gather in droves to protect this monster and put a community through hell to further some disgusting agenda or another.

          It doesn’t fill the void, but it is some degree of justice which is better than none.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    For those not in the know, Springfield, IL, is the state capital (capitol?). It’s waaaay down in the generally rural middle of the state, with a 2022 population of just over 113,000. It is not anything like the Chicago metro area.

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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      It’s almost exactly like one of the many generic looking suburbs, maybe a little ghetto, definitely not Hicksville some some other places. There’s pockets of suburban areas in Central Illinois such as Bloomington/Normal and Champaign/Urbana

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      It’s weird and dumb and arbitrary, but just to answer your uncertainty, it’s “capital” in this context.

      Capital means, in vague terms, the highest of something. So in regards to a city, it refers to the most important city (for the government, anyways) in a given administrative region (e.g., state capital, national capital).

      Capitol, with an O, refers specifically to the building where the US government is housed and the hill it sits on.

      I don’t know if they have a shared etymology but it wouldn’t surprise me.

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          Well, in this particular incident that the post is about, there was definitely a stovetop that had a pot of boiling water on it. That’s apparently worth shooting someone over…

      • JDCAce@lemmy.world
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        According to etymonline.com, capital comes from “Latin capitalis ‘of the head’”. Capitol comes from “Latin Capitolium, [the] name of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, protector of the city, on the Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome”. The American architecture “deliberately evokes Roman republican imagery”. The “relationship of Capitoline to capital is likely but not certain”.

        Interesting! Thanks for making me look that up!

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    Okay, so the officer orders her to take a pot of boiling water off the stove, and then shoots her in the face for doing so.

    No wonder those charges came so fast.

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      The crazy thing seemed fairly relaxed until she said she “rebuked him unto Jesus”. Seemed like it went from “haha I don’t want to be around a person carrying boiling water”, and she seemed to respond jokingly with the Jesus thing, which immediately made the cop respond as if she just pointed a gun at him?

      Does this guy think this lady is some kind of biblical sorcerer?

      • 5oap10116@lemmy.world
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        Can’t wait for the defense being:

        “She said she was going to ‘rebuke me in the name of Jesus’ and I felt my soul was in imminent danger from this woman and her boiling cauldron of witchcraft”

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        Does this guy think this lady is some kind of biblical sorcerer?

        See my other comment about where Springfield, IL, is; it’s not out of the question.

      • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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        I definitely don’t think it was a joke. Her twitchy nature and constant fear strike me as someone facing a mental health issue. Specifically schizophrenia as she said she was hearing people around the house. All that said, a cop should be able to recognize those signs immediately and should have used less lethal force at the most. His first instinct shouldn’t have been to bridge the gap and get closer after he felt “threatened.”

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          Schizophrenic people still have a sense of humor… To me it came off as if she recognized that the cop was afraid of her and made a snappy comeback, because it’s generally offensive to be accused of wanting to mame strangers with boiling water.

          Rebuke just means to criticize, it’s not an attack, or even aggressive. To rebuke someone to God, is just saying your going to complain about their behavior to God. Tbh the moments before she was killed seem to me the most coherent and responsive she behaved during the entire encounter.

          • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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            Not when they’re paranoid. Which she is now confirmed to have been a paranoid schizophrenic. It runs in my family and I’ve seen it quite frequently and heard the stories of others in my family that have seen it. When you know the signs it’s incredibly easy to spot, and police should be trained on the simple signs to figure this out and better help them keep a situation calm.

            Article

            • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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              police should be trained on the simple signs to figure this out and better help them keep a situation calm.

              Or just maybe, we should have other workers available than tinhorn sheriff wannabes with guns in our local governments that you can call to de-escalate situations. But no no, that’d be too much like defunding the police.

              • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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                A good friend of mine lives in Burlington, VT and has schizophrenia. There is a service there, First Call, that will send people trained to recognize mental illness and deescalate the situation only getting police involved as a last resort.

                Or at least that’s how it is supposed to go. Said friend was still drug away by police with First Call on the scene before. At least they weren’t shot, I guess. Still if they are ever in need of outside intervention I saved the number in my phone and I’m sure as shit not calling the police on them.

                I wish more cities had a similar service.

              • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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                She actively thought people were outside her house trying to get in. That’s what you send the police for. A counselor can’t ask someone to go away if there was an actual threat and they were armed. This is one of those events where a police officer was the best initial call and then as things continued the way they were they should have brought in a counselor.

          • Nora@lemmy.ml
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            This was what I got from it too. She was offended that they would think that she would attack them with boiling water.

            It’s kinda like she said “don’t bring that Hateful ideas into my house.” She was warding of the bad juju and disagreeing at the same time.

            I think she’s also not dumb and knows what officers are capable of and might have knew where things were going. The police were escalating the situation for no good reason. And she was scared, cause they kill people who are black for very little. In this case they killed her for listening to them.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        I don’t think he turned it off before he shot her, just that he didn’t have it on until after he shot her.

        This is still murder and he’s a fuckin pig that should rot in the prison industrial complex he feeds. Fuck him and his cop buddies. But I didn’t get the info from this article that he turned it off himself. Just didn’t turn it on in the first place, which he’s supposed to do before every interaction.

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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      Police suffer from paranoid delusions that they are the “thin line” between good and evil and that they are the ultimate example of virtue. They justify their own actions as for the greater good. It is a job that requires you lack critical thinking skills and officers are brainwashed into enforcing a certain ideal puratain society where one must be obedient to authority and work hard and suffer to be a moral and good person.

      • 5oap10116@lemmy.world
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        Essentially: Cops are taught that everyone and everything is trying to kill them and anything that seems remotely dangerous is a lethal threat they need to “neutralize”. Also, as soon as you let your guard down, you’re dead. This leads to overreactions and unjust killings…

        Now, that’s not entirely wrong as police frequently deal with higher levels of unknown dangers but in this case…holy shit wtf?

        • SirDerpy@lemmy.world
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          I fully support others spending a half hour learning about what law enforcement are taught. If you’ve not seen something like this before then it’s definitely worth your time.

          I want to add that Park Rangers are law enforcement. They’ve exceptionally high standards for hiring. And, the pay sucks.

          I’ve broken rules in many parks, sometimes with good reason and sometimes without, usually very safely but once or twice definitely not. I’ve been “busted” about a dozen times by Park Rangers.

          Every single time I’ve been treated with dignity, respect, and honoring the spirit of justice over the letter of the law. I’ve not been punished when I thought I should be, then been told that’s the reason there’s no punishment. And, when I’ve been punished I’ve agreed with the severity and nature of it wholeheartedly. It’s quite literally the opposite of what I’ve experienced as a colored man in big cities.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      This cop bounced between MULTIPLE police departments.

      The core is fucking rotten. Prison is like slapping a bandaid on cancer.

      • chakan2@lemmy.world
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        Unfortunately, that’s all we got. There’s not a cure all for this one. So, like cancer, cut away the bad parts, apply some chemo, and pray it doesn’t come back.

        4/5 cops are good people. We don’t have an answer for smashing all the bad ones at once.

        • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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          4/5 my ass

          cops that don’t speak up against their coworkers are complete shit as well. when you hang out with turds, you tend to smell like shit. looking the other way while your coworker abuses people is you being an accessory. there is no way there weren’t signs this guy was trash and his coworkers covered it, they’re just as guilty, which is why ALL cops are bastards, otherwise they wouldn’t be cops after seeing the corruption and abuse. fuck cops and cop mentality.

        • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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          Cops are the people suffling "the bad ones"around, they’re the ones creating places for bad cops to flourish in. You don’t help this guy keep his job and remain a good person.

        • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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          No. They’re not. If they were, they’d be stopping this themselves. This guy shot her. What about the other officers that were there? At least one other is mentioned in the article. Why didn’t they immediately draw on him and stop him from attacking this woman?

          Every time we hear about one of these bad cops, there’s other cops just standing around doing nothing at best, and helping at worst.

          No ‘good people’ are cops. If they were good people when they went in, they either get fired, get mysteriously dead on the job, or stop being good. There are no other options.

          • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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            Yep, even though this went from 0-1000 in one “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus”, that other officer pulls his weapon as soon as murderer cop pulls his and doesn’t say shit to stop the situation.

            Lady is complying with everything and has no weapon. Then she gets shot three times?

            • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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              We could start with holding police officers responsible. It’s great that they charged this one, but why aren’t the other police there being charged as accomplices since they took no action to prevent the shooting?

              So here’s a few simple starter thoughts.

              1. Establish an external agency with the mandate of prosecuting police. They have their own prosecutorial system, their own investigators, their own prosecutors, their own courts and their own judges, completely unconnected to the prosecutorial system the police work with. You cannot have the same people that work together one day and rely on each other be the ones to investigate each other, it doesn’t work. Not even a separate ‘internal affairs division’ is enough.

              2. Any police officer who discharges their weapon, for any reason, is immediately suspended, and any pay is withheld until an investigation for why the weapon was discharged is completed. The investigation of course is conducted by that external agency.

              3. If a police officer discharging a weapon causes injury or death, all police officers on the scene are suspended and their pay withheld until the investigation is over.

              4. If the police officer who discharged their weapon is charged with assault, murder, whatever, then all other officers at the scene are charged as accomplices, unless they took proactive action to prevent the first officer from committing their illegal action. Think of it like felony murder - if you and a group of friends are committing a crime and someone is murdered, you are all prosecutable under felony murder even if you had no direct hand in the murder at all.

              That’s probably a good start, it may not solve all the problems, but it’d be a lot better than what’s being done now, which is very, very little. I’d say an even better thing to do in addition would be to have every current police officer purged and never work in law enforcement again. All police organizations kinda need a clean slate with fresh people and no organizational momentum and culture carryover from how it’s happening now, because a lot of what needs to change is organizational culture, and just altering the rules is more difficult than rebuilding a completely new organizational culture from the ground up.

              • chakan2@lemmy.world
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                At least you offered a solution. But it’s batshit crazy.

                Have every current police officer purged

                That’s impossible…there’s not enough people out there qualified to replace the current police force.

                I do like an external review of every discharge of a weapon, but I think the immediate suspension is too much.

                The accomplice bit I’m on the fence. In this case, the other officer was in shock I think. He’s not going to shoot his partner after the fact, which would be the only reasonable action. He could have arrested him I guess, but that all happened pretty quick)

                (Really put yourself in that situation…a guy who you trust with your life pulls his gun, says "I’m going to shoot you in the face, and proceeds to shoot the person in the face…Personally, I’d have total brain lock in complete and utter shock of that tragic fuck up).

                IMO…I still like some cops. In my interactions with them 8 of 10 have been professional, INCLUDING having one draw on me once (it’s a dumb story, and I fucked up).

                I think we CAN reform the shit out of the force in general, but you can’t start from a place where “all cops are bad.” They aren’t.

            • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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              During the My Lai massacre , the US Army committed war crimes on the civilian population. A helicopter crew noticed it and pointed weapons at the squadron to stop.

              The Vietnam war gave the military a bad name. Years of work, promise to hold oneself to a higher standard, clean up the rotten fucks, and remembering what it means to serve did people finally turn around.

              There’s no “All Military Is Bad” calls.

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          The math you’re using to get that 4/5 ratio and reality need to have a little sit-down and work out a few… discrepancies.

          It’s not really holding up very well when, you know, you consider the facts.

        • Huckledebuck@sh.itjust.works
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          If your 4/5 was true we would see more good cops standing up against these 1/5. But i have yet to see that happen.

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    6 departments in 4 years, this cop shouldn’t have had a job period. This department is partly liable for this just by employing him

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      Make police officers individually responsible for carrying insurance for their job.

      If they can’t behave then they won’t be able to afford the insurance as the insurance company will raise the fees, and then they can’t get a job they shouldn’t be doing in the first place

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    “Away from the hot steaming water? Oh, I’ll rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” was apparently enough for a white police officer to pull out his gun and shoot an innocent black woman three times.

    What the fuck?

    This is legitimately worse than what happened to George Floyd. Like… I genuinely feel angry for the relatives of this poor woman after watching that bodycam footage.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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    Does the proposed bill ensure American police get like three years training to become community-oriented and not a power tripping police officers?

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
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      Look, I agree with you in regular situations. I am frequently frustrated that racism is perpetuated by those claiming to abhor it.

      However, you cannot credibly claim that race did not matter in this example.

      Leading by example for the next generation by never making race an issue yourself is noble. Refusing to acknowledge naked racism when you encounter it is wrong.

      This is the same kind of argument as violence really. Take a lesson from martial arts tradition. Never be try one to bring violence. However, knowing how to defend the weak when violence comes to them is something else.

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          I would love this to be teased out.

          Could you explain the chain of events that specifically means this cop deserves to lose his job and be called a murdered… Because of those statistics.

          Genuinely i think it would be educational if everyone understood that chain of logic…

    • Emmie@lemm.ee
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      Obviously it matters. It’s just that there’s no better or worse race but we are all different. Ignoring the differences is equally discriminating. We are all equal in human rights but we are not clones.

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          Not really as hair colour unless hair colour is connected to culture and heritage. Diversity isn’t something to be pursued just because of social justice but it is a genuinely good thing for society and exchange of ideas. Homogeneous societies are stale and uncreative. When many cultures work together they are stronger than all of them separately.

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            Lol… of fucking course hair colour is connected to culture and heritage!? In the precise same ways that race is.

            Nobody here wants a homogenous society. Why you tryna strawman me?!

            I am the one arguing that race should matter as much as hair colour so nobody even notices when brunettes and gingers and blondes work together etc.

            It’s crazy that you made up another person just now… wtf

            • Emmie@lemm.ee
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              The original phrasing of your comment is bound to evoke such responses, it comes off as a bit culturally blue pilled so to say hence mixed reactions.

              If you were a political candidate it could cost you a lot for example but obviously this is just forum. You will just get some scolding and that’s it. Take it as free of charge friendly advice

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            2 months ago

            Fooling? Pal, when I lived in America briefly, that was the first time in my entire life I heard someone say ‘removed,’ with sincerity about a black person… with zero shame… Just fucking meant it.

            Americans treatment of race across the board is fucked. The fact that so many well-meaning people who want a world where race is as important as hair colour, won’t stop making race relevant in every conversation…

            It’s absolutely fucked.

            • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              So hang on, you’ve correctly identified there’s a lot of racism in the US, but your solution… Is that we shouldn’t bring up race in racially biased situations? We shouldn’t call out racism?

              ???

                • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Ignoring race, because you keep bringing it up to excuse shitty Police behavior.

                  Police closing the distance on someone they see as violent is an escalation of violence. She would very likely be alive today if they didn’t choose to make the situation worse by escalating.

                  Pulling a gun and retreating, then shooting if she advanced, yep shooting is fine. Putting her in a corner and shooting when she flinches thinking she’s about to die? That’s murder. I don’t know how you are too dumb to understand this.

                • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Holy shit. Did you watch the tape? … She puts it down, gets down to a squat… And then as the police take a step towards her she reaches up for the pot of boiling water with anger on her face.

                  This is a strangely telling detail for you to have included. You cannot see Sonya Massey’s face or movements in the moments leading up to the shots being fired – Her entire body is obfuscated behind both the kitchen counter and Sean Grayson’s body as he steps between Massey and his partner.

                • nyctre@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Lmao, what a bunch of bullshit. “With anger in her face”

                  There’s like a half second of video that’s not covered by the guy’s arm (after she squatted, I mean) but the guy here, who’s not a racist btw, saw an angry woman trying to kill some cops with some hot water. Literally all you have to do is stay more than 2-3 meters away and nothing will happen to you, but whatever, I guess she got what she deserved.

                  Also, she said it very dryly, hardly angry or threateningly. And even if she were, in what world is a cop replying with “you’d better not, I’ll fucking shoot you in your fucking face” a normal, disarming response?

            • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Middle aged white dude in 'merica here. The amount of legitimate racists who openly identify themselves when I drive my old beat up pickup truck is insane.

              We have a real problem that requires we focus on race until we remove racists from power. Well meaning people are just those fighting the issue of racism. You may see it different but we won’t fix it by ignoring it.

              • ImpressiveEssay@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Fair opinion… But if you actually listen to the racist for 5 seconds they directly use the kinds of rhetoric I’m referring to to legitimise their rhetoric and behaviours.

                One can battle racists and racism, without being racist. Unfortunately, there have been many many cases of Americans not understanding that in recent years.

                It’s probably a loud small group, but your comments suggest that it’s still a problem.

                • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  From my experience in semi rural America it’s 50/50. I drive the old shit truck and hear racist shit from about half the white people I interact with. It’s not a loud small group unfortunately. It’s a group that stays quiet around brown people or foreign people that only speaks when it feels comfortable thinking it’s around other racists. I used to think it was a loud small group. Now, I cannot overstate how unbelievably racist they are.

              • ImpressiveEssay@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Yeah but her race is irrelevant to her behaviours on the night she died.

                If you watch the tape, and want to say that her race is relevant to her behaviours…m that’s pretty racist.

                And her behaviours are undoubtedly deserving of asking for id, and her threatening behaviour is absolutely worth self defense.

                Unless you think a black cop would have taken that water?

                Or that a cop of any race would have taken that from a white person… or a Hispanic person.

    • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      What federal law did these cops break that the DOJ could prosecute?

      He’s doing about the entirety of what he can do right now by urging congress to pass this bill, he’s already signed several executive orders on police reform.

      • ebc@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Well, isn’t murder a crime? There’s your broken law…

        • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That’s not a federal law, murder within a state is charged and tried by the state the murder was committed in. The only exceptions to this would be murders on federal property, or possibly murders on federal officials AFAIK.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Well, isn’t murder a crime?

          Not when it is part of an official government act, at least according to the SCOTUS.

          Strafe a hospital, bomb a wedding, waterboard a migrant, rape a nun. It’s all good, so long as you’re doing it on the payroll of a state institution.

  • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    That’s rich coming from a guy who just hosted a genocidal, racist fascist at our capitol. Fuck Genocide Joe and his psuedo-concern about human rights.