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On Sunday I speculated that the Dems will use a George Floyd-like psychological operation to increase Democrat turnout in the election. Today, Kamala issued a statement about Sonya Massey, a black woman killed by police whose body cam footage was released recently:
The body cam footage shows two police officers answering a call from Massey about a prowler in her yard. Massey acts mentally unwell throughout the encounter, answers that she is on medication when asked about her mental health, and has a difficult time telling the officers what her last name is or retrieving her photo ID. The officers are somewhat friendly if impatient, but the vibe changes when Massey grabs a pot of boiling water after the officers requested she turn off the stove. The officers say they are stepping back while she grabs the boiling water (crazy people may use boiling water as a weapon, something that has lead Starbucks to ban giving patrons boiling water), and Massey says “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus”. Either because of this statement or because of a physical sign we don’t pick up on the body cam, an officer points his gun and demands that she drop the boiling water. She does not drop the boiling water but instead continues to hold on to it. Right before she is shot the body cam just barely picks up Massey throwing the boiling water toward the officers, with the water landing on the ground and steaming where it landed. I want to thank Twitter user Fartblaster4000 for turning that moment into a helpful gif.
Massey’s death is certainly not the preferred outcome of the encounter. Once the officers picked up on Massey being crazy, they should have mentally decided to leave her house if she did something like equip a plausible weapon. The three seconds that the officer gives for Massey to drop the pot of boiling water was insufficient — of course, the pot was in her hand and thrown toward the officer before the officer shot. Springfield is the third most criminal city in America, so perhaps the officers did not believe they had the resources to call mental health professionals in their place. In any case I do not think that the officers should have moved toward her but instead left the premises until they felt she did not pose a threat. Sadly, it’s not uncommon for crazy people to attack police officers with whatever is around, and it’s rational to be afraid of a crazy person who has a pot of scalding water in their hands, able to disfigure you for life.
According to a UPenn study, BLM may have been the political ingredient that shifted the election toward Joe Biden:
If the relevant voters are swayed more by victimhood narratives than Covid, this explains why Republicans are bringing up the topic of migrant rapes. I predict we are going to see more victimhood narratives in the coming months!
Prior to reading this comment, I had assumed that the Democrats’ attempt to make hay from this incident would fail miserably, as no one on the right would defend the shooting. Absent a scissor statement situation, I figured the controversy would die a quick and easy death. Now I’m not so sure.
If the Right is smart, they’ll publicly agree that it was a bad shot regardless of their inner feelings, as that is probably the easiest way to defuse the situation. No controversy, no news; no news, no BLM reboot; no BLM reboot, no electoral benefits to the Democrats.
If the GOP was smart they would do the opposite. Full scorched earth Womp Womp's.
I can't believe that GOP and friends don't have guys crafty enough to weave a narrative of law and order, back the blue and whatever else out of this.
Don't make the shooting an issue, make the media and Democrats the issue. They are attacking a sacred institution, these hallowed halls of law and order and blah blah blah. Show teeth. Don't be weak and limp wristed. Blame the Democrats and media for the shooting. Whatever you do, don't let the foot off the gas. Organize pro police protests, do whatever. Everyone is sick and tired of this play. No one respects it. People just go through the motions because it's the only game in town and they're forced to participate.
Except with this footage those officers are wildly overreacting and escalating a benign incident to literal murder. As a general fan and supporter of cops I hope more footage with relevant information comes to light.
With supporters like these, who needs enemies. The point is that you don't cave in, instead you show you actually stand behind the thing in its moment of weakness. Precisely because it's being attacked by your enemy.
We're public citizens, not defense lawyers.
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Is it constitutively part of policing to kill someone because they threaten you with being scalded?
If not, it's not defending the "sacred institution" of policing to defend these officers. I think it's the opposite: if police officers can't handle situations involving crazy old ladies, then this will encourage many people to avoid bringing them into situations, undermining policing and supporting crime. "Should we call the cops? Well, she's acting crazy, but I don't want them to gun her down and maybe us too."
All sources report her as being 36 (e.g. here). She does seem much older in the videos.
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"threaten" doesn't really do it justice. She was mid-throw in an attempt to do so.
Hard to tell if this is a rhetorical question, but in the interests of speaking plainly: Yea, of course. Police officers killing people who attempt to harm them is a shitty system, but it's better than all the alternatives.
You can argue that policing is better this way, but in the context of that discussion, my point was that you don't have to oppose the institution of policing to think that the officer should have acted differently.
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Most people would prefer the police shooting someone than being scalded, yes. I don't know how or if that fits your 'constitutional' priors.
Policing is whatever it has become. Its sanctity lies in its foundations and principles, not individual events.
Policing in the US has degenerated a lot to face third world challenges. Sometimes old ladies get shot. The police are still sacred, though, for all the old ladies that don't get shot. Or so goes the tale of why we need police in the first place.
Constitutive, not constitutional.
Exactly my point. It's not defending the foundations and principles of policing to defend each and every thing that police officers do. That's like, given an incompetent president, saying "I'm rallying round democracy."
Note I'm also not criticising US policing in general. I don't know the statistics well enough, and I suspect even they skirt over a lot of circumstances. For all I know, maybe more info. will come to light that exonerates this officer. What I can say is that, from the info provided, he acted incompetently (I see no evidence of racism, personal vendetta etc.) and unfortunately if you act incompetently when wielding a gun, you can end up going to prison. Maybe his hormones were wrong that day. Maybe he found out that morning that he was being cucked. That's tough on police officers, but it's the law, and it's that way for a reason.
You are defending the foundations and principles when you stand against politically motivated mass media attempts at smearing and weakening the institution. You do the opposite when you don't. Officers will make mistakes. You don't crucify those who make them in media.
If the institution itself is deteriorated and bad, you need to cast a light on that, but the fake news narrative of racist police and black victims is a lie, so this event is very clearly not it.
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I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons. That's the essence of corruption. A "moment of weakness" is an understatement here.
I am not advocating some bizarre defunding or excoriation of law enforcement as a social institution. I am suggesting that to condone wanton abuse of life-and-death power and reckless escalation is irresponsibly dangerous, immoral, and corrupt. Thus my desire that there is more to the story.
How would you suggest "standing by" the officer(s) here if what we see is an accurate depiction of events? Would any behavior by a police officer cause you to question his/her judgment or censure/punish/fire/prosecute?
No one said this should be done. No one said this should be 'condoned', no one said anything about what you advocate.
By the same token I can accuse you of a similar thing. Hyperbolizing an event like this in an effort to throw a bunch of gasoline on an ACAB fire and then say you back the boys in blue. Which seems counter intuitive to me, but you do you.
You can stand by officers in cases like these by letting due process run its course, or by recognizing these cases as statistical outliers, or by recognizing that policing a third world population with a first world police force simply doesn't work. Not by swirling around in a media fueled frenzy. If your takeaway from any of the previous media fueled ACAB frenzies was that policing got improved or things got better in some way I'm not sure what planet you are coming from.
You and I are talking (typing) at cross-purposes. And for my part I'm not "accusing" you of anything, except possible pointless hostility. Maybe not even that. You're looking at this as a political strategist. I'm simply making a comment in due process and justice (though again, I don't yet know what that should be as I just clicked in and still haven't watched the full video and do not necessarily think my armchair opinion should be the last word anyway. I've made that caveat.). I agree that releasing this footage was shittily political.
You wrote: "I disagree. Egregious violations of public trust should not be glossed over or hidden for political reasons." Insinuating I believe or said something to the tune that glossing over violations of public trust is preferable or in some way good. I did not say anything of the sort. I would in fact argue that it's near impossible for the public to determine whether something was a violation or not in a media landscape as toxic as the one we have.
How do you want me to reply to such behavior on your part? You do this again here:
I never said anything about releasing the footage or not. Like, what are you doing?
But enough of that. You replied to a comment of mine that was very expressly about the political angle of this. You take a personal stance. My point would be that your personal stance is counterproductive to your stated support of the police. Your personal feelings towards a specific incident are irrelevant. The broader context is shaped by a political media machine that is propping up specific cases at specific times for their own gain.
If you don't realize that political reality I don't know what to tell you. Why bother stating your political stance of generally favoring the police if you don't care enough to stand against a force that very recently dealt some very serious blows to policing in the US off the back of exactly this type of situation?
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But that we are spending this amount of time taking about it is a problem. Bad case of the Chinese robber fallacy.
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Honestly that’s a bad question. I don’t think the court of public opinion is the place to try these kinds of issues. Most people don’t have the background to even begin to assess whether or not it’s a “good shoot” or not. So allowing the institution to be dragged before the court of public opinion to score political points is not going to do good, and in fact erodes the credibility and legitimacy of that institution. There’s no gain to be made for police to be judged by Monday Quarterbacks who have no understanding of the work involved and can sit around in air conditioned homes and offices playing the videos and debating what the officers who had mere seconds to decide on their actions and carry them out in a situation full of unknowns.
I think review boards are a better bet. They would know what the risks are, what the procedures are, and any other factors influencing the event. They could actually talk to the officers and dispatch and get a much firmer grasp of the entire situation. The best civilians can do is “they shouldn’t have done that” based on movies, tv shows, and political commentary.
Sure, and I didn't say public opinion was the proper forum Certainly the footage being released was a devious political maneuver. Transparently. I'm not suggesting otherwise.
But I think that’s exactly how to defend the institution. The issue isn’t the shooting and the debate about the shooting, the issue is an attempt to discredit the institution by dragging an incident to the public square completely without context and using it to heavily imply that cops make a sport of this kind of thing. I think defending the institution requires making exactly that point. We, as the general public, have no background for understanding this. Even the participants are unknown. This woman might have a long history of attacking people. This might be a neighborhood full of drug users and dealers. There might have been things happening before the recording started.
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