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I've googled up the bodycam videos of the incident [0]. I think, the police started acting the way they did, because the suspect didn't stop when the police cle

I've googled up the bodycam videos of the incident [0]. I think, the police started acting the way they did, because the suspect didn't stop when the police clearly asked him to do so, and pushed one of the officers when they grabbed him. It would be fair to call it racism, if there was another instance of a white suspect acting the same way, and getting treated differently. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5NcyePEOJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5NcyePEOJ8

notacoward 6y ago
> It would be fair to call it racism, if there was another instance of a white suspect acting the same way, and getting treated differently. That comment really didn't age well, did it? I think just about anyone can see what happened with Kyle Rittenhouse and recognize that racism was a factor in the disparate treatment.
coldtea 6y ago
>It would be fair to call it racism, if there was another instance of a white suspect acting the same way, and getting treated differently. What about if the white person in the same situation wasn't even asked to stop in the first place? It's not just about "how police treats blacks vs whites who refuse to stop" but also about "how often police asks blacks vs whites to stop".
- john_moscow 6y ago
  That would be fair if you could detangle if from specific suspicious behavioral patterns. Like wearing a mask (pre-pandemic) in a neighborhood where robberies by mask-wearing perpetrators are common.
  - wonderwonder 6y ago
    Is it illegal to wear a mask? If the answer is no then the police have no right to stop him for wearing a mask. Police having the leeway to determine what is suspicious vs having to obey the law is what leads to thousands of minorities being stopped, roughed up and arrested for resisting arrest. If you are a minority and do nothing wrong, how many stops for being black would it take before you became a little defensive or frustrated? Imagine your life being constantly interrupted by uniform wearing people with a track record of killing people with your complexion.
tmp538394722 6y ago
Elijah was wearing headphones. Since you’ve seen the video, how long from the moment the police are out of their cars before they put their hands on Elijah? Would you put your hands on someone Who showed no physical resistance in that amount of time? The Police escalate quickly, and then, since the situation has escalated, feel justified in their response, which killed Elijah. They killed Elijah.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  Well, how many people wearing masks (pre-pandemic) would be trying to avoid getting identified while committing a robbery? How many people pushing the officer away would be trying to attack them next? Does police have a way of knowing in advance, whether this exact mask-wearing arrest-resisting individual is actually a threat? I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A much healthier solution would be to try de-escalating general tensions between the police and the population.
  - tmp538394722 6y ago
    They don’t have a way of knowing! Exactly! This is why we shouldn’t be employing people whose job it is to snatch people they don’t know anything about, who just assume you’re a threat until YOU PROVE that you’re innocent.
  - wonderwonder 6y ago
    "I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A much healthier solution would be to try de-escalating general tensions between the police and the population." Right, its not the fault of the armed people with godlike power to kill, arrest and detain to their hearts content based on nothing but a feeling or bias. Its the fault of the people being harassed and killed for not properly genuflecting before the the ones killing them. I am sure your user name is meant to be in jest but I am having a hard time thinking you are not just a human bot in a call center that is bad at their job.
    - john_moscow 6y ago
throwanem 6y ago
Dude, I hit a cop with my car one time and I didn't get so much as stopped. So yeah. It's different.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  May you share some details on that, because, with all due respect, it sounds unrealistic. Unless you've omitted some big piece of the puzzle.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Sure, I don't mind; it was something like 15 years ago anyway, and obviously didn't amount to anything in the first place. Baltimore PD officers wear black uniforms. One night one of them was standing in the middle of the street I was driving down, and there weren't enough streetlights in that section. I was doing something like 40 in a 30, and the first thing I knew that anything was wrong was when I heard a loud thump from my left side. Looking in the wing mirror, I could see the guy in the light of the upcoming streetlight, where the one I'd last passed was too far back to show him. So I pulled over and got out, because of course I did; I saw no personal benefit in complicating my upcoming arrest with a chase. Imagine my surprise when, on seeing my white skin, short hair, and slacks-and-button-down professional attire, he waved me off and went back to what he'd been doing! In retrospect, I have to figure the mirror clipped something on his belt, rather than the car striking his actual person. But the fact remains that, had I not been white or not been easily "read" as an "upstanding citizen" type, I'd have been in a hell of a lot of trouble. Especially since, being as I was on my way home from a visit to my connection, I had a quarter ounce of pot in my left front trouser pocket. Remember, this was back before decriminalization, more than a decade before dispensaries even existed in this town; not only that, but my guy hadn't had any baggies that night, so he just gave me the smaller portions he got from his own guy, who mostly did street work. So it would've been charged as possession with intent, and that's a felony. The time I hit a cop with my car while I was carrying wasn't a major reason why I quit smoking that shit entirely a couple of years later, but never having another few seconds of that kind of sheer terror was not absent from the list of reasons why I was glad when I did quit. Just imagine if I were a black man, though. That cop could have shot me dead on the spot and who'd have said a word? I mean, I so obviously would've had it coming, a drug dealer doing drug dealer crimes and, if that weren't enough, I swerved my car to try to murder a police officer in the middle of it. Probably had a gun in my back pocket, or in the glovebox at least. Who would dare blame an officer of the law for doing what he had to do in the face of an obviously murderous criminal like that? ...is what white people would mostly say. But that's the thing. I had that moment of terror because I was acting like a damn fool - I could drive more carefully and just quit buying pot, and I did. People of color can't "live more carefully", or "just quit" having their skin. And there is a night in my past that, if I had skin of a similar shade to theirs, it'd be through bars that I saw the next sunrise - if I had lived to see it at all. I don't blame you for saying it sounds unrealistic. I'd probably likewise have some trouble taking a story like that seriously on its face, except that I happened to live it, and a lot of other wild stories too. But there are far more stories that I haven't lived, and some of them sound as wild to me as the one I've just told sounds to you. That's how life is, though. The world is far wilder than any one of us, with our individual and limited perspective, ever gets to see. If we want to understand how things really work in the places and times and lives that we don't get to see, we have to listen to the stories people tell us who do see those things - listen, and not assume that they must be lying, any more than you would assume I had been lying to you just now. If you take anything away from this conversation, I hope you'll make it that.
ashtonkem 6y ago
I wasn’t aware that refusing one police instruction was grounds for summary execution.
hellomyguys 6y ago
Ok what about when they took a selfie at the site of the incident, essentially mocking Elijiah's McClain's death? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/us/Elijah-McClain-aurora-police-officers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/us/Elijah-McClain-aurora-...

notacoward 6y ago

> It would be fair to call it racism, if there was another instance of a white suspect acting the same way, and getting treated differently. That comment really didn't age well, did it? I think just about anyone can see what happened with Kyle Rittenhouse and recognize that racism was a factor in the disparate treatment.

coldtea 6y ago

>It would be fair to call it racism, if there was another instance of a white suspect acting the same way, and getting treated differently. What about if the white person in the same situation wasn't even asked to stop in the first place? It's not just about "how police treats blacks vs whites who refuse to stop" but also about "how often police asks blacks vs whites to stop".

john_moscow 6y ago
That would be fair if you could detangle if from specific suspicious behavioral patterns. Like wearing a mask (pre-pandemic) in a neighborhood where robberies by mask-wearing perpetrators are common.
- wonderwonder 6y ago
  Is it illegal to wear a mask? If the answer is no then the police have no right to stop him for wearing a mask. Police having the leeway to determine what is suspicious vs having to obey the law is what leads to thousands of minorities being stopped, roughed up and arrested for resisting arrest. If you are a minority and do nothing wrong, how many stops for being black would it take before you became a little defensive or frustrated? Imagine your life being constantly interrupted by uniform wearing people with a track record of killing people with your complexion.

tmp538394722 6y ago

Elijah was wearing headphones. Since you’ve seen the video, how long from the moment the police are out of their cars before they put their hands on Elijah? Would you put your hands on someone Who showed no physical resistance in that amount of time? The Police escalate quickly, and then, since the situation has escalated, feel justified in their response, which killed Elijah. They killed Elijah.

john_moscow 6y ago
Well, how many people wearing masks (pre-pandemic) would be trying to avoid getting identified while committing a robbery? How many people pushing the officer away would be trying to attack them next? Does police have a way of knowing in advance, whether this exact mask-wearing arrest-resisting individual is actually a threat? I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A much healthier solution would be to try de-escalating general tensions between the police and the population.
- tmp538394722 6y ago
  They don’t have a way of knowing! Exactly! This is why we shouldn’t be employing people whose job it is to snatch people they don’t know anything about, who just assume you’re a threat until YOU PROVE that you’re innocent.
- wonderwonder 6y ago
  "I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A much healthier solution would be to try de-escalating general tensions between the police and the population." Right, its not the fault of the armed people with godlike power to kill, arrest and detain to their hearts content based on nothing but a feeling or bias. Its the fault of the people being harassed and killed for not properly genuflecting before the the ones killing them. I am sure your user name is meant to be in jest but I am having a hard time thinking you are not just a human bot in a call center that is bad at their job.
  - john_moscow 6y ago

throwanem 6y ago

Dude, I hit a cop with my car one time and I didn't get so much as stopped. So yeah. It's different.

john_moscow 6y ago
May you share some details on that, because, with all due respect, it sounds unrealistic. Unless you've omitted some big piece of the puzzle.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Sure, I don't mind; it was something like 15 years ago anyway, and obviously didn't amount to anything in the first place. Baltimore PD officers wear black uniforms. One night one of them was standing in the middle of the street I was driving down, and there weren't enough streetlights in that section. I was doing something like 40 in a 30, and the first thing I knew that anything was wrong was when I heard a loud thump from my left side. Looking in the wing mirror, I could see the guy in the light of the upcoming streetlight, where the one I'd last passed was too far back to show him. So I pulled over and got out, because of course I did; I saw no personal benefit in complicating my upcoming arrest with a chase. Imagine my surprise when, on seeing my white skin, short hair, and slacks-and-button-down professional attire, he waved me off and went back to what he'd been doing! In retrospect, I have to figure the mirror clipped something on his belt, rather than the car striking his actual person. But the fact remains that, had I not been white or not been easily "read" as an "upstanding citizen" type, I'd have been in a hell of a lot of trouble. Especially since, being as I was on my way home from a visit to my connection, I had a quarter ounce of pot in my left front trouser pocket. Remember, this was back before decriminalization, more than a decade before dispensaries even existed in this town; not only that, but my guy hadn't had any baggies that night, so he just gave me the smaller portions he got from his own guy, who mostly did street work. So it would've been charged as possession with intent, and that's a felony. The time I hit a cop with my car while I was carrying wasn't a major reason why I quit smoking that shit entirely a couple of years later, but never having another few seconds of that kind of sheer terror was not absent from the list of reasons why I was glad when I did quit. Just imagine if I were a black man, though. That cop could have shot me dead on the spot and who'd have said a word? I mean, I so obviously would've had it coming, a drug dealer doing drug dealer crimes and, if that weren't enough, I swerved my car to try to murder a police officer in the middle of it. Probably had a gun in my back pocket, or in the glovebox at least. Who would dare blame an officer of the law for doing what he had to do in the face of an obviously murderous criminal like that? ...is what white people would mostly say. But that's the thing. I had that moment of terror because I was acting like a damn fool - I could drive more carefully and just quit buying pot, and I did. People of color can't "live more carefully", or "just quit" having their skin. And there is a night in my past that, if I had skin of a similar shade to theirs, it'd be through bars that I saw the next sunrise - if I had lived to see it at all. I don't blame you for saying it sounds unrealistic. I'd probably likewise have some trouble taking a story like that seriously on its face, except that I happened to live it, and a lot of other wild stories too. But there are far more stories that I haven't lived, and some of them sound as wild to me as the one I've just told sounds to you. That's how life is, though. The world is far wilder than any one of us, with our individual and limited perspective, ever gets to see. If we want to understand how things really work in the places and times and lives that we don't get to see, we have to listen to the stories people tell us who do see those things - listen, and not assume that they must be lying, any more than you would assume I had been lying to you just now. If you take anything away from this conversation, I hope you'll make it that.

ashtonkem 6y ago

I wasn’t aware that refusing one police instruction was grounds for summary execution.

hellomyguys 6y ago

Ok what about when they took a selfie at the site of the incident, essentially mocking Elijiah's McClain's death? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/us/Elijah-McClain-aurora-police-officers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/us/Elijah-McClain-aurora-...