I have a different view on this below.
The two officers were suspended without pay Thursday night after a video of the incident went viral.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/buffalo-police-video-man-pushed
"The city's police commissioner has ordered an investigation into the incident and suspended the two officers without pay pending its outcome.
"I was deeply disturbed by the video, as was Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood," he said.
In his statement, the mayor also described the demonstration after curfew as "illegal" and noted that two groups of protesters had gotten into a physical altercation before the events depicted in the video."
metmike: This was a tragic incident and hopefully, the man will fully recover. I am going to take an extremely unpopular position on this and tell the side of the police.
1. The man and others on the scene were violating the curfew. They had been asked numerous times to clear the area but refused. They were breaking the law and the cops were doing their job to clear the area.....pushing forward.
2. The man actually was confronting the cops. Not violently or being physical but he was doing exactly the opposite of what the police were asking everybody to do......go the other way and leave but he was going AGAINST the flow of police and HE ran up to them and confronted them/making contact and was obviously upset with them verbalizing it, when they pushed him back, in the direction they were telling him to go but he was refusing.
3. How do you suggest they get him to go in that direction or leave without hand cuffing him and arresting him which they had to do with others? In retrospect, that's what they should have done, like they did some others that would not leave. If you listen/watch a longer version of the event, you can hear and see a couple other protestors being pretty resistant, using physical force and extremely non compliant along with dishing out verbal abuse to the cops. The only thing that made this guy different was that he was old and when they tried to move him in the direction they had been ordering him to go, by pushing him, he fell backwards and landed on his head.
4. Should cops have special rules for protesters that violate the law if they are over a certain age? I understand them needing to use less force but honestly, the amount of force here was one hard push to get him to go in the right direction, which turned out to be excessive because he tripped but thats all it was..........one push to get him to go where they were telling him to go and he was refusing.
5. Almost all the videos on tv show only the few seconds that make it look really bad. They don't show before or after. He received immediate attention and was rushed to the hospital immediately. There was no intent or neglect. It was a miscalculation on the cops part that a hard shove to get somebody harassing them would be enough for that person to get the message and go in that direction. If this guy died, should we charge the cops with 3rd degree murder?
I've not heard one entity suggest what the cops should have done because he was FORCING THEM to deal with him. The only other option was for them to handcuff and arrest him. Maybe the cops just didn't want to arrest an old man? Since it would have literally been impossible to just ignore what he was doing to them........that was the ONLY other option.
This ended up tragically but we all know that if they had chosen the only other option, handcuffing and arresting him the video caption and stories would NOT have been "Police respecting elderly man to avoid injuring him"
The old man would also have been the victim and the cops the bad guys in that arrest or any other realistic outcome.
It was a lose, lose situation for the cops. No matter what they did/do. It makes it impossible for them to restore law and order during a violent or law breaking protest without ALWAYS being seen as the bad guys.
I'm not saying they should be able to apply force at will or with impunity but the job in these circumstances REQUIRES some force at times. It's absolutely needed.
Otherwise, you are saying that this should be the rules:
People can throw bricks at cops, throw water bottles and other objects, shoot at them, physically attack and confront them, burn down, vandalize and loot buildings, resist arrest and all of that will get less condemnation than a video of 2 cops giving an aggressive, uncooperative old man a shove in the direction they want him to go in.
You can bet, that if this was a black man, people would be making a case that those cops are racist. Maybe they hate old people? Maybe they hate old white men?
And the response is to defund the police.
I am good with spending alot of time and effort to making sure that cops behave and follow standards to respect all people, especially young black men that give them the most problems. The George Floyd case is part of the racism in the MN police department.......which also should be addressed very aggressively ...but with even more effort going towards helping young black men to participate in productive society and reap the same benefits that other Americans enjoy.
But to act effectively, we first must assess what is being done wrong by OBJECTIVELY looking at all the facts and not using 10 seconds of a video of a very unfortunate accident to define the abuse narrative.
This is what law enforcement is all about. Very compelling/powerful and absolutely honest defense of law enforcement based on the real world:
Defund the cops has got to be one of the dumbest, counterproductive moves in modern history.
Not only would it cause violent crime to increase, the current atmosphere right now WILL lead to this.
It's good for cops to be held accountable for all of their actions........in fact absolutely needed but cops know that right now, like with the incident with the 75 year old man, anything that they do, even if it was done exactly by the book and with no ill intentions towards the person confronting them or being arrested........ if they make a mistake, even a tiny one that leads to a person being harmed or worst case dying, not only is there a good chance they will lose their job and be disgraced but they could end up being in prison.
Regardless of what the % chances of that happening to cops is, the reality is that they are smart. They are extraordinarily brave.........or else they wouldn't risk their lives constantly interacting in dangerous situations with criminals.
They risk their lives for us because they believe in what they do. They sincerely want to make the world a safer and better place. Of course there are bad cops, just like there are bad people in every profession.
However, they risk their lives because society benefits from what they do and supports their effort and does not persecute them for doing it. They will risk their personal safety and lives but they will not be willing to do the same things if society tells them its NOT what it wants. Instead of risking their life of being killed, they are now risking their life of being fired and sent to prison.
That's a completely different deal.
Minneapolis city council already voted to DISMANTLE the police department.
Not reform or make changes but to dismantle it.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1269966152496582659
"We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe," Council President Lisa Bender told CNN.
With nine votes the city council would have a veto-proof supermajority of the council's 13 members, Bender said.
Sunday's pledge was an acknowledgment that the current system is not working, Bender said.
"(We need) to listen, especially to our black leaders, to our communities of color, for whom policing is not working and to really let the solutions lie in our community," she said.
Pressed for details on what the dismantling might look like, Bender told CNN she was looking to shift police funding toward community-based strategies and that the city council would discuss how to replace the current police department.
"The idea of having no police department is certainly not in the short term," she added.
Bender and other council members analyzed the nature of 911 calls by constituents, she said, and found most were for mental health services, health and EMT and fire services.
The nine council members made the announcement at a community rally in Minneapolis. News of the announcement was first reported by The Appeal.
Calls by some to defund or outright abolish police departments have grown in the wake of Floyd's death and nationwide protests against police brutality."
My personal view is that most of the city council knows that this could not possibly work but are under tremendous political pressure right now. In fact unprecedented amount of pressure because of the stratospheric coverage and scrutiny with the George Floyd murder and they are simply reacting with something extreme as a defense mechanism because people are blaming them and demanding answers from them.
Maybe some of them actually believe that somehow a safe MN could exist without police as we know it but voting for this, immediately takes some of that heat and guilt off of them for failing to act previously.
Even more heat for such an insane, irrational idea but it neutralizes the previous accusations of them being responsible for the current problem by not doing enough.
OK,
On 2nd thought, after more reflection, this lady and the city council is just out to liberal lunch.
When the CNN anchor asked her about what to do if somebody was breaking into their house, who would they call, with no cops, her response was "that point comes from a place of privilege"
How can somebody be so out of touch and not realize that the really high crime rates are almost exclusively happening in the inner cities and low income areas, not in the rich suburbs.
Those are the places that call the cops numerous times more than in the privileged suburbs. Those are the people that would suffer the most with her plan to defund the police.
Instead of defunding the police in Minneapolis, the call should be for replacing the city council!
Let's pretend, for instance that you were from another country that was at war with the US and could pick a policy that would cause the most damage to the USA.
The Minneapolis City Council just voted for that policy for their city and.............they are not supposed to be the enemy.
No wonder they have so many problems when the ones in charge come up with a solution like that. So sad for the good people in Minneapolis. If they vote these people on the council in again, then they deserve the incompetence.
Watch the population of Minneapolis and tax base plunge now. Who would want to move there with a plan like this?
Yeah, I know...............criminals.
Every time that I think there's almost no way that Trump will be re elected, the dems come up with a new plan or new position that's even scarier for people that can think clearly and it causes me to keep his chances alive.
What ever Trump says or does is always bad, must be attacked and defines the policies of the left.........which are always the complete opposite of Trumps.
Trump comes out with guns blazing for law and order.............and the dems get strongly motivated to be AGAINST law and order and become obsessed with vilifying the police.
The following from Metmike
" personal view is that most of the city council knows that this could not possibly work but are under tremendous political pressure right now. In fact unprecedented amount of pressure because of the stratospheric coverage and scrutiny with the George Floyd murder and they are simply reacting with something extreme as a defense mechanism because people are blaming them and demanding answers from them.
Maybe some of them actually believe that somehow a safe MN could exist without police as we know it but voting for this, immediately takes some of that heat and guilt off of them for failing to act previously."
Cutworm;
Shame on those elected to be leaders that will not sacrifice their job to do the right thing. They will cause more suffering on their people.
" they will faint away at the sound of leaves blowing in the wind"
Thanks cutworm!
ALBANY — State lawmakers spent Tuesday continuing to pass police reform bills — chief among them, the controversial 50-a repeal and replace bill requiring release of law enforcement disciplinary records subject to freedom of information laws.
The bill first repeals a section of New York’s civil rights law providing privacy protection for the disciplinary records and personal information of police officers, firefighters and corrections officers.
It replaces it with a new layer, allowing members of the public and journalists to submit a Freedom of Information Law request for records and claims made against officers.
Sensitive information — like addresses, phone numbers, email or health information — will still be kept under wraps, like other public employees.
The bill — carried by Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell (D-Manhattan) and state Sen. Jamaal Bailey (D-The Bronx) — along with nine others, prompted state lawmakers to return to Albany via Zoom and in person to pass police reform bills in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minnesota cop Derek Chauvin.
Originally passed in 1976 by the Legislature to shield law enforcement from retaliation when involved in criminal proceedings, court interpretation of the law has broadened which pro-repeal advocates argue has frustrated efforts to get at the records of bad cops and allows upward mobility in law enforcement offices.
Never misses an "opportunity" to fabricate something nasty.
Thanks pj!
I'm sure that Trump is out in left field again on this wild conspiracy theory...maybe we should redefine that term to "right field" (-: but I could care less about his position.
I'm glad I didn't see this earlier or you post it earlier or you would be claiming that my position was being influenced by BBCS, Blinded By The Clown Syndrome.
C'mon, admit it. If you had started a thread with that link of him stating this and me responding AFTER IT exactly as I did, independantly defending the cops in this situation for a completely different, legit reason than Trump's whacko reasoning,.....AFTER your post, you would have assumed that I was defending Trump.
mm: You mean your not going to try to defend him on this one? ;-)
Maybe President Trump has information about this guy that we don't know about?
Just kidding!
No doubt some people will think that but the correct response from President Trump, regardless of what the guys motives were would have been compassion........especially because he was old......us old guys are already getting picked on by COVID-19, we don't need pushy cops to make thing worse for us (-:
President Trump is lacking in compassion.