Adam says:

#38. it’s clear that nothing anyone says will change your mind, no evidence or proof to the contrary. There is zero evidence that this is a DWB, and some evidence that it isn’t. You say there is no reason to form conjecture, and you say that as you provide nothing but conjecture.

“Driving While Black is a problem in this country. Police abuse against all minorities is a problem. Pretending it doesn’t happen is just as wrong as those who abuse the law enforcement ideals the police are sworn to uphold.”

Who pretended it doesn’t happen? By looking at this one event and claiming that the admittedly incomplete evidence points away from DWB isn’t claiming that it doesn’t happen. Claiming things are racial abuse when you have no evidence to support it is also wrong.

RBG says:

38. “So many people have looked at this video and automatically assumed the worst about the driver without any further evidence.”

Trying to kill a cop is usually enough in most places.

38. “This is the same attitude that George Bush has been spewing for the past five years.”

No, obviously it’s more like Monica Lewinsky under Clinton’s desk while he leaves Bin Laden free to develop terrorist camps.

RBG

Mr. Fusion says:

#41, There is zero evidence that this is a DWB, and some evidence that it isn’t.
then provide your evidence. In #39, Gary makes a most astute comment. The narrator is obviously pro cop, but the video was edited to remove or obscure the mitigating crime. The only thing we may objectively judge is the video presented.

Who pretended it doesn’t happen? By looking at this one event and claiming that the admittedly incomplete evidence points away from DWB isn’t claiming that it doesn’t happen. Claiming things are racial abuse when you have no evidence to support it is also wrong. You are and did. There is no reason in the video for the cop to pull the driver from the car. There is no reason in the video for the cop to search the driver. There is no reason in the video for the cop to push the driver down onto the hood of the car. There is no reason in the video for the cop to spray pepper spray in the driver’s face. Without any probable cause then please explain why this would not be considered the most common cause for blacks being pulled over.

Now unless you have some evidence that is better then a Law and Order script I suggest you relax.

Adam says:

“Then provide your evidence.”
I did. You seem to be confusing proof and evidence. I never claimed it was complete or that it proved anything, but it was evidence.
“You are and you did.”
Please point out where I did, liar.
“There is no reason in the video for the cop to push the driver down onto the hood of the car.”
And you conjecture that this lack of evidence is proof of something, all the while castigating everyone else for providing conjecture that opposes your view. You are amazingly hypocritical. We must all assume that a white cop that pulls over a black man is automatically racially motivated? You have provided absolutely no evidence of any kind to show that this was the case and you just out of hand dismiss any (admittedly incomplete) evidence to the contrary.
Why don’t you provide some evidence that this was a case of racial abuse? You can’t, so you’ll just repeat that since the video isn’t long enough it’s proof in and of itself.
“There is no reason in the video for the cop to spray pepper spray in the driver’s face.”
You’re absolutely wrong. There is ample evidence right there in the video, but the fact that you don’t see it proves that you not looking even remotely objectively at the video and all of your opinions can be immediately dismissed as meaningless.
“Now unless you have some evidence that is better then a Law and Order script I suggest you relax.”
Unless you have some evidence other than… well… other than the no evidence you have provided, I suggest you shut up.

joeblow42 says:

Mr Fusion; I believe you lack some understanding of police policies and procedures. Regardless of whether or not the cop was justified in pulling the man out of the car, which I believe he was (see all of Adam’s comments for evidence); as soon as the suspect takes a step towards the cop while disregarding the officer’s instructions the officer is justified in using force, beginning with pepper spray.

In regards to evidence of the suspect being intoxicated, all you need to do is witness his reaction to the pepper spray and being shot. Any officer you talk to will tell you that sober people don’t continue fighting after being pepper sprayed. And no Mr Fusion, that is not proof. It is however, the accumulated experience of countless numbers of officers who interact with people that are drunk and high every week, and it should not be dismissed lightly. The fact that the man had absolutely no reaction to the pepper spray should be very strong evidence that he was under the influence of something.

One more thing. In post #38 you state “When we as a society put our blind faith in the police and accept their every word as true and faithful then we have lost out rights as a society to police ourselves.” However, in the post about the ex convict wearing his prison suit on Halloween, you seemed to be saying that we should trust the police to use discretion in enforcing the law. So which is it? Should we trust the police or not? Is your stance truly that inconsistent, or are you merely being a troll? Or perhaps you’re playing the devil’s advocate for the purpose of stimulating discussion? I would truly like to know.

Mr. Fusion says:

Adam, you put up a training course and expect the world to accept that as evidence that what happened is justified. I’m truly sorry, but your argument has no legs and you really don’t know how to present an argument.

Joeblow42, you are confusing two different trains of thought. In the previous Halloween post I stated that the police have the obligation to show some discretion. I believe it was you that stated they MUST enforce the law 100% without regard to the circumstances.

If the cop did in this video did as you suggest, then he would have asked the driver for his license. We don’t see that happening. Because we didn’t see it happening, it is only logical to assume it didn’t. To assume he did ask is conjecture.

You state that because of his reaction to the pepper spray and being shot is evidence of his being intoxicated. Intoxicated on what? You’re right, it isn’t proof, it is conjecture. The same as when the cop told the driver he was going to fuck him up the ass.

Your conjecture is allowing you to see things that are not there. To make an assumption based on no evidence will usually fall flat. Just because there are years of experience by cops handling certain people does not mean that that is the case here.

The years of experience of being falsely pulled over for no reason or fabricated reasons has yielded enough evidence that DWB happens. Yet the trolls like Adam, that have no argument other then the cop has to be in the right, still deny it. It only takes one bad cop to tarnish a whole force. It only takes a bunch of citizens to think cops are infallible to ruin a democracy. It is almost impossible to prove DWB. It is just one of those dirty little secrets that happen.

I worked for the the local Sheriff elect on his campaign; we have been family friends for years. Although not well, we also know the current Sheriff. My uncle was a big city cop until he retired. My two door down neighbor is a Deputy. My wife’s uncle is a retired state trooper. I only say all this to show I am not on an anti cop binge. Nor am I playing devil’s advocate. All of these men honestly believe in the professionalism of their respective forces. Although our county is 99.5% white, neither the current or incoming Sheriff would tolerate the lack of professionalism seen in this video. This Deputy would be very quickly looking for a new job.

Now, can you or anyone else show me a law that says if you take a step towards a cop he is now entitled to use pepper spray or shoot you? Fuck police policy, can you show me a LAW that allows a cop to shoot someone if he takes a step towards him. You all know damn well there isn’t one. The cop must have reasonable cause to believe he is being attacked before he may shoot or pepper spray anyone. The fact that it happens frequently and cops are not disciplined for it is not a valid excuse. That is not evidence in this case, it is perspective.

Thomas says:

> We don’t see that happening. Because we didn’t see it
> happening, it is only logical to assume it didn’t. To
> assume he did ask is conjecture.

How do you come to this conclusion? For all we know he DID ask for the guy’s driver’s license and they guy told him to pound sand. I would say that it is more logical that the conversation never got to the point of the officer asking for the guy’s driver’s license because the guy was being an asshole. Regardless, both assumptions (that he did ask, that he didn’t ask) are conjecture because we cannot hear the exact conversation that took place.

Where is the actual evidence that this incident was racially motivated? Are you basing this solely on the fact that the officer was white and the suspect was black? Does that mean that if the officer had been black and the suspect had been white you would still think it was racially motivated? Sorry, Mr. Confusion, there is no evidence of race playing a part here.

> Now, can you or anyone else show me a law that says if you
> take a step towards a cop he is now entitled to use pepper
> spray or shoot you?

There is substantial case law and formal law that states that law enforcement officers are permitted to use non-lethal force such as pepper spray to subdue uncooperative assailants. In addition, officers are justified in using lethal force in self-defense.

The suspect broke out of a frisk and moved towards the officer in a threatening way. The suspect did not listen to verbal direction and thus IMO the officer was justified in using pepper spray.

Then the suspect attacked the officer and at that point the officer was most definitely justified in shooting the suspect especially since the suspect went for the officer’s gun.

Try showing this video to your apparently numerous police friends. See if they think it was racially motivated. See if they think the officer was justified.

There is absolutely no circumstance under which this suspect’s actions are justified. None. Furthermore, until you provide actual evidence of racial motivation, beyond the fact that the two people are of a different race, none of us will accept that it was racially motivated.

Adam says:

#51 “Yet the trolls like Adam, that have no argument other then the cop has to be in the right, still deny it.”

Why must you continue to lie about what I’ve said? I ask you again to point out where I have denied that DWBs happen? Perhaps English isn’t your first language, so I will clarify what I have said.

At no point have I claimed this was not a DWB.
I certainly never claimed that DWBs don’t occur.
I did claim to have information about the event that wasn’t in the video.
I did acknowledge that that information wasn’t complete.
I also said that it should not be dismissed out of hand, simply because it may be biased.

My argument all along has been that simply because the video doesn’t contain all of the information does *NOT* mean that it can be assumed to be a DWB, as you have said more than once. You make big hand waving gestures about how we don’t know all that happened and so we must assume this is racially motivated, while at the same time attacking anyone who claims that that the lack of evidence could mean it was not racially motivated. Hypocritical in the extreme. You constantly demand proof that this wasn’t racially motivated, while providing no proof of your own that it is.

I am truly sorry that you have been the victim of DWBs, that isn’t right. But that does not give you the right to assume that every time a white cop pulls over a black man it is racially motivated, or to attack anyone who would have the temerity to think that there might be a justifiable reason that this officer decided to act the way he did.

RBG says:

The driver does a pretty good job of reading the cop’s mind to get out of the car (and also submit to a search) if you say there were no verbal directions given.

Anything else you have to say is misdirection and irrelevant to the above since all “steps” that prompted the police retaliation were accompanied with threatening action by the driver. You think personal defence requires a prior verbal direction? And there is no evidence of an illegal search other than the wishful-thinking kind.

It’s the defence of these kinds of cases that do great disservice to those who might be subject to real DWB.

RBG

OhForTheLoveOf says:

#29 (RBG said) “You only perform an edit to compress time for reasons that there just isn’t anything visually interesting going on.”

You might also perform an edit to hide something that you don’t want seen…

But that’s beside the point. This video is devoid of context and info. In fact, it looks staged to me.

My gut reaction is that Mr. Fuzion is right… this was a Driving While Black incident… And as I hail from a law enforcement family, I’ll declare myself immune to accusation of being anti-cop… But who can tell? There simply isn’t any information here.

And Fuzion… You know you are like a brother to me, but I can’t just sit back and let you use the highly tenuious “short man syndrome” explanation. There just isn’t any evidence of any kind to support the notion that this highly suspect and likely non-existant “syndrome” is at play here.

And finally… Never attack a cop… It doesn’t matter who is right… The cops will always win in the end…. Just do not do it… Ever…