freeman3 wrote:And by screen test do you mean slamming on the brakes to make sure the screen in the van works when the prisoner hits it or something like that?

Yes.

I agree that for the forseeable future that arrests for infractions will not be a problem, but we do not have federal constitutional protection with regard to it--it is not a right, it is a matter of state law.

freeman3 wrote:I agree that for the forseeable future that arrests for infractions will not be a problem, but we do not have federal constitutional protection with regard to it--it is not a right, it is a matter of state law.

I'm okay with that. I can't see a State wanting people arrested for infractions, nor can I foresee cops wanting to do it.

Look, other than CHP officers, most cops didn't like to make DUI arrests. I did, but that's because I saw them as potentially saving a life.

Yes, what would a Chippie do without DUI enforcement? But I digress...

freeman3 wrote:Yes, what would a Chippie do without DUI enforcement? But I digress...

Change tires and set flare patterns.

We once watched a long pursuit on video. CHP got involved toward the end. The tape was stopped and the sergeant said, "It ended well."

I said, "Yeah, the CHP officers changed all four tires and had them back on the road in less than a minute!"

We love CHP!

By the way, I read the prosecutor's accusations more carefully. It appears that the van driver is being charged with second degree murder for driving the vehicle without Gray being seatbelted (she said the driver failed to make sure Gray was restrained five different times) But proof of causation might be a high hurdle. And second degree murder seems to be overcharged, I think. But I don't know how he was positioned in the van or the likelihood of injury if he is not seatbelted, or whether he sustained the injuries as a result of not being seatbelted. Involuntary manslaughter would seem to be the more appropriate charge if the lack of a seat belt caused the injuries, but I guess we'll see what the evidence shows.

freeman3 wrote:By the way, I read the prosecutor's accusations more carefully. It appears that the van driver is being charged with second degree murder for driving the vehicle without Gray being seatbelted (she said the driver failed to make sure Gray was restrained five different times) But proof of causation might be a high hurdle. And second degree murder seems to be overcharged, I think. But I don't know how he was positioned in the van or the likelihood of injury if he is not seatbelted, or whether he sustained the injuries as a result of not being seatbelted. Involuntary manslaughter would seem to be the more appropriate charge if the lack of a seat belt caused the injuries, but I guess we'll see what the evidence shows.

The overcharging, if that's what it is, could be very dangerous.

fate

You're a joke. I spent quite a bit of time deconstructing your bull and you have no response

Fate

You keep saying it. Don't send me a freaking link . . . do the work and show me that whites doing the SAME thing with the SAME issues get sentenced to less time. Again, I don't want to read a 200-page study

Do the work and read a little.You can also zip to the conclusions
Your not actually interested in reading any of the source information because it disagrees with your concepts, which you are uncomfortable having challenged.

Not much has changed since the Kerner report, you do know about the Kerner report or is just another 200 page study you don't have the time or inclination to even skim?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerner_Commission

Moreover, the Commission found that the underlying conditions in the making over decades -- in fact, over centuries -- in African-American communities provided the context for the precipitating trigger incidents of the unrest in the 1960s: racially segregated communities, inferior schools, high unemployment, and insufficient or inadequate governmental responses and attention to community needs leading those who resided in minority communities to suffer from a societal-imposed color "cast" status. They became victims of what the Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in her award-winning novel, Americanah, more recently described as the "oppressive lethargy of choicelessness" -- a choicelessness growing out of government sanctioned inequality and second-class citizenship and a choicelessness that was waiting to explode.

It might be right that police behaviors have sparked the riots ... But the material that fuels the resentments haven't significantly changed since the Kerner Commission..

fate

Looks like Canada has a little problem itself

yes. Not news to me. And since we also discussed this a little bit when you disputed Bishop Tutus expertise on what apartheid looks like, you'll know I recognize it..
So other than "whataboutery" ...whats the point ?

rickyp wrote:fate

You're a joke. I spent quite a bit of time deconstructing your bull and you have no response

Fate

You keep saying it. Don't send me a freaking link . . . do the work and show me that whites doing the SAME thing with the SAME issues get sentenced to less time. Again, I don't want to read a 200-page study

Do the work and read a little.You can also zip to the conclusions
Your not actually interested in reading any of the source information because it disagrees with your concepts, which you are uncomfortable having challenged.

No, you are uncomfortable having to make an argument, which, based on your posts, is understandable.

Not much has changed since the Kerner report, you do know about the Kerner report or is just another 200 page study you don't have the time or inclination to even skim?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerner_Commission

Citing a report from the 1960's . . . interesting move. Now, please compare and contrast Baltimore today with Baltimore in, say, 1967. You can't draw a straight line because it DOES NOT EXIST.

It might be right that police behaviors have sparked the riots ... But the material that fuels the resentments haven't significantly changed since the Kerner Commission

..

From your link:

"Because the commission took for granted that the riots were the fault of white racism, it would have been awkward to have had to confront the question of why liberal Detroit blew up while Birmingham and other Southern cities — where conditions for blacks were infinitely worse — did not. Likewise, if the problem was white racism, why didn’t the riots occur in the 1930s, when prevailing white racial attitudes were far more barbaric than they were in the 1960s?”

So, again, how does this report apply to Baltimore? Baltimore has blacks in power and a police agency with more blacks than whites? The "sparking incident" (of which we know little) involved 3 black cops, 3 white; five were male and one a female.

So, again, how does the Kerner Commission apply?

So other than "whataboutery" ...whats the point ?

If it is some kind of "racism" in the US, looks like you've got your own. It's not "whataboutery," but more like this: sometimes you slap labels on things without considering the complexity of the issue.

In any event, you made many assertions about "root causes." When I challenged you on them, you ran away. For example:

Doctor Fate wrote:You'll have to PROVE that the whites are using the same drugs, commit the same accompanying crimes, have similar criminal backgrounds, etc., for your statement to have ANY value.

Response:

rickyp wrote:*chirp*

Doctor Fate wrote:You keep saying it. Don't send me a freaking link . . . do the work and show me that whites doing the SAME thing with the SAME issues get sentenced to less time. Again, I don't want to read a 200-page study. Prove it--and don't give me an op-ed from some left-wing, nutter group. If it is blatant racism, then prove it.

So, to "prove it," what do you do?

rickyp wrote:Do the work and read a little.You can also zip to the conclusions

In other words, YOU CANNOT PROVE your assertions.

geo

No, I don't think this is right. There were conditions in the earlier riots, which don't exist today. Riots in Detroit, in 1968 and 1943 a lot of it had to do with housing and overt racism by society as a whole. Read up on it, it's interesting stuff

So whats the same and different as when the Kerner Commission reported?
Better
In Baltimore and many other communities there are blacks in political and other places of authority.
Discrimination? Where the rubber meets the road, in terms of policing its worse. The war on drugs and the move to `broken windows`policing that lead to this...

How? There were two initiatives. First, the department began sweeping the streets of the inner city, taking bodies on ridiculous humbles, mass arrests, sending thousands of people to city jail, hundreds every night, thousands in a month. They actually had police supervisors stationed with printed forms at the city jail – forms that said, essentially, you can go home now if you sign away any liability the city has for false arrest, or you can not sign the form and spend the weekend in jail until you see a court commissioner. And tens of thousands of people signed that form.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015 ... t=post-top

What eslse is different from the Kerns Commission? Income and wealth inequality are much worse today than in 1968.. After improving a little up till 1980 ....inequality and the vast gaps between the poor and wealthy grew enormously.
Schools? Haven't improved. Fundamentally when schools are funded primarily or in large part, bu the local tax base, poor districts always get the short end of the stick.
Family life of black families? See Drug War and increased sentencing for drug use. And the prison population ... (

1. While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white me

ts not just that families are broken, but anyone who is imprisoned faces life long consequences...

The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through racial discrimination by law enforcement and disproportionate drug war misery suffered by communities of color. Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites. Higher arrest and incarceration rates for African Americans and Latinos are not reflective of increased prevalence of drug use or sales in these communities, but rather of a law enforcement focus on urban areas, on lower-income communities and on communities of color as well as inequitable treatment by the criminal justice system. We believe that the mass criminalization of people of color, particularly young African American men, is as profound a system of racial control as the Jim Crow laws were in this country until the mid-1960s.
The Drug Policy Alliance is committed to exposing disproportionate arrest rates and the systems that perpetuate them. We work to eliminate policies that result in disproportionate incarceration rates by rolling back harsh mandatory minimum sentences that unfairly affect urban populations and by repealing sentencing disparities. Crack cocaine sentencing presents a particularly egregious case. Since the 1980s, federal penalties for crack were 100 times harsher than those for powder cocaine, with African Americans disproportionately sentenced to much lengthier terms. But, in 2010, DPA played a key role in reducing the crack/powder sentencing disparity from 100:1 to 18:1, and we are committed to passing legislation that would eliminate the disparity entirely.

Because of the Drug war and the way it was and continues to be "fought" against poor and especially poor black areas.... things in Baltimore are worse rather than better..

rickyp wrote:https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015 ... t=post-top

From your link:

“If I had to guess and put a name on it, I’d say that at some point, the drug war was as much a function of class and social control as it was of racism.”

Wow, that's almost worthy of an op-ed. I mean, really, that is what you're going to buttress your opinion with?

Oh, and the Marshall Project:

1) There is a pressing national need for high-quality journalism about the American criminal justice system. The U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world. Spiraling costs, inhumane prison conditions, controversial drug laws, and concerns about systemic racial bias have contributed to a growing bipartisan consensus that our criminal justice system is in desperate need of reform.

The recent disruption in traditional media means that fewer institutions have the resources to take on complex issues such as criminal justice. The Marshall Project stands out against this landscape by investing in journalism on all aspects of our justice system. Our work will be shaped by accuracy, fairness, independence, and impartiality, with an emphasis on stories that have been underreported or misunderstood.

Oh, well, they're accurate because . . . they say so.

"Inhumane prison conditions . . . " Honestly, I think that's a crock. Go to a country of any size remotely comparable to the US, you won't see better conditions. Are the jails/prisons 4-star hotels? No, but they're not squalid hellholes either.

Schools? Haven't improved. Fundamentally when schools are funded primarily or in large part, bu the local tax base, poor districts always get the short end of the stick.

Blame the State governments because most funding is done on the State and local level. In Maryland's case, that would be mostly Democrats. Even when there has been a GOP governor, the legislature is dominated by Democrats.

Family life of black families? See Drug War and increased sentencing for drug use. And the prison population ... (

That's crap. What percentage of black children are born to single moms vs. white babies? That is one of the leading indicators of poverty: single parenthood.

1. While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white me

More people use drugs now than they did before 1970. Maybe it's because it's socially acceptable?

I know plenty of black people who have never gone to jail. How do they do it?

Oh, right. They don't break the law.

ts not just that families are broken, but anyone who is imprisoned faces life long consequences..

.

Sometimes families are broken. However, in many cases, the family never is together in the first place.

The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through racial discrimination by law enforcement and disproportionate drug war misery suffered by communities of color. Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines, people of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites.

Where are there more likely to be high numbers of patrol cars? In areas of high violence. Where are those areas?

Do the math.

Because of the Drug war and the way it was and continues to be "fought" against poor and especially poor black areas.... things in Baltimore are worse rather than better..

If you were doing this for a research paper, you'd get an 'F,' maybe an 'F-'

You've not shown causality. You've not shown that black people have to break the law. However, they commit more homicides than whites, even though they represent 1/6th of the numbers whites do. They commit other violent crimes in disproportionate numbers.

Furthermore, while the "War on Drugs" may or may not be a cause, you can't simply legalize all drugs either.

There is no simple solution. And, I would note: you have offered no solution at all. All you've done is try to explain everything as "racism," which is crap.

Doctor Fate wrote:There is no simple solution. And, I would note: you have offered no solution at all. All you've done is try to explain everything as "racism," which is crap.

I think we can all agree that there is no simple solution. With that kind of preface, I know this isn't a fair question, but what would you do? What are the first steps to helping to address these problems?

geojanes wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:There is no simple solution. And, I would note: you have offered no solution at all. All you've done is try to explain everything as "racism," which is crap.

I think we can all agree that there is no simple solution. With that kind of preface, I know this isn't a fair question, but what would you do? What are the first steps to helping to address these problems?

Actually, I don't think it's an unfair question. I have seen Rand Paul call for cities to keep more of their income tax revenue or something similar--I think that's a good idea.

As an aside, I have not looked it up, but I understand the Baltimore Sun ran an article detailing the high cost of BPD's brutality. I have my own theories about why that might be. We know it's not simple "racism" because BPD is more black than white. I think it is, in part, due to a union structure that gives it far more power than it would have in a place like Los Angeles. We had a union, but it's primary focus was legal representation. In some cities (and I've not studied Baltimore), unions control things like overtime assignments. If you don't think that's a big deal, just imagine what might happen to someone who "rats out" a fellow officer or won't participate in a work action.

Anyway, what would I do in Baltimore?

I would offer school choice.

I would offer businesses who move in and create good jobs tax breaks, but these would have to be tied to remaining and putting an effort into it.

I would look at ways to transfer ownership, over time, of housing projects to those who live there. I would give them incentives and aid to make the buildings places they could be proud of. If the buildings are beyond hope, I'd tear them down, build something new, and offer the old residents the new ones with some incentives to (again) maintain it. It's amazing what "it's mine" does for someone's attitude about where they live does.

As for the police, that's an essay I don't have time for just now. However, I think you begin by raising training and recruiting standards. I think you also have to look at ways to more closely integrate them with the community. I'd look at what some PD's across the country have done and even the psychology of recruiting the Sunnis that helped in Iraq.

Not bad at all, DF. My pet suggestion would be more cultural in nature. I believe there is an inverse correlation between the percentage of black athletes in professional sports and how African-Americans do as a whole financially. For only a very few is that huge amount of time and effort on athletics rewarded. African-Americans are also well-represented in film and in music. There is nothing wrong with having big dreams, but most people are going to have to find more mundane ways to make a living. We all know how much focus there is in Asian culture and in Jewish culture on education and they have done very well in America as a whole. I think that African-Americans face unique issues due to the legacy of discrimination and segregation, but ultimately the path to overcome bigotry is education. And any solution to African-Americans doing poorly financially has to involve a cultural emphasis on education and not athletics or music as the path out of poverty.

freeman3 wrote:Not bad at all, DF. My pet suggestion would be more cultural in nature. I believe there is an inverse correlation between the percentage of black athletes in professional sports and how African-Americans do as a whole financially. For only a very few is that huge amount of time and effort on athletics rewarded. African-Americans are also well-represented in film and in music. There is nothing wrong with having big dreams, but most people are going to have to find more mundane ways to make a living. We all know how much focus there is in Asian culture and in Jewish culture on education and they have done very well in America as a whole. I think that African-Americans face unique issues due to the legacy of discrimination and segregation, but ultimately the path to overcome bigotry is education. And any solution to African-Americans doing poorly financially has to involve a cultural emphasis on education and not athletics or music as the path out of poverty.

I would only add this: the trades. Not everyone is cut out for college and grad school. We need plumbers, electricians, mechanics. And, they make good money. My landlord in LA of a 1900 sq ft home was a carpenter.

Hard work still works.