Everett Mitchell on Best Policing Practices (title edited)

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Noone is buying the histrionics dude.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Venkman

[lostinblue 1,989]

For example:

He is right. Misdemeanor crimes should be prosecuted differently.

I just don’t think they should be prosecuting cases for people who steal from Wal-Mart.

He is not saying differently He is saying not at all......

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

If you get hung up on isolated soundbites you are to believe what you want to.

[lostinblue 1,989]

If you get hung up on isolated soundbites you are to believe what you want to.

Sorry I guess I never took that ebonics class like you have ... I believe he said We should not be prosecuting cases when folks steal from Walmart.. I play that you tube over and over .... I get that same thing every time .

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yeah I know you do. Again it's what happens when you just show up for soundbites.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Yeah I know you do. Again it's what happens when you just show up for soundbites.

If their followers are seriously dumb enough to believe that stealing from certain stores doesn’t count as actual “stealing”, then we should have little problem convincing them that being imprisoned should just count as “free housing”,

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Whose followers? The man released a follow up statement - yet you are stuck on the initial soundbite and can't get off it.

It's obvious what you're doing. As I said, I'm not buying your histrionics.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Venkman

[MacUK 983]

Cool, does this mean I can go out and steal someones car?

The owners are insured right? So it's not really a crime.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Cool, does this mean I can go out and steal someones car?

The owners are insured right? So it's not really a crime.

It's similar to the rationale behind calls to legalise cannabis. It's a crime that perhaps isn't best prosecuted through custodial sentences or violent police enforcement.

[MacUK 983]

It's similar to the rationale behind calls to legalise cannabis. It's a crime that perhaps isn't best prosecuted through custodial sentences or violent police enforcement.

Well, I live in a country where the police tend not to be overly violent so I can't really comment on that.

So what would you have as a deterrent for people who are considering committing a criminal act.

I've had a few cars stolen and while I agree that it's a relatively low level crime compared to murder, assault and rape, it's definitely not low level to me when I walk out of the house and see something I've worked hard to get has disappeared.

Where does it end? Bank robberies should be forgiven as long as no-one gets hurt, banks are insured for losses and have ludicrous profits anyway?

If people think they can get away with the little crimes then what's to stop them committing them?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well no. We're talking about shoplifting from a large retail store like Walmart. Personally I don't think a person should be stealing a box of twinkles but then again, if they do, it's perhaps not worth shooting them to death over it when they run away.

I think we have to recognise that life at the bottom of the economic is getting increasingly desperate and that the paperwork and harsh enforcement isn't having any appreciable effect on rates of offending.

Under the California 3 strikes law, for example, a person could be hailed for life for shoplifting - high represents a significant cost to the taxpayers public.

Then again, the US believes in draconian law enforcement and you may be surprised when you move to the US what crimes will land you in a jail cell. It's no joke.

[Jacque67 7,328]

[yuna628 9,920]

A few days ago, a man was at a local Walmart with his family. An officer who was responding to another call elsewhere, cut through the Walmart parking lot to get to his call faster. Instead of responding though, he recognized the man, got out of his squad car and began having an altercation which escalated. Within minutes, the man was shot multiple times to death (including shots to the face and torso) by the officer. His wife states that when she attempted to administer aid to her husband, the officer threatened to shoot her. Frightened patrons gathered around the wife who was now hysterical and had to be physically restrained to a gurney.

The man in question was no stranger to the law. He had a previous history of incarceration and violence against police. He had at one time been a deadbeat father, drug crimes, and had been prosecuted for stealing items in the amount of $200 or so from that very Walmart, from which he had been banned. After he failed to appear to his hearing a bench warrant was issued, so the man was definitely wanted. This man was also white. While people can be sympathetic to his family, we certainly see that he also was no saint. Drugs and the need to fuel that addiction were a clear problem in his life. Still, people will ask questions if such deadly force was warranted, and if in many of these altercations another choice of weapon or de-escalation could be useful. It is hard when an officer has to make split-second decisions. Sometimes they are bad judgment calls, sometimes they are justified, and sometimes they are bad all-around. It's the bad ones, and our societies lack of acknowledgement and prosecution of it, that make the rest very blurred.

Some in society tend to say that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, which they will use to feel better about a cop shooting a criminal, a wrongdoer, or even someone that wasn't a wrongdoer and for whatever reason panicked. We have to decide if the punishment as it were, actually fits the crime. Does resisting arrest or even fleeing arrest constitute death?

[JohnR! 5,495]

They already are! Punishment varies according to the skin color of the accused.

Misdemeanor crimes should be prosecuted differently.

[eieio 1,594]

Does resisting arrest or even fleeing arrest constitute death?

There are no guarantees. You might escape scott free. You might end up dead. You gamble. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you die.These are choices these people make that flee or resist. They know the risks and if they end up dead it is their own fault.