The Case of Sean Bell

[Zen]

[color=royalblue][size=1]

[URL="http://news.aol.com/story/_a/judge-clears-cops-in-grooms-killing/20080425085009990002"]Three Officers Acquitted[/URL]

This is something I didn't expect to happen in this century, but apparently things never change. No gun in the car, 50 shots from the cops, no punishment. Excessive force beyond anything else I've heard before.

Has anyone else heard of this case?[/color][/size]

[The Spectacular Professor]

That's pretty much the most BS verdict I've ever heard. They were aquitted because the Prosecution's witnesses were fishy? Don't give me that. A 10 year old could tell you that testimony doesn't mean a thing if all the evidence points to brutality and murder.

Even then, there is no reason any of this should have happened. Even if the guy had a gun, which hasn't been found yet and probably doesn't exist, 50 rounds on the cops' side? There is absolutely no excuse for that kind of excessive force that could have ever arisen from such a situation.

And don't get me started on how this is just history repeating itself. That first incident was a load of crap, too. How do you mistake a wallet for a gun?

Oh, and since when do perpetrators get to call who hands down their verdict? That's not justice, that's manipulation.

[Korey]

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]I've seen this case before and I have to say it's a tragedy. It really shows police brutality for what it is, ugly, cruel and corrupted. I mean...how do you fire 50 shots and not think the guy is dead by then? These guys were out to prove a point and they made it pretty clear when they did that.

Many cases of brutatlity or police corruption go unanswered or unpunished, but that's the bitter truth about the country we live in. In the court of law, it's normally a he said, she said affair. It's just so sad for that man. He had so much to live for. [/FONT]

[Gavin]

[SIZE="1"]I'm really just left speechless after reading the article. Fifty bullets ? And it's not seen as excessive ? It just, truly beggars belief. The fact that no weapon was recovered from the deceased's vehicle also points towards an incredible level of negligence on the part of the three officers. I genuinely hope the acquittal is reviewed, not only for the sake of Bell's family and friends, but also for the decent, honourable police officers who are going to be affected by this.[/SIZE]

[The Spectacular Professor]

You know what's kind of irritating at times like this? Double Jeopardy. Can't there be some kind of clause for when the judge is obviously full of it?

[Korey]

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Justice is blind man, it's all based on laws and statutes that were made by humans based on subjective views of right and wrong. In the end, it's all up to the judge and jury. If they say guilty, then that's pretty much that. There isn't much you can do, appeals hardly succeed either. By the time the case would be reviewed, it would be years after the initial case. This is just one example of how Justice is about as good as the guy banging the gavel.[/FONT]

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='Aceburner']You know what's kind of irritating at times like this? Double Jeopardy. Can't there be some kind of clause for when the judge is obviously full of it?[/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]Those are known as "appeals."[/color]

[The Spectacular Professor]

[quote name='Korey'][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]In the end, it's all up to the judge and jury.
[/FONT][/QUOTE]

There wasn't a jury, though.

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Arial]First: idiotic situation to begin with. That's about 16-17 shots apiece. Even if a gun was present (on the [I]suspects[/I]), that's just absolutely brilliant showmanship from the officers.

For those for whom that sarcasm didn't carry, that was sarcasm.

Second: stupid verdict. Bottom line.

Third: Al Sharpton, bless his intentions, needs to learn how and when to scale it back.

Fourth:
[QUOTE]...23-year-old Sean Bell ? [B]a black man[/B] ? [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]...and stoked long-standing allegations of [B]racism[/B]....[/QUOTE]
[I]WHAT THE ****ING HELL??!![/I]

Can we not have [I]one[/I] violent tragedy in this damned country without some stark-raving [I]lunatic[/I] dragging it through the racism mud?? I am tired of hearing all this crap about white hating blacks and blacks hating whites because they think whites hate blacks and ... !!!!

I grew up in the damned South, people. I grew up where the entire [I]culture[/I] was subtly telling me to be racist, and not only did my parents (one of whom was a SC [I]native[/I]) have the good sense not to be bigoted idiots while raising me, but [I]I was the only white kid on my street and I saw no problem!!!

Neither did anyone else!!![/I]

We need these frilling idiots in this country to grow the hell up and get over themselves. Skin color no longer matters (it shouldn't have in the first place) and no one hates their brother any more.

Stop pissing me off.[/rant][/FONT]

[Zen]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]

Can we not have [I]one[/I] violent tragedy in this damned country without some stark-raving [I]lunatic[/I] dragging it through the racism mud?? I am tired of hearing all this crap about white hating blacks and blacks hating whites because they think whites hate blacks and ... !!!!

I grew up in the damned South, people. I grew up where the entire [I]culture[/I] was subtly telling me to be racist, and not only did my parents (one of whom was a SC [I]native[/I]) have the good sense not to be bigoted idiots while raising me, but [I]I was the only white kid on my street and I saw no problem!!!

Neither did anyone else!!![/I]

We need these frilling idiots in this country to grow the hell up and get over themselves. Skin color no longer matters (it shouldn't have in the first place) and no one hates their brother any more.

Stop pissing me off.[/rant][/FONT][/QUOTE]

[color=royalblue][size=1]

It's not a racism thing in the sense of White-on-Black, because one (correction, two) of the firing officers was a black man himself, the issue is police brutality and, what I believe is, the general 'criminalization' of black men, seeing as how this isn't the first time the cops just assumed that a young black male was packing heat.

I live in SC right now and I fully understand your frustration towards the whole "white people are racist" thing, even though I've fully proven otherwise, at least for myself, being that I've taken several black girlfriends and friends in general. But at the same time, I see it in clear view everyday, so I'm not going to fully dismiss it as something that is still an issue. However, this isn't the main concern here, its the "Police Brutality" and "Assuming the black guy had a gun" scenario.[/color][/size]

[Aaryanna_Mom]

[quote name='Korey'][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Justice is blind man, it's all based on laws and statutes that were made by humans based on subjective views of right and wrong. In the end, it's all up to the judge and jury. If they say guilty, then that's pretty much that. There isn't much you can do, appeals hardly succeed either. By the time the case would be reviewed, it would be years after the initial case. This is just one example of how Justice is about as good as the guy banging the gavel.[/FONT][/QUOTE]I disagree, as horrible as this case is, it points to a problem beyond the officers involved and that would be significant deficiencies in, supervision, tactical planning, communications and management accountability of the police force in question.

People need to stop focusing on this part of the verdict and remember that the next person to sit in judgment on what was done to Sean Bell and his two passengers will be the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly. He must resolve questions that are politically charged for himself, his department and the public at large: whether the individual officers should be allowed to return to duty, and more broadly, if the case exposed shoddy practices in some undercover operations that put members of the public at risk.

I would be more alarmed at the verdict if further investigations were not being made. But as I just stated, taken from the various articles I have read, that is not the case.[quote name='Zen'][color=royalblue][size=1]However, this isn't the main concern here, its the "Police Brutality" and "Assuming the black guy had a gun" scenario.[/color][/size][/QUOTE]If your above post is true, take out the word Black in the assuming he had a gun spiel. All you're doing is continuing the wording that makes it look like it had a racial slant when it did not.

[Zen]

[quote name='Aaryanna_Mom']If your above post is true, take out the word Black in the assuming he had a gun spiel. All you're doing is continuing the wording that makes it look like it had a racial slant when it did not.[/QUOTE]

[color=royalblue][size=1]

I wasn't trying to racially charge my post by using black, nor do I think the officers involved were racists. I was just saying that I think the reason Al Sharpton was using the man's race was because HE believed it was a racial thing, though not a "white-on-black" hate crime, but a case of the Police brutalizing the black community.

Though I still have a slight feeling that it COULD be some of that, I'm not 100%, I'm just saying that there's an inkling of that feeling in my heart, and I can't do much to get rid of it. This isn't the first time something like this has happened to a young black man, unarmed, and at the mercy of the police. But I'm not going to just assume it was that, even though there is some feeling of that in my opinion.[/color][/size]

[The Spectacular Professor]

[quote name='Zen'][color=royalblue][size=1]It's not a racism thing in the sense of White-on-Black, because one of the firing officers was a black man himself, the issue is police brutality and, what I believe is, the general 'criminalization' of black men, seeing as how this isn't the first time the cops just assumed that a young black male was packing heat.[/color][/size][/QUOTE]

Actually, two of the officers were black.

[IMG]http://llnw.image.cbslocal.com/29/2008/03/03/175x131/officers_indicted.jpg[/IMG]

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the other is totally white, either. Kind of funny, with all the people standing outside the courthouse chanting "KKK!". Yeah, uh, people, that's the [I]white supremacist[/I] group.

Like Allamorph said, dragging racism into it is about as stupid as it gets. It was what it was: police brutality. Maybe there was a personal thing, I don't know. Apparently the guy used to hang with drug dealers and other shady types and attempted to run over one of the officers at the scene. Still no excuse to load him with 50 rounds. All anyone really needs to know is excessive force was used in a populated area.

I've heard of another incident where a swat team loaded a speeder with everything they had. I didn't have too many qualms about that because by that time he had sstolen a car and killed an officer and dog on top of speeding and they were in the middle of a forest with no other humans living nearby. It was still a bit shocking that authorities would ever feel the need to unload an entire weapon on a single target, though.

[Rachmaninoff]

To listen to the case, you'd think that nothing is ever done to question police brutality when I find that rather hard to believe. It makes it sound as if such events are common place when if that were truly the case we'd be hearing about it.

It's so easy to think that it had to have been brutality when one isn't the officer at the scene dealing with someone who's actions ([SIZE="1"]I will say it since people are glossing over it as if it wouldn't factor into the scenario and the responses[/SIZE]) were off and impaired on account of being drunk. That's right, the guy was drunk.

Go and read up on the different statements as to what happened, because if someone is ignoring your requests to stop and subsequently hits you with the car they are driving... For a police officer, if a suspect is ignoring your commands and you can’t see his hands, you will feel that your life is in danger.

Does that make what happened right? No. But it doesn't automatically turn it into a case of brutality or racism. Hell, one of the cops involved was black himself. And why are we so quick to dismiss the judge as if he were incompetent just because we may not agree with the verdict? Try reading up on Arthur J. Cooperman as well, he has never been afraid to put cops in jail if he felt the facts pointed towards that kind of punishment.

Have a little more faith in the system guys and quit thinking that the whole justice system is out of whack over a high profile case like this.

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial] Skin color no longer matters (it shouldn't have in the first place) and no one hates their brother any more.[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]You're right, there's totally [URL="http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2006/victims.html"]no such thing as racism anymore.[/URL]

I'm not going to guess to whether or not this case was racially motivated because I have no business doing so. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't; I'm far too removed from teh entire sitation to say with any certainty either way.

I should point out, however, that just because two of the officers were black does not mean this does not have a racial component;a black man pulling over a black man for being black is still profiling.[/color]

[Retribution]

[font=Arial]Let's not fool ourselves by saying the Bell case is devoid of racial assumptions. No, racism [i]is not gone[/i] and [i]almost everyone harbors biases[/i], consciously or subconsciously. And no, this is not me accusing everyone of being racist.

There have been numerous psychological studies showing that people more frequently associate black people with violent acts and consider them to be more likely to be armed. People whose conscious thoughts tell them that black people are not inherently dangerous -- these are the people that also were more likely to associate a black man reaching into his pocket and pulling out a gun rather than a key. Go look the studies up yourself, I'm not making it up.

Furthermore, the most brutal cop (in the respect that he fired 31 shots out of 50) was white (but as Nerdsy says, this does not vindicate the two black cops). He fired ~16 shots [i]then reloaded[/i] and kept going. So to say this was a "gut reaction" or "split second decision" is in my opinion erroneous. He wanted to play cowboy, and now a father is dead. Disgusting.[/font]

[eleanor]

[font=trebuchet ms] I agree with Retribution and Nerdsy, and I'd have to say to pretend as if nothing has to do with racism comes off as ignorant and needlessly defensive.

Most of my friends are white, and I have noticed throughout the years that they try to defend any points to "whites are racist" with another cause. When I was writing a speech about the, I'm sorry, [i]blatant[/i] racism in the Hurricane Katrina ordeal, most of my friends tried to turn it on its head, offering suggestions like "the police officer was too stressed" or "the media blew it up". No and no, it was racism.

And seriously, it's not even like every "violent tragedy" has been dragged through the racism shots.

Mulitple people have said it can't be racism because two of the police officers were black...please. I don't even know a lot about the Sean Bell case but that's seriously ridiculous. Racism exists everywhere and between anyone. It's not like the only type of racism can be between two different races.[/font]

[Allamorph]

[quote name='Nerdsy][color=deeppink]You're right, there's totally [URL="http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2006/victims.html"]no such thing as racism anymore.[/URL'][/color][/quote]
[FONT=Arial]Oh, I know full well there are still morons alive.

That's the whole damn point.[/FONT]

[Horendithas]

[COLOR="Indigo"]Saying it's racism implies that it wouldn't have happened period and that's skirting the issue completely. I think people are tired of the implication that only racism results in tragedies like this and that's just not true.

Things went wrong and yes racism could have been a factor, but it's sheer ignorance to think it [I]has [/I]to have been a factor. People are a little too quick to jump the bandwagon of "it happened because of... [insert racism statement here]"

Was it a factor? Possibly. Will we ever know for sure? Not likely. Was the verdict wrong? I don't see it that way, because I don't know enough about the case to give an accurate judgment on the decision.

It's a high profile case and in no way a true indicator of how police work in general goes. In all honesty, the racism slant seems to get pulled out far to often as a scape goat when decisions are made that others don't agree with. Sometimes it's true, just as sometimes it's someone crying wolf when there [I]is[/I] no wolf.

Being an idiot and making bad decisions is inherent in [I]all[/I] people no matter what race or color their skin is.[/COLOR]

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Arial]Thank you [I]someone[/I] for actually seeing why this pisses me off so much.

Yes, racism exists. It'll always exist as long as some bigoted jerk somewhere is allowed to procreate and pass on his self-absorbed ideals to his offspring.

But racism occurs on more than just the "whites hate blacks" level. It's even more pronounced from the reverse angle because of perceived white supremest racism, and it also extends against Asians, Hispanics, French, and Canadians. But you never hear about Hispanic hate crimes on the news, even though they spent as much time enslaved under Cortéz as Africans under white plantation owners?and often under brutally worse conditions?or about Chinese hiring discrimination. Whites hating blacks is a media selling point, and they know this.

I'm just absolutely sick of hearing the "racism!" hue and cry [I][U]every[/U] [U]time[/U][/I] some white guy kills some black guy. Maybe it [I]was [/I]a hate crime. Maybe it was random selection. Maybe it was a barfight that got out of control. Maybe the black guy was trying to be a hero and never got the chance to prove himself. You never know [U]until[/U] [U]afterwards[/U].

Get the facts before you incite the frikkin' mob.[/FONT]

[Retribution]

[font=Arial]The racism of an action doesn't necessarily need to be explicit. The act of shooting someone 31 times in and of itself need not be racist, you are right. However the subconscious criminalization of black men, and the moral abandon that accompanies the action [i]while not explicitly racist, is still racist.[/i]

I understand this distinction is semantic, but I would argue it's still very real. By assuming that a black male has a gun (insofar as he is simply black and thus "dangerous"), and proceeding to shoot him 50 times, the cops did stoop to a very biased choice of response.

I mean, let's not let the two black cops go either -- they too are just as capable of mentally criminalizing black males.[/font]

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Arial]Yeah, you're absolutely right. And even that fact grates on my mind.

The subconscious thing, I mean. Not that you're right. I'm fine with that, 'cause I've seen it, too.

I know you guys don't need me raving on about this stuff. It's just .... nothing gets me as emotionally charged as racism, especially if there's even the slightest chance that there's not hard grounds for the assumption.

And I'd also like to personally beat any white supremacists still alive. 'Cause that's just sickening.[/FONT]

[Horendithas]

[COLOR="Indigo"][quote name='Retribution'][font=Arial]However the subconscious criminalization of black men, and the moral abandon that accompanies the action [i]while not explicitly racist, is still racist.[/i][/font][/QUOTE]No, that's called excessive force that was not warranted for the situation at hand. It doesn't not equate to subconscious "criminalization of black men" There have been studies done that show the psychology behind the escalation of force used in police cases like this. It goes along the lines of rage over someone refusing to acknowledge the law when ordered to. And that was shown to go across all races/gender/etc.

Racism can be a factor but not always, and it's short sighted to assume that such must be the case when we are not mind readers and don't know with any certainty what the officers were thinking.[quote name='Retribution'][font=Arial]I understand this distinction is semantic, but I would argue it's still very real. By assuming that a black male has a gun (insofar as he is simply black and thus "dangerous"), and proceeding to shoot him 50 times, the cops did stoop to a very biased choice of response.

I mean, let's not let the two black cops go either -- they too are just as capable of mentally criminalizing black males.[/font][/QUOTE]No one is saying it's not real, they're saying it's stupid to assume it's the [I]only[/I] factor that would generate a response like this.

The sooner we get out of the mindset that all tragedies have some form of "racism" the better. Because they do happen, tragedies, stupid choices, etc where racism was not a factor.. And thinking racism has to be in there somewhere... just shows an unwillingness on both sides to put an end to that line of reasoning.

It does happen, but we need to stop assuming that had to have been what happened.[/COLOR]

[Retribution]

[quote name='indifference'] It doesn't not equate to subconscious "criminalization of black men" There have been studies done that show the psychology behind the escalation of force used in police cases like this. It goes along the lines of rage over someone refusing to acknowledge the law when ordered to. And that was shown to go across all races/gender/etc.[/QUOTE]
[font=Arial]Right, but there have also beens studies showing that most people are more likely to shoot if it is a resisting black man versus a resisting white man. Of course this doesn't explicitly show this was a biased incident, but I would argue that it is a factor.

[QUOTE]Racism can be a factor but not always, and it's short sighted to assume that such must be the case when we are not mind readers and don't know with any certainty what the officers were thinking.No one is saying it's not real, they're saying it's stupid to assume it's the [I]only[/I] factor that would generate a response like this.[/QUOTE]
I didn't assume it was the only factor. If race had been the only reason for shooting, I guarantee you the proceedings would have been very simple. However, I do urge you to consider bias to be a potential (and very real) explanation of events.

I'm simply not prepared to abandon subconscious bias as "short sighted." The cops fired a total of 50 shots at an unarmed man. One cop (incidentally the white one) fired 31 of the 50 shots -- he shot 16 times, then had to reload, and then continued to fire 15 more. I'm going to go out on a limb and call this more than a shooting of passion or fear for his own life, but one involving conscious decision-making.

Of course we will never know, you're right, we're not mind readers. But certainly do not summarily dismiss the potential for bias as "short sighted."[/font]

[Horendithas]

[COLOR="Indigo"][quote name='Retribution'][font=Arial]Of course we will never know, you're right, we're not mind readers. But certainly do not summarily dismiss the potential for bias as "short sighted."[/font][/QUOTE]I am not calling for a dismissal for the potential, but rather calling the assumption that such bias[I] has [/I]to exist as short sighted. Just as it would be short sighted to think it couldn't. It goes both ways.

It's something that has to be carefully considered before you start claiming or even thinking racism was a factor because it's all to easy to see something that may or may not have existed in the case.

And some of what I've read, seems more like people who are only willing to see bias and nothing else, whether said bias/racism is there or not.[/COLOR]