[Critique Group 1] Fwd: Leonard's comments on Cleora's work in Sept

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: tuchyner5 at aol.com
To: group2 at bluegrasspals.com <group2 at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Sat, Oct 10, 2020 10:43 am
Subject: Leonard's comments on Cleora's work in Sept


Cleora sub for Sept 20

 

White Is Not a Color

by C. S. Boyd

 

In old Salem, when something didn'tgo the way people wanted, they cried witch. In modern America, they cry racistor the ever popular bigot. The matter of police using excessive force, andother potentially deadly methods when arresting a suspect is not new. It hasbeen around at least for the last 50 years. Perhaps this goes back to the wildwest days when such force was necessary and approved in order to protect thelife and property of law abiding citizens. In those days, people couldn't fileinsurance to get the money to rebuild and recover their losses. However, whatgood is the insurance if it is not safe to rebuild. Many of the business ownersare unable to resume their lives because they no longer have a safe environmentto restart. Many have already left and others are considering leaving thecommunities they formerly had established their business in.

This is  mixing apples and oranges. You start out  by saying something about police brutalityand black lives matter, 

and end up with real estate.

H

ow did we get from appreciating thework our law enforcement officers do to demanding that the rule of law isunconstitutional and criminals should be allowed to rage through ourcommunities unchecked? 

Now only black people are afraid.

 

In some countries, even in a securecommunity 

That is not a secure community.

 

 

residents are afraid to go outsideday or night for fear of being robbed and/or murdered. Millions risk theirlives to travel thousands of miles to cross our borders illegally in hopes offinding a better and more secure home. Others who respect the laws of othercountries emigrate legally.

So if a resident of a country leaveswithout approval of the one’s in power, 

they don’t respect its Laws? 

Why?

 

It is clear that we have issuestoday that we didn't have 100 years ago. A policemen no longer walks a beat andbecomes personally acquainted with the people in his neighborhood. Frequently,the suspect is drunk or high on drugs, and may have mental or physical issuesthat impair their ability to respond to police appropriately. Then there is thefact there are more people. In 1950 the world population was 2.5 billion. As ofthe 2018 records there are 7.6 billion people on our planet. During that periodof time, the population of the United States increased by 2.1 timesdramatically increasing the strain on law enforcement and other resources. Theenvironment has changed drastically and there need to be adjustments in policeprocedure to address them. This is the responsibility of city and state electedofficials, but the administration in the cities where rioting and destructivecriminal behavior has been allowed to continue unchecked have failed to addressboth past and present problems in a satisfactory manner

 

So it is the fult of these leaders thatthis problem exists. 

What about Federal leaders?

 

. Soon we will be casting our votesto elect officials to carry forward. Instead of listening to the claims andpromises of the candidates, it would serve us better to look at what currentelected officials from the different parties have done and are currently doingto prevent and deal with these situations. 

 

Let's take Minneapolis as an example

 

George Floyd was not the first. Adecade before Floyd’s death, David Smith died in Minneapolis police custodyafter an officer kneeled on his back four and one-half minutes. But his casedid not cause public outcry, and officers involved did not face discipline.However, procedures were revised to include turning a suspect over after he hasbeen subdued to make sure he was breathing properly. Note that this procedurewas not followed in the case of George Floyd, and, it would seem, no effort hasbeen made on the part of this Democratic administration to make sure thatofficers comply to the procedure. 

Why do you ascribe this toDemocrats?

 

In cases that have been on the news,it is clear that police are fond of this method of subduing a suspect. Thereare likely many cases in which the method was used successfully and did notresult in serious injury or the death of the suspect. In the 2013 case of DavidSmith, the officers testified that they were exhausted from struggling with theperson and were afraid that if they released their hold, he would get away.Perhaps in the case of Floyd and other suspects, they think the complaint ofnot being able to breathe is a trick to get them to relax their grip so he cantry again to get away. After all, if he can’t breathe, how is he able to keeptalking? Or even if the person relaxes, they don't immediately loosen theirgrip thinking the person may be faking. Consider the thinking of the suspect.He feels he is in trouble. He begins frantically to struggle harder whichcauses the officers to hold him more tightly. Remember that police procedure isto turn the person over and be sure they are breathing properly. In some policedepartments this method has been banned. Why hasn't it been banned in the areasrecently sighted, or if it has, why hasn't the ban been enforced?

The Democrats did it.

 

 

In the case of David Prude,March 23,Rochester New York,  they put a spit mask over Prude’s head. It is notclear if this is because he was trying to bite them, or because he told them hehad COVID. They arrived on the scene at the request of Prude’s brother. Theyfound Prude naked and disoriented. The brother confirmed to police that he wason PCP. This situation went down very quickly. After they had subdued him onthe ground, in the video Prude sounds like he is having trouble breathing or istrying to spit something out of his mouth. Within a minute, they have him on agurney. Three minutes after that, Prude no longer has a pulse. He is loadedinto an ambulance on his way to the hospital 11 minutes after his firstencounter with police. He is taken off life support A week later. The medicalexaminer ruled prude died of complications of exfixia in the setting of aphysical restraint and acute PCP intoxication . 

The Seven officers involved in thecase of David Prude have been suspended with pay pending investigation. Theofficers were following procedure step by step. In this case, the man was highon PCP, out of control, and his family called police needing help with a familymember. There is nothing here to suggest that Prude being black had anything todo with the way the officers handled the situation.

Are you forgetting that he wasnaked. 

Wouldn’t that have told you therewas something wrong in the way the man was cunctioning. 

 

 

The cases that have been on the newsin recent years have a number of things in common. The police have been calledto deal with a person that is being disruptive or a threat. The person is underthe influence of drugs and/or alcohol. The person resists arrest, struggleswith police, and frequently refuses to drop a weapon. Police are trying toapprehend the individual and protect the lives and property of citizens in thearea. The elected officials of Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, New York andother places that are now experiencing the violence have two things in common.They have had decades to examine their police procedures and make adjustmentsto prevent this kind of thing, and they have chosen to allow the currentlawlessness and destruction of private property to go unchecked. 

There you go again.  Mixing this time the original episode and thereaction to it.

 

Consider that police are called tohandle a difficult situation. They frequently have seconds to make a decisionbased on their training, experience,  and department procedures.Minneapolis did respond by instructing police officers to turn the suspect overon his back and check to make sure the suspect is not in distress, but as wewitnessed in the case of George Floyd, the officers involved did not followthis procedure. Possibly they didn’t believe he was really in trouble. I alsopoint out that there were others witnessing the event and they did nothing totry to help Floyd either. If officers had followed procedure, if the procedurehad been banned, or if an officer that already had 18 complaints of excessiveforce against him had been terminated, George Floyd might be alive today.

I am having trouble distinguishingwhether you are for police handling these cases or someone trained for them.

 

Recently, a 9 year old boy led aprotest march in front of the home of Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price demandingjustice for his Aunt who was killed when an officer shot and killed her throughthe window. They were responding to a welfare call by a neighbor who wasconcerned that her front door was open at 2:30 in the morning. His Aunt, 28year old Atatiana Jefferson, who upon hearing noises coming from the back yard,took her gun out of her purse and went to look out the window to see what wasgoing on. The noise she heard were the officers coming to investigate the callby the neighbor. They did not come to the door and identify themselves,possibly because they thought a burglary was in progress. If she had calledpolice herself, the dispatch would have seen that police were on the way to theaddress and let her know, and would have also contacted the officers, and thistragedy might have been avoided. What if the neighbor had instead called her,or gone over to her house to see if everything was ok? The officer that firedresigned two days later and was arrested and charged with homicide six dayslater. 

Police are trained to think everything needs to be handled in seconds. 

That is not what is recommended inthese situations.

 

When about 2 years ago, an officeramber Geiger who was coming home from a long duty went into the wrongapartment. Shot and killed Bolten John who was sitting in a chair in hisapartment living room. She called an ambulance and stayed with the victim. He diedbefore help arrived. She was later charged with murder and was sentenced to 10years in prison in 2019. It takes time to do these things. Justice is notserved by lynching someone without benefit of a proper investigation and trial.The officer in the case of Jefferson has been arrested and in due course oftime justice will be served. There is no reason for her 9 year old nephew to bemarching in front of the mayor’s home, and the city of Fort Worth doesn’t owehim a rec center for him and his friends to play video games .

What does is   demonstrating in front of the mayor’s housegot to do with him deserving a rec center? 

I thought you wanted to do somethingabout the leaders of these troubled areas to do something aganst   that.

 

there is no excuse for allowingrioting and lawlessness to continue as a result. Officials need to sit downwith responsible clear headed citizens to work out new procedures to protectthe rights and property of law abiding citizens and to safely apprehend lawbreakers to face charges against them in a court of law, then make sure thoseprocedures are followed, and weed out those officers that don’t comply. On theother hand, Sometimes things go wrong even when everything is done right. 

 

Before deciding who to vote for, Iinvite the reader to investigate how well their local officials have dealt withthis problem in past decades. why should we expect officials that haven't takensteps to prevent tragedies like George Floyd in the past, and who don't takesteps to insure the safety of lives and property of their citizens now bereelected.  The idea of responding to the problem by eliminating lawenforcement is irresponsible. A better plan might be to defund theadministration that hasn't taken the proper steps and use those funds to payfor professional counselors to work with police in the cases where that wouldbe of benefit. It is the poor communities that suffer most from what is goingon, and these officials should not be permitted to use tax dollars to providethemselves with private security. If the rest of the citizens don't need policeto keep them safe and secure, then neither do the officials.  In at leastone case, they went so far as to prosecute private citizens who tried to protectthemselves and their property against threats from the rioters who are allowedto continue to loot, vandalize, and destroy the property of innocent people. Isuggest that administrations that haven’t addressed these problems in thepast  are unlikely to do it if reelected.

 

in each of these cases, we see thatthe suspect struggled, resisted arrest, in one case got a taser away from andofficer, fired at the officer and fled. They were under the influence of drugsor alcohol. The police were called. They were not cruising around looking forblack people to kill as The media would have us believe. If that were the case,we would have piles of dead bodies in the streets. 

 

Is the list of promises made yearafter year but not fulfilled anything more than a platform to secure voteswhile having no intention of addressing the problems? I would also point outthat the issue of law enforcement is first the responsibility of local andstate officials, not the responsibility of the federal government. Federal policeare and the national guard are available to restore law and order if necessary,but the local officials need to ask. Repeated offers of help have been refusedby the same elected officials that refuse to deal with the problem.

 

I encourage the reader to dosomething former generations have not been able to do. Go out on the internetand research these and other questions for themselves. Be wary. There is muchfalse information on the internet. Be discerning and sift out the chaff. Getthe real story, not the one that you first find or the one that sounds likeyour own personal bias. There is a tendency to cry racism every time there issomething a certain group doesn’t like. They will yell for freedom of speechfor what they have to say, but label someone with a different opinion as racistor bigoted. They scream for equal justice for all when a black man is killed,but are unconcerned when a nonblack is treated the same way. They want justiceexcept in the case where they are the one running a red light, looting,vandalizing, and burning a business. What happens to a person that has adifferent opinion? Who is really behind a group of people who support freespeech only as long as it agrees with their opinion, or justice only when itcondones what they do and punish others who do not agree with them? We needpublic officials who will come together and address these problems with realsolutions instead of political name calling and rhetoric.

 

I also encourage the reader to readarticles that present views other than that of the reader. Give the writer anopportunity to present his/her case. Listening in no way obligates the listenerto agree, it just asks the listener to open his/her mind and try to understandthe other viewpoint. Then decide if they agree or not. I feel that the majorityof law enforcement professionals are there to do a difficult job the best waythey can and to serve and protect the community they serve. They, like allhumans, make mistakes and no set of procedures is going to change that. Some,I’m sure, should not be in the job. It is up to officials to weed those out.Some will think they know how to be a police officer and ignore the procedures.This cannot be allowed to persist without consequences. The procedures arethere for a reason. When a programmer refuses to follow a procedure, somethings that need to be done don't get done and the consequence is lost time andproductivity. When a police officer ignores procedures, too often, lives arelost or at the very least put at risk. Still, we need to realize that even wheneveryone does everything they are supposed to do in the way it is supposed tobe done, sometimes things go wrong anyway. Defunding the police is not a goodidea. We need our police to take care of the really bad guys. We could add acommunity squad or trained counselors to partner with people capable ofhandling those who are a physical challenge due to drugs and/or medical issuesthat may cause them to become violent. A community squad that is familiar withthe people in the neighborhood and those that have special needs and issuesthey are dealing with could prevent what happened in the case of Jefferson andPrude. Maybe it is time to let the lack of action in the past speak louder thanthe campaign rhetoric. The people who will suffer the most in this environmentare the poor communities that are already struggling to climb out of poverty.Don't be deceived, if this continues, crime will not be content to stay inthese disadvantaged communities. Without a police force to combat them and nojustice system to charge them, they will move into all neighborhoods and onlythose with the funds to hire private security will have a hope of being safe.

 

Don't misunderstand, I know thatracism exists, not only in the U. S. but worldwide. I don't believe that racismis as prevalent as media and the anarchist driving this unrest would have usbelieve. I know from personal experience that abusive people are most likely tobe abusive to everyone, not just to a specific race. There was no need to pushPrude or Floyd's face down into the ground. This was excessive force andabusive. In these cases, it at least contributed to the death of theindividual. It is the responsibility of the administrators of law enforcementas well as other public services to not only provide clear and appropriateprocedures, but to weed out those individuals that are abusive. The firstchoice would be that these individuals never get the position in the firstplace. But, let’s not forget that people make honest and regrettable mistakes.Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, to quote an old cliche, andlet's take a close look at the past performance of candidates wanting to beelected to these administrative positions.

 

The majority of the demonstratorsare young white millennials  in their 20s and 30s. Some are being paid byanarchist groups to disrupt our society for their own purposes. I encouragereaders to do their own due diligence. Listen to original information ratherthan relying on the news media. Examine the information carefully and maketheir own conclusions rather than swallow the interpretation of the biased newsmedia. If there is truly systemic racism in the police ranks it must stem fromthe elected officials because they are the ones that decide the procedures usedby the department in carrying out law enforcement.

 

 

_______________________________________________
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bluegrasspals.com/pipermail/group1/attachments/20201010/910e2730/attachment-0001.html>