What about their service records?

[bonemachine]

Every time we see a black person killed by a cop, we hear about any criminal record they may have had, as if that justifies their murder.

Well, where's the folks in the media combing these cops service records and telling us how that justifies their murder?

Turnabout is fair play, right?

[X_Digger]

1. We usually do, eventually.

There's usually a longer paper trail to get a cop's records of disciplinary action, though.

Convictions and arrests are public record, and are easily searched by any person with an account on the right service.

[bonemachine]

7. Looks like you might have been right

But it looks like we're finally going to go there: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028007935

[puffy socks]

8. "There's usually a longer paper trail to get a cop's records of disciplinary action, though"

and obstruction using excessive fees.

[X_Digger]

9. State records are protected for a reason.

Not every record that is captured should be made public.

What if an officer was working undercover? Or had worked undercover.. should their family be put at risk by exposing this?

(That's just the first thing that popped into my head, I'm sure there are other situations where state records shouldn't be made public.)

[puffy socks]

10. That doesnt explain charging $18,000

for police reports etc

[Igel]

2. And when there's a black man killed by a cop, we hear about the cop's disciplinary record.

And if it's not a cop, issues of mental illness (from the Other Side, of course) to defend him.

In this case, don't worry. We'll be given evidence to show that these cops weren't innocent but deserved to die, and excuses for why this guy who gunned down other humans beings really wasn't all that bad and had even been driven to it. Group-identity-controlled thinking will win for many.

One difference is that in at least some cases the police actually interact with the people they kill. They may know of prior records, they know more about the victim than that he's just a black male. Then there's the interaction, which may include trying to punch or kick the police--nobody really cares to video that and post it because that's not the reason for posting the videos. In this case there's little evidence of interaction between the perp and the victims, no evidence he knew more about them than the color of their skin and the color of their clothes.


I like the reported-speech device you used: "we hear about any criminal record they may have had." A nice way to deny assenting to the assertion that they actually had criminal records. German and Bulgarian use a tense shift, some Arawakan languages use a complex set of markers to deny responsibility for what's reported. I'll have to keep an eye out for it, to see if it's more widely used and how it patterns by dialect.

[Nye Bevan]

3. How is that relevant when a cop is murdered at random?

Of course it is relevant when a cop kills someone under questionable circumstances, like if the cop has killed black men previously under similar circumstances. But not in this case.

[bonemachine]

4. Yeah, that's kinda my point

That folks who are murdered by police sometimes have criminal records is not really relevant to the fact that police shouldn't fucking murder people.

[bonemachine]

5. Still waiting...

I've already seen the list of every traffic ticket Philando Castille ever got...

[bonemachine]

6. Finally!

It's here!!!


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028007935