@20
In the event that this isn't trolling: this hasn't been about BLM in a long, long time, at least here.  In fact, funnily enough BLM is kind of mad about that locally--how dare you protest cops for other reasons than black lives matter is actually kind of a thing now.

@25
I can't speak for other cities but Seattle was going to just move things like mental health crisis out of the police's control and try to actually make police only responsible for things like actual criminals.  Saying that all these cities are giving up authority and that people aren't going to police themselves, etc, is kind of a straw man conservative argument.  As someone actually on the ground here, that's not what anyone is aiming for.

Defund police by 50% etc was a stupid demand, but a lot of what they do is things like erase homeless people because the rich white people can't deal with it, and also turns out that you can't send a paramedic anywhere without the police coming along to "secure" the environment.  Only amazingly fringe elements are all "no more jails ever": you can construct arguments as to why we can't ever live in that world trivially.  But it's not unreasonable for us to be saying "you know, maybe we don't need police to come along because you burned yourself with boiling water" or "maybe police shouldn't be the first thing we use to deal with homeless people who literally have nowhere else to go" or "maybe these parking tickets don't need to happen as much" or etc, and tons and tons of police money does actually get put into those things, plus we send the same people out who don't know how to deescalate and who have been trained to view the entire world as an evil place out to kill them without cause.

Few points here:

BLM in and of itself is not nearly as bad as that. Some proponents are, sure, but that's like saying all cops are bad cops, or all republicans are assholes. It's simply not true. Saying shit like "blm is a terrorist organization" is the sort of thing that gets your seat at the proverbial table revoked.

To my understanding, this child's mother called 911, and police arrived instead of mental health professionals. Sometimes this works; often it puts police in a situation they aren't well-equipped to handle. Regardless of how well-equipped they are, however, there is absolutely no excuse for shooting an unarmed thirteen-year-old autistic boy with live ammunition. Tackle him? Sure, maybe. Pin him to the ground, even restrain him with handcuffs if he's flailing around and maybe a threat to others? Yeah, okay. Taser him if somehow two or three physically fit, fully-grown men can't physically subdue him? Maybe...I'm not in favour, but maybe. But guns? Fucking seriously? No excuse.

I can't and won't make generalizations about Americans just because of Donald Trump. Many Americans can't stand the man, and many who voted for him once because he was a republican are finally coming to understand and accept that they made an enormous mistake. But what I will say is that any possible plausible deniability any American might once have had about their currently sitting commander-in-chief is long, long gone. If you vote for Trump now, you are part of the problem. No excuses, no qualifications. And if that statement bothers you, I straight-up don't care. Somebody compiled a list of all the lies (the ones that are provable) that Trump has told, and it ranks in the tens of thousands. I don't just get my news from leftist media; instead, I try to digest sources of all kinds. But it's really, really hard to ignore the things being said and done when they're being recorded. Disastrous interviews full of lies, slander and immaturity? Check. Tweet-storms full of lies, slander and immaturity? Check. Attacks on virtually anyone that isn't allied with him? Check. Attempts to manipulate anything and everything to suit him? Check. Breaking the law and making a mockery of democracy? Check mate. There is no excuse, guys.
I am glad to see that most Americans in this thread, however, are upset by what has happen, and by what continues to happen. That gives me a little hope. But the fact that Trump still has as many potential supporters as he does...that tells me that there are still enough Americans willing to ignore him or look the other way. That tells me that while generalizations are bad, pretending that there's no problem is far, far worse.

Also? No one is talking about completely destroying the police. They clearly need better training and vetting processes, however.

Also also? If you do some digging, you will find that most (not all) violence in protests actually comes from right-wing agitators, people planted to make the protests fail. Let's also remember, however, that people who are relatively happy with the status quo aren't just comfy with the idea of grabbing the nearest handy excuse in order to ignore the points of the people they oppose. No, they'll happily manufacture it if it suits their purposes.

A quick edit: if anyone's interested in sources that actually deal with facts, check out the David Pakman show on YouTube. Short, easily digestible episodes, nearly all of which contain actual text or sound bytes. Yes, Pakman is a leftist, so you'll have to endure that slant. But he's not just spewing accusations based on nothing. He'll front-load something, then basically say "here, listen for yourself". And you know, when you actually hear Trump saying these things (contradicting himself, making excuses, lying, attacking people, lapsing into straight-up nonsense, encouraging his followers to break the law and worse)...it's kind of difficult to ignore. If Trump talks about this particular tragedy, he will probably focus on how brave police officers are and how it must have been a complicated situation. That, or he'll try and blame it on Biden somehow, the way he's blaming current anarchy on Biden instead of actually doing something about it with the power he holds. Anyway...yeah, check out Pakman if you're on the fence.

I believe that the first excuse attempted was that they thought there might be a weapon involved, even though there is no evidence of this. This kid was having a complete melt-down over separation anxiety because his mom was going back to work. I find it insane that two or more fully-grown men couldn't control a thirteen-year-old long enough to hopefully get him to calm down.

@jayde, I did read that in the article, but still. Those aren't grounds for what they did. I feel like, as others have said, the medics should've been contacted in this case, not the cops.

@28
I was inside CHOP.  As in, my apartment building was behind the barricades and in the news, and Cal Anderson is 20 feet from my front door.  How much firsthand experience means to you, I don't know.  The one major incident that was the fault of CHOP was because the paramedics wouldn't enter without the police because it turns out that it's policy that police have to go in first which is why everyone now knows that this is the policy.

I can't speak for other cities obviously.  But if you look at things like the Seattle Times, Capitol Hill Seattle, etc. you will notice that the coverage is entirely different.  Indeed, even the local conservative news sources are way toned down as compared to what Fox and CNN turned it into.  It wasn't hellscape postapocalypse 5, biker gangs vs. cops, etc etc etc.  It really, really wasn't.  I was afraid to go outside because I'm blind and trying to navigate through what is effectively an entirely rearranged and blocked sidewalk isn't fun and because the cops kept coming through and warzonifying my neighborhood and getting caught up in that would be a fun and enlightening experience of happiness, not because of the protesters.

I flat out didn't care either way about these issues until all of this; and it should say something that despite the major inconveniences it caused me, I still ended up with the opinions I ended up with afterword.  Nothing like the people in charge not even being able to say sorry for tear gas in people's apartments and stuff.  Like, they could have at least given the appropriate lies even if they didn't mean it, but they couldn't even go that far.

be skeptical of the postapocalypse coverage though.  I had to convince multiple friends that my life wasn't in danger.  hell, I even had reliable grocery delivery through all of it.

It's very hard for me to take that as not trolling. You just flat out said that this is all very bad, but you don't like the democrats so you're going to vote for the people who are doing nothing whatsoever about it at best and want it to continue as it is at worst and also they just got done mismanaging a major pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

If you were disputing the facts or saying that you don't think this is as bad as all that I could at least take you seriously.

@Superb, I personally wouldn't generalise about Amerca or the people there, I'm married to an American who has friends and family over there who are people I have come to care about as well.
Likewise, I spent a very happy few months in the states in 15, and actually found (as I've said in other places), that general extravertion levels and attitude among the population and aceptance of blindness was rather better in the states than in Britain, or at least it was in Pennsylvania and the few transit places I had getting there.

That being said, it is precisely because! I am now rather more personally tied to what happens in the states That I am concerned about this sort of thing, quite apart from the fact that while undoubtedly there are horrible things and violent nasty people in many parts of the world, America (rightly or wrongly), does have a massive affect upon English speaking culture, and therefore what happens in America itself naturally draws more attention.

Sadly, one thing I found myself in America has been very accurately portrayed by someone in this topic:

I don't speak directly here about Ironcross's political affiliation, but the way he expressed it.

He is a republican, so naturally he is voting republican and endorses the republican party, irrespective of what they say or what the other side does.

this sort of extreme us/them, black/white, good evil sort of factional duelism was highly extreme in the states, indeed my lady told me a chief reason she left was simply that it became literally impossible to actually debate any opinions.

this is what I found as well, not that people were biggotted or rude or unpleasant, as I said, I was made extremely welcome, but simply that there was one, and only one perspective.

I find Camlorn's remarks about warzones sort of ironic, given that when I was in the stattess people asked me whether Britain was the same way, and whether it was true there were parts of Britain where the police feared to go due to extreme Muslim terrorists.

I told the truth, Britain, like everywhere has it's dodgy iner citties and places where leaving your car unlocked is a bad idea, however these have nothing to do with extremes of one sort or another beyond extreme drunkenness and general loutish behaviour, and that in fact all the muslims I knew (including my parents long standing next door neighbors), were perfectly decent people.

My father in law then said, "Well, I still think America is safer!"

so, I had directly refuted his premise, that England was a hive of extreme islam and violence, and yet he refused to accept the conclusion simply because he did not support his world view.

Neither what I have seen is this sort of radical entrenched extremeism unique to the republican party either.

this isn't to say there aren't! reasonable people in the states, however, unfortunately it always seems to be the extreme viewpoints that take up the attention, and thus matters grow ever more polarised, heads grow ever hotter, and the hole situation seems to get worse over all, so that when problems do occur (and there seems to be a dam serious problem with the American police), everyone is too busy protesting, mudslinging and name calling on behalf of their chosen faction to actually try and derive reasonable answers, much less any kind of dialogue.

This isn't to say Britain is free from factionalism either, it probably exists everywhere opinions are held to a lesser or greater extent, but at least here energy, emotion and over all hatred of the other side is still on a spectrum, not on a singly defined boundry.

@39 that one way is the only way approach definitely exists, and only seems to have gotten worse with the rise of the internet. I mean there are definitely things I would rather have one way above anything else, but that doesn't mean it's the right way for everyone else. The states is definitely safer and more clean than some places I've been, but I'm not arigant enough to say that it is the best alternative.

We have some bad apples in our police departments.  This is true of all professions.  Oh and nobody stops to check sources.  The news article could be fake news or a story with half truth.

Just to be clear here: I'm not in favour of factionalism. If Trump actually did something laudable, I'd be willing to accept it. Likewise, I'm willing to admit, without reservation, when people I support fuck things up.

When I come out in serious opposition to something, the way I do to Trump, it's because there is actual evidence. It's not just opinions anymore. It's stuff that has been said and done that you really can't un-see.

Dark, I agree with you about 90% of the way. That blind devotion to one's cause is definitely a problem, both in America and elsewhere. You see it all the time. The only part where I come into conflict with you is this idea that all devotion is blind. In a couple of your posts, this is the impression I've gotten, that you seem to think that any very strong support of or opposition to someone comes down to being unwilling or unable to alter your worldview. Again, this absolutely does happen, but I'm not sure it's accurate to characterize it as the norm. Doing so means that you're essentially lumping people into groups far more than is merited by circumstance.
I have family in America, and I live less than an hour and a half from the American border. I don't fear for my life when I go there, and I know that unless I go neck-deep into a rally or something, I'm in virtually no danger because of my ideology. I'm also white, male, cisgender and heterosexual; I only stand out due to my blindness, and even that isn't such of a much. As such, I could be complacent and say that I have nothing to worry about, and by and large it's true; this may also hold true for many of us in this thread. However, I can't say the same of different minorities.

If I say that I'd never vote conservative, it's because conservatives have never given me any confidence. If I were an American, I would vote democrat purely to get rid of Trump, not because I especially love their democratic candidate, because I don't. To me, anyone supporting Trump at this point (not just -not supporting democrats, but actually supporting Trump) has lost touch with reality in the worst way, and I have trouble taking such political opinions seriously.

That bit from a few posts back about the votes and how it ended up going? It's a very good point. Hillary actually won the popular vote, but due to an antiquated system which really shouldn't even exist in its current state, Trump was awarded the presidency. I'm not a huge Clinton fan, and never have been, but I can tell you that if Hillary had been president, we wouldn't be having half the issues today that we do now. She would not have been perfect, and she's got her issues. Nobody's blameless. But there is no way in hell she would have lied tens of thousands of times while in office, and there's no way she would have done virtually any of the bullshit Mr. Trump has done.

And why do I keep picking on this? Yes, there's a reason.

Trump is sort of the figurehead of all the awful things that people are doing in America right now. They hurt, maim, belittle, insult, objectify, profile, exploit and kill whoever they wish, and because of entrenched power structures designed to protect those at the top, they get away with it. Trump exemplifies all of it. So everything I see in police mismanaging situations and killing or wounding civilians, everything I see in the poor struggling to eat while the rich continue to dodge taxes, everything I see in the continued subjugation of people of colour, women, LGBTQ...all of it I see in Trump, and it makes me want to spit fire in his face. I obviously have no intention of meeting him, and would not dream of harming him even if I were face to face with him, but at this point, I truly feel that America would be a better place if Trump contracted Covid-19 and subsequently died from it. When your laundry list of offenses is so long and so egregious, and when it's clear nothing else is going to stop you - not even an election, because Trump's even trying to monkey with that and to engage in voter suppression to suit his agenda - maybe an ironic blast of the coronavirus will give the United States the wake-up call it needs.

25: I agree with your post entirely. There are plenty of bad cops out there, but the majority of the police officers wouldn't do anything like this. We cannot uproot what is left of honest to goodness authority just to make an organization like BLM, an organization that isn't even headed or funded by black people I might add, fee good or well treated. The interesting thing too is that the majority of folks protesting, or rather looting and rioting, are not even black to begin with. Also interesting is the fact that you could go out on a job platform like Craig's List and you'll find opportunities to get paid to do just what these looters and rioters are doing. Was what that cop did to that child wrong? Yes, it most certainly was. I am not sure whether or not the mother actually explained on the phone the nature of what was actually happening. If she mentioned that her child was autistic then she did everything right. However, if all she said was that she was dealing with an out of control child, then how could that officer have known that the child might not have pulled out a knife or something? Again, the whole situation is horrible, and I hope we don't see anything like that again. However, if we allow politicians to do away with law enforcement just to push a political agenda, then, as bad as it is right now, it will get a whole hell of a lot worse.

Jesus fucking christ!
I'm not reading that. The title is enough for me. I don't understand how people can still continuously deny deny deny that there is a real issue with the police force across this damn country. Bootlicking conservatives.