Ferguson / Staten Island Decisions -- No Indictments

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

That's a correlation/causation fallacy. Deaths going down would not prove that police tactics or policies are causing them to go down.

We don't know if police-committed deaths, justified or not, are down or not because no reliable statistics exist.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

So, what it is it?

Because it has nothing to do with the facts of the case in Ferguson.

And, if you want to talk about the "bigger picture" give me some numbers. Rick is a data driven guy. What's the data show?

Is there some evidence that young, unarmed black men are being killed indiscriminately by law enforcement?

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

You're making up your own facts and mischaracterizing other arguments again.

You're really terrible about that. Makes the whole discussion pointless.

Later, dude.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

So, if your concerns are not statistically driven, what drives them?

Feelings? Narratives? Anecdotes?

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

The data doesn't exist to the robustness that would "prove" anything. Because, as has been noted, these police departments and their local governments operate with more or less total authority in these matters. There's no mandatory central database, no oversight.

We have *some* data. For example, the FBI and CDC have made some attempts to count up these sorts of deaths over the years. The best guess we have is that black people are 2-4 times more likely to die at the hands of a police officer than white people.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Bullshit.

The folks who don't care about facts are those who have tried to use false narratives to use events like those in Ferguson and Sanford to drive political change.

And, seriously, what's the discussion about? Is it only about Ferguson, or is it about something larger?

People want to create change based on the "facts" in Ferguson. They want to take these "facts" and turn them into something larger. But, if you attempt to discuss the larger issue, you're accused of distracting from the "facts" of the case in Ferguson.

That's some great strategy, but it's bullshit.

As for "making up facts", please tell me what facts I made up.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Well, somewhere over the course of the last page "I didn't say shootings were up" turned into a sort of general acceptance that shooting were down.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

OK. So, in this environment, where we lack definitive statistics, it's totally understandable that we should determine that there is a problem with our policing, on a nationwide basis, based on your feelings. perceptions, and false narratives written by plaintiff lawyers, and disseminated by like minded journalists.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

It's the god of the gaps fallacy. Find any uncertainty whatsoever. Use that uncertainty to claim we don't really know anything and claim that all opinions must be equally valid. Then put forth a batshit crazy opinion.

We don't have an exact number of people killed by police every year. We know that it's *probably* around 1,000 or a touch higher. We know that it's at a minimum 400, because that's how many are reported to the FBI's voluntary reporting program that relatively few participate in.

We have enough case studies of unjustifiability and obfuscation of investigations to show that we have a problem. I'm not sure what kind of statistics would "prove" that it's a problem. There's no magical number at which it becomes officially A Problem.

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

Let's look at one program in America's largest city:

So, over 9 years, these stops -- these interactions -- quintupled. Did police involved shootings -- let alone the killing of unarmed young black men -- go up even marginally on a per capita basis?

Now, while stop-and-frisk doesn't/didn't account for all interactions between the police and the public, it did reflect a massive increase in interactions. Yet we didn't see an increase in shootings.

And, it was these same type of active policing policies that were implemented all over the country.

People hanging out on street corners or walking down the middle of the street would be engaged by the police. And, there's still no evidence of any spike in shootings.

So where's the evidence that even some small percentage of cops are trigger happy killers of young, unarmed, black men?

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

You don't know how many shootings there are, or if they are un an upswing or a decline.

You don't know what percentage were ruled to be justified.

You don't know what percentage involved the killing of unarmed, young, black me.

But, you know there's a problem.

OK. What is the problem.

Too many shootings? Too many killings?

Compared to what? As determined by whom? What would an acceptable number be?

Is the only acceptable number 0?

 

Re: Ferguson Decision -- No Indictment

I'm really not following the logic at all.

Police instituted a program whereby they stopped and frisked people.
We don't have data on whether killings went up.
We should assume that if they didn't go up, this proves ... something.
That something means that police homicides, justified legally or not, are not a problem but rather a creation of the liberal media based on a few cases.

I think that's what I'm supposed to get from that?