BlackLivesMatter

[Federberg]

Just interested to hear the thoughts of posters on this issue. I've watched with disbelief in recent years all the examples of police killings of unarmed black people in the U.S, and wondered about how these things can happen and what will need to change for a fair settlement in the United States. It really does seem as if the experiences of different segments of American society are so fundamentally different that to date the majority of Americans have not realised that something is terribly wrong. Is this a fair assessment?

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

I was thinking about this , after seeing videos of multiple incidents in the last year and I was telling myself " Man, this is amazing...just imagine how many cops got away with murder before there was cameras everywhere...it was just their words against a dead man. All they had to say was something like "I was scared for my life"" and there you go...Of course , right now the conversation is white cops killing black men, and rightfully so, but I have a strong suspicion that many a crooked cop got away with killing all kinds of people from all kinds of races before the cell phone cameras were everywhere...

 

[Federberg]

Yes I agree. The fact that the police are given the benefit of the doubt actually makes them more likely to abuse the privilege. I get chills when I watch the South Carolina shooting. The casual disregard for human life is just astonishing. I don't think he would have shown less emotion if he was putting down a dog.

Body cameras would be a start, but the system seems unfairly skewed towards the police at the moment. Even the grand juries and the District Attorneys who control them seem to be constituted with the protection of the police in mind, and not the furtherance of justice.

 

[Riotbeard]

The SC shooting is particularly egregious. I would say it's really disappointing how both sides have handled it. Some of the shooting seem like self-defense, some (SC obviously) not so much or at all. The problem is you have two arguments in mainstream politics: Cops are evil and racist vs. Cops are always right. The truth is most cops are good people doing a difficult, dangerous, and middle class job, and having to make difficult decisions on the fly, but there also 1-5% of them who are horribly ill-suited for their job and have a lot of power. The question should be how much power do we give cops and how do we address their mistakes. Instead we get people scoring political points on both sides, and sticking slogans and hashtags that do little to further the conversation about a really serious issue.

 

[Federberg]

That's interesting Riot - thank you. So do you believe that the SC shooting, and more importantly the reflexive way the policeman tried to cover up his crime (I was in fear for my life), was unusual? I'm just trying to get you to elaborate on your statement that "some of the shootings seem like self-defense". There's clearly no question that this is an excuse police can use whether the victim is black or white. But if the black community has been arguing for years that they view the police as a threat for this very reason, shouldn't we all start to take that more seriously now? I'm just wondering that if not for the mobile recording we would all have taken the policeman's justification on face value. Is it time for us to question a bit more?

As an aside.. I read an article in a UK broadsheet (trying to find the link). In which a black american journalist tells the story about her younger brother going off to university. She writes about how she and her parents caution her brother to keep away from the police and don't act in a threatening manner. She speculates that a white family in a similar situation would caution their young son to stay in areas that are policed. She talks about how crazy it is that the perspective of such a fundamental thing as public safety can be viewed so differently in both communities. It was a moving piece.

 

[Federberg]

I'm not anti-police by the way.. just find the whole issue fascinating and troubling. I just saw this news item...

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/14/us/arizona-police-run-over-suspect/

Wow...

 

[Riotbeard]

That's interesting Riot - thank you. So do you believe that the SC shooting, and more importantly the reflexive way the policeman tried to cover up his crime (I was in fear for my life), was unusual? I'm just trying to get you to elaborate on your statement that "some of the shootings seem like self-defense". There's clearly no question that this is an excuse police can use whether the victim is black or white. But if the black community has been arguing for years that they view the police as a threat for this very reason, shouldn't we all start to take that more seriously now? I'm just wondering that if not for the mobile recording we would all have taken the policeman's justification on face value. Is it time for us to question a bit more?

As an aside.. I read an article in a UK broadsheet (trying to find the link). In which a black american journalist tells the story about her younger brother going off to university. She writes about how she and her parents caution her brother to keep away from the police and don't act in a threatening manner. She speculates that a white family in a similar situation would caution their young son to stay in areas that are policed. She talks about how crazy it is that the perspective of such a fundamental thing as public safety can be viewed so differently in both communities. It was a moving piece.

I see three scenerios happening, and I do think black people have legitimate reasons to have heightened fear of cops. First you have what happened in South Carolina, where a cop murdered an unarmed man and tried to cover it up. That one is cut and dry. Bad dude did a horrible thing, but it doesn't mean this is indicative of the police in general. I think these incidents are the rarest of the 3 types of cops killing someone.

Second, you have something in between, and my opinion the most common type. Some sort of physical conflict occurs, and in the midst of that the person gets shot by the cop. These are fishy-grey area cases, where the question becomes was lethal force justified. From these incidents are the major potential learning moments for us as a culture, where we should really be asking, what are criteria for lethal force, for training and hiring cops, and policing habits. Poor often african american inner city areas are often very heavily or even over policed leading to increased conflict, but these policies are not created by officers on the ground, and violent confrontations are very confusing, and decisions can be difficult and have to be made in matters of seconds. Does this mean "i feared for my life" should be accepted at face value? no. But that doesn't mean sometimes cops have harmed people in order to protect their own life, when he is not being shot at.

Third, sometimes there are clear cut simple cases where cops are justified in using lethal force, when someone confronts them with lethal force.

The point is that a nuanced discussion has much more to do with structural racism and when lethal force is justified and who we employ to use lethal force, not liberals railing against racist cops and conservatives saying criminals deserve what they get. I doubt in the ferguson or eric garner cases, the cops wished the person dead. I think Eric Garner, they definitely went too far and should have been indited. I have heard too many conflicting news story ferguson to have a clear sense either way.

 

[calitennis127]

Just interested to hear the thoughts of posters on this issue. I've watched with disbelief in recent years all the examples of police killings of unarmed black people in the U.S, and wondered about how these things can happen and what will need to change for a fair settlement in the United States. It really does seem as if the experiences of different segments of American society are so fundamentally different that to date the majority of Americans have not realised that something is terribly wrong. Is this a fair assessment?

Not really.

First, I think that what is to blame here is Christianity. Christianity caused the KKK (and Christianity is just as likely to cause violence as a religion whose adherents just threw 14 Christians off of a boat in Italy), which caused institutional racism, which causes white cops to kill unarmed black men, particularly black teenagers. That's my take on this.

But seriously, this discussion at the present time is utterly hopeless. What both white conservatives and white liberals share in common is that they don't know or understand black people at all. On top of that, they are so guilt-ridden and trained in "sensitivity" that they can't even point out the most obvious facts. Michael Brown basically shoved a little Indian shopkeeper out of his way after stealing cigars from his store, and he reached into a cop car to grab an officer's gun from the holster, and somehow he is made out to be this innocent chubby black guy eating ice cream on a bench who was assaulted by white racists for having black skin. Eric Garner had been arrested 34 times in his life for an array of crimes, but somehow he is portrayed as the most innocent of innocents in human history.

The fundamental issues here are not "institutional" or procedural. They are cultural, and they are largely a result of the havoc wreaked by so many of the 60's ideas. The Great Society and the Marxist ideology that took hold of so many minds in that era have utterly destroyed black communities across America. Yes, of course, the police profile black people, and that is because so many black areas in America have become a disaster in terms of crime and drugs. Inevitably there are going to be unjustified abuses, but in situations where there is utter social chaos, it is unrealistic to expect police to be a combination of Marcus Aurelius and Saint Francis with a little bit of George Washington and Robert E. Lee mixed in.

 

[calitennis127]

Here is innocent little Michael Brown who didn't have a confrontational bone in his body, for all you anti-Indian racists (the shopkeeper was Indian):

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOfqIXkBRE[/video]

 

[calitennis127]

Yes I agree. The fact that the police are given the benefit of the doubt actually makes them more likely to abuse the privilege. I get chills when I watch the South Carolina shooting. The casual disregard for human life is just astonishing. I don't think he would have shown less emotion if he was putting down a dog.

Body cameras would be a start, but the system seems unfairly skewed towards the police at the moment. Even the grand juries and the District Attorneys who control them seem to be constituted with the protection of the police in mind, and not the furtherance of justice.

Sir, what are you smoking?

The second most unfortunate thing about what happened in South Carolina (after the shooting itself) is that it somehow made dimwits the world over think that they were right all along about Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. The reality is that all of the evidence in both cases was presented very thoroughly and even the Holder-led Justice Department investigated what happened in Ferguson with Darren Wilson and Michael Brown and they were not able to find any reason for bringing charges against Wilson, as badly as they wanted to.

Trayvon Martin was banging George Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk before being shot - and Zimmerman wasn't even a cop.

And even if for the sake of argument we put Martin, Brown, Garner, and the Madison "victim" together in a group of unjustified deaths, that is a measly 4 people - 1/4 the number of black people shot by other blacks last year in Chicago on July 4th weekend alone.

So, to all guilt-ridden leftists who find their religious fulfillment in snooping around for racism, I say get a life and get a brain.

 

[calitennis127]

The SC shooting is particularly egregious. I would say it's really disappointing how both sides have handled it. Some of the shooting seem like self-defense, some (SC obviously) not so much or at all. The problem is you have two arguments in mainstream politics: Cops are evil and racist vs. Cops are always right. The truth is most cops are good people doing a difficult, dangerous, and middle class job, and having to make difficult decisions on the fly, but there also 1-5% of them who are horribly ill-suited for their job and have a lot of power. The question should be how much power do we give cops and how do we address their mistakes. Instead we get people scoring political points on both sides, and sticking slogans and hashtags that do little to further the conversation about a really serious issue.

I agreed with this paragraph all the way until the final sentence. How is this "a really serious issue"? The numbers of black people shot by police are so miniscule compared to black-on-black shootings or even traffic deaths that I laugh at the suggestion that this is a "serious issue". Any problems with police are derivative of deeper problems. In the situation of South Carolina's shooting, it never would have happened if the suspect had followed the officer's command to stay in his car and not run away, and the guy never would have run away if he wasn't worried about going back to jail for unpaid child support. Wait, unpaid child support? Are we talking about family breakdown? Uh oh, better be careful. That might make us sound like radical Christian fanatics, which might mean that we are KKK Nazi members too. Ohhhhh boy

I also find it funny that tented "liked" your post. This is the same guy who put up a post about how the NFL - a black-dominated league with an inner-city macho culture - was a "moral abomination". Tented can't take all the hitting and contact and violence in football. Well has it ever occurred to him that most of the players come from cultural environments that the likes of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin come from, places where crime is rampant and violence is endemic? Does tented really think that those places are serene monasteries where everyone is reading feminist novels and then somehow, some of them randomly like football and become good at it?

I would welcome Tented to drive through Chester, Pa with me, where a friend of mine had her car stolen by a mob, or Strawberry Mansion in downtown Philadelphia, where a close black friend of mine lived growing up and is petrified of ever returning because he says he doesn't want to die. Or how about Camden, NJ, where you can find people lying on the street with needles in their arms from OD-ing on heroin?

But, hey, this is all the fault of the cops.

The most repulsive people in all of this are not the cops or the criminals, but the guilt-ridden, brainwashed white people who are totally disconnected from reality.

 

[Riotbeard]

The SC shooting is particularly egregious. I would say it's really disappointing how both sides have handled it. Some of the shooting seem like self-defense, some (SC obviously) not so much or at all. The problem is you have two arguments in mainstream politics: Cops are evil and racist vs. Cops are always right. The truth is most cops are good people doing a difficult, dangerous, and middle class job, and having to make difficult decisions on the fly, but there also 1-5% of them who are horribly ill-suited for their job and have a lot of power. The question should be how much power do we give cops and how do we address their mistakes. Instead we get people scoring political points on both sides, and sticking slogans and hashtags that do little to further the conversation about a really serious issue.

I agreed with this paragraph all the way until the final sentence. How is this "a really serious issue"? The numbers of black people shot by police are so miniscule compared to black-on-black shootings or even traffic deaths that I laugh at the suggestion that this is a "serious issue". Any problems with police are derivative of deeper problems. In the situation of South Carolina's shooting, it never would have happened if the suspect had followed the officer's command to stay in his car and run away, and the guy never would have run away if he wasn't worried about going back to jail for unpaid child support. Wait, unpaid child support? Are we talking about family breakdown? Uh oh, better be careful. That might make us sound like radical Christian fanatics, which might mean that we are KKK Nazi members too. Ohhhhh boy

I also find it funny that tented "liked" your post. This is the same guy who put up a post about how the NFL - a black-dominated league with an inner-city macho culture - was a "moral abomination". Tented can't take all the hitting and contact and violence in football. Well has it ever occurred to him that most of the players come from cultural environments that the likes of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin come from, places where crime is rampant and violence is endemic? Does tented really think that those places are serene monasteries where everyone is reading feminist novels and then somehow, some of them randomly like football and become good at it?

I would welcome Tented to drive through Chester, Pa with me, where a friend of mine had her car stolen by a mob, or Strawberry Mansion in downtown Philadelphia, where a close black friend of mine lived growing up and is petrified of ever returning because he says he doesn't want to die. Or how about Camden, NJ, where you can find people lying on the street with needles in their arms from OD-ing on heroin?

But, hey, this is all the fault of the cops.

The most repulsive people in all of this are not the cops or the criminals, but the guilt-ridden, brainwashed white people who are totally disconnected from reality.

Glad you read all my post with nuance. Fyi I know all the places you are talking about in Philly... But clearly you had a point you wanted to make.

 

[Federberg]

The SC shooting is particularly egregious. I would say it's really disappointing how both sides have handled it. Some of the shooting seem like self-defense, some (SC obviously) not so much or at all. The problem is you have two arguments in mainstream politics: Cops are evil and racist vs. Cops are always right. The truth is most cops are good people doing a difficult, dangerous, and middle class job, and having to make difficult decisions on the fly, but there also 1-5% of them who are horribly ill-suited for their job and have a lot of power. The question should be how much power do we give cops and how do we address their mistakes. Instead we get people scoring political points on both sides, and sticking slogans and hashtags that do little to further the conversation about a really serious issue.

I agreed with this paragraph all the way until the final sentence. How is this "a really serious issue"? The numbers of black people shot by police are so miniscule compared to black-on-black shootings or even traffic deaths that I laugh at the suggestion that this is a "serious issue". Any problems with police are derivative of deeper problems. In the situation of South Carolina's shooting, it never would have happened if the suspect had followed the officer's command to stay in his car and run away, and the guy never would have run away if he wasn't worried about going back to jail for unpaid child support. Wait, unpaid child support? Are we talking about family breakdown? Uh oh, better be careful. That might make us sound like radical Christian fanatics, which might mean that we are KKK Nazi members too. Ohhhhh boy

I also find it funny that tented "liked" your post. This is the same guy who put up a post about how the NFL - a black-dominated league with an inner-city macho culture - was a "moral abomination". Tented can't take all the hitting and contact and violence in football. Well has it ever occurred to him that most of the players come from cultural environments that the likes of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin come from, places where crime is rampant and violence is endemic? Does tented really think that those places are serene monasteries where everyone is reading feminist novels and then somehow, some of them randomly like football and become good at it?

I would welcome Tented to drive through Chester, Pa with me, where a friend of mine had her car stolen by a mob, or Strawberry Mansion in downtown Philadelphia, where a close black friend of mine lived growing up and is petrified of ever returning because he says he doesn't want to die. Or how about Camden, NJ, where you can find people lying on the street with needles in their arms from OD-ing on heroin?

But, hey, this is all the fault of the cops.

The most repulsive people in all of this are not the cops or the criminals, but the guilt-ridden, brainwashed white people who are totally disconnected from reality.

Cali, as always you amuse me. I'm not sure why you need to be so strident. You seem to have a lot of anger. Perhaps I'm a dimwit... but are you really saying that it's the victims fault because he didn't stay in the car? That can't be right surely. Even if the guy was a criminal, surely it's up to the courts to make that determination. There can't ever be a justification for Slager's de facto execution.

I'm just a guy from across the pond trying to understand, what if anything is wrong in America. It seems to me that it will take generations for blacks in America to rid themselves of dysfunction. It isn't so easy as a culture to move past centuries of oppression. It seems to me some understanding is required, it certainly doesn't help if there is institutional racism. From what Riot says, this isn't the case. But as long as there's poverty in those communities crime rates will be higher, it's the same all over the world

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Cali always misses the point when this subject comes up. Sure black on black crime is an issue, a big one, BUT:
- When black on black crime happens, somebody always goes to jail.
- There is no one in the position of authority in a black on black crime where the society trusts to act just and right. They are two regular people.

In this case we are looking at a cop, who has authority and legal right to use power, who shots a person from behind, then tries to plant a taser near his dying body so that he can have a case .

We only know this because people have cell phone cameras now. Before, it was the cop's word against the alleged perp. I wonder who had the advantage there.

 

[Federberg]

That's exactly the point. Thanks for framing the issue Murat. Surely it should make us all wonder how many times similar occurrences have happened. It seems that the authority of the police might be too extreme, which makes abuses probable. In the past we've heard complaints from the black American community that the slain relatives wouldn't have resisted the police, yet they are killed. We've all assumed the black community has been lying. It seems to me that we should at least be more cautious going forward. It doesn't mean that every case is like this, but we should leave room for the possibility of police corruption. It just seems to easy to say that because the victim had a prior record they probably had it coming. Everyone deserves their day in court

 

[calitennis127]

Cali always misses the point when this subject comes up. Sure black on black crime is an issue, a big one, BUT:
- When black on black crime happens, somebody always goes to jail.
- There is no one in the position of authority in a black on black crime where the society trusts to act just and right. They are two regular people.

Well then you are missing the point, murat. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" makes it sound like there is some wide-scale semi-genocide going on against black people - all because of a total of 5 cases: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, the guy in Madison, and now Walter Scott in South Carolina. That is 5 people, which in the city of Chicago is just one weekend worth of coffins for shooting victims.

The whole issue here - and the reason why I bring up black-on-black crime - is the matter of SCALE. The ratio of incidents where a black person shoots another black person to incidents where white cops shoot a black person is literally near 100:1. It is frankly hilarious to see guilt-ridden modern white people go around saying "black lives matter" as a reference to white police brutality when we are talking about a miniscule number of isolated incidents.

In this case we are looking at a cop, who has authority and legal right to use power, who shots a person from behind, then tries to plant a taser near his dying body so that he can have a case.

And the only way this statement is even slightly noteworthy is if someone was trying to prove to you that cops are always right all the time. I don't think anyone believes that and I certainly don't. The issue that "sensitized" modern white people with political opinions - of which you are basically one even though you are from Turkey - don't want to face is that the scale of violence in many black communities in the U.S. is so severe that it is utterly trivial to talk about a couple isolated cases of a white cop wrestling with a black man and then shooting him as if it is the equivalent of a genocide. I live near Philadelphia and just this morning there was a drive-by shooting in West Philadelphia in which the victim was black. Odds are that the shooter was also black, and I don't think we will see the guilt-ridden, gay-marriage-obsessed media rushing in with the slogan "Black Lives Matter" for a teaching moment.

We only know this because people have cell phone cameras now. Before, it was the cop's word against the alleged perp. I wonder who had the advantage there.

We also used to not have security videos. The video I posted of Michael Brown does not lie. He shoved the little Indian shopkeeper out of his way and approached him like he was going to lay him out. If you saw a Catholic priest doing that, you would use it as evidence of why religion was stupid.

Also, btw, George Zimmerman was not a white cop, but a half-Hispanic neighborhood "watch dog", and it was his tussle with Trayvon Martin that started this whole train of nonsense about police brutality.

Also, I would add, Eric Holder's Justice Department did a thorough follow-up investigation of what happened in Ferguson and they only confirmed that Darren Wilson could not have been convicted. They found evidence of racism in the Ferguson Police Department (mainly with some e-mails that members of the media would find funny if Lil Wayne made the jokes), but they did not come to any conclusions contrary to what the jury did in acquitting Darren Wilson.

 

[calitennis127]

Cali, as always you amuse me. I'm not sure why you need to be so strident. You seem to have a lot of anger.

Yes, when discussing certain issues, I absolutely do, and I am not ashamed of it. It is completely justified anger.

Perhaps I'm a dimwit... but are you really saying that it's the victims fault because he didn't stay in the car?

It's both of their faults. Have you watched the dashcam video?

It was a case of a routine traffic stop because the driver's back brake light was not working. The conversation between the police officer and Walter Scott initially was completely calm and civil. The officer did not even get testy or disrespectful in any way when Scott said that he did not have registration or an insurance card but that he was going to buy the car in a couple days. The officer just took the license and went back to his car. Then Scott stood up out of his car and looked back at the officer - something that anyone knows is a huge no-no by the time they are 17. At this point, the officer yelled in somewhat of a white meatheaded way "SIT DOWN" (in an aggressive Wisconsin basketball-style voice). So Scott sat back down and then a minute later abruptly opened his car door and ran away from the scene. At this point, the cop was very ticked off at the disrespect and began chasing him. The shooting apparently happened a couple minutes later over 200 yards from where the traffic stop occurred. There was likely a tussle at some point, but either way, the two were yelling at each other over the span of a couple minutes.

Should Slager have shot him? Of course not. But Scott's blatant disrespect of direct orders from the police officer only invited tempers to flare. They never should have ended up jawing off at each other 200 yards from where the stop occurred. That confrontation was a direct result of Scott's decision to run away from his car in order to avoid going to court over child support.

There can't ever be a justification for Slager's de facto execution.

The shooting never should have occurred, of course. And Slager is likely going to spend the rest of his life in prison for, at minimum, second-degree murder. But Scott is not at all blameless in what took place. Slager was entirely respectful of him even after Scott gave the hazy explanation about not having registration or insurance on the car (I have seen many cops who at that moment would have been much nastier and more impatient), and it was Scott's decision to run away that prompted the confrontation and the temper-flaring that ensued.

I'm just a guy from across the pond trying to understand, what if anything is wrong in America. It seems to me that it will take generations for blacks in America to rid themselves of dysfunction.

And blaming four cops and one neighborhood watchdog for deeply rooted social problems does nothing to help that cause.

 

[calitennis127]

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttyxt3bjq2k[/video]

 

[Federberg]

Yes I saw the dashcam video. And I saw the security video for Michael Brown. I don't believe anyone on this thread has made excuses for the mistakes the victims made. The question is, on what basis can lethal action be taken. I'm sorry that you don't see how inappropriate it is to try to lay one iota of blame on Scott. Was it his fault that Slager decided to execute him? It's particularly egregious because Slager's colleague eventually turns up from the direction Scott was running to. He would have been stopped. So sad..

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Cali always misses the point when this subject comes up. Sure black on black crime is an issue, a big one, BUT:
- When black on black crime happens, somebody always goes to jail.
- There is no one in the position of authority in a black on black crime where the society trusts to act just and right. They are two regular people.

Well then you are missing the point, murat. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" makes it sound like there is some wide-scale semi-genocide going on against black people - all because of a total of 5 cases: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, the guy in Madison, and now Walter Scott in South Carolina. That is 5 people, which in the city of Chicago is just one weekend worth of coffins for shooting victims.

The whole issue here - and the reason why I bring up black-on-black crime - is the matter of SCALE. The ratio of incidents where a black person shoots another black person to incidents where white cops shoot a black person is literally near 100:1. It is frankly hilarious to see guilt-ridden modern white people go around saying "black lives matter" as a reference to white police brutality when we are talking about a miniscule number of isolated incidents.

Cali, I wish you bothered to read what I write. The reason you are missing the point is because you are comparing unrelated events. It does not matter what the ratio of black on black crime to crimes committed by persons in the position of authority against regular people. If this was a court case, there would be only one word the judge would say : Irrelevant. It is like saying way more people die in car accidents than police crime. Irrelevant. Got nothing to do with the subject at hand. Feel free to open a thread to discuss black on black crime. And when you do, I am sure you would be upset if someone came and said "Yeah, but cancer kills more people..." Again , IRRELEVANT.

And you are , as usual, misrepresenting my point. The title of this thread might be black lives matter, but that is not even my position. Have you, at any point in this thread, seen me blame WHITE cops killing BLACK people in general? You will not. I said "in particular" , only about the recent cases, and rightfully so.

My position is that the people in the position of authority, white, black or purple, has been abusing that authority for ages, against people that are white, black or purple and we are only finding about this now for sure, because people are recording the events or there are security cameras everywhere. Obviously those security cameras do not mean much because their findings can be altered, hidden etc...not like a regular person recording events like the last incidence.

Here is what i said at my first post:
"Of course , right now the conversation is white cops killing black men, and rightfully so, but I have a strong suspicion that many a crooked cop got away with killing all kinds of people from all kinds of races before the cell phone cameras were everywhere..."

"Right now" is the key phrase.

...and my next post that you quoted:

"In this case we are looking at a cop, who has authority and legal right to use power, who shoots a person from behind, then tries to plant a taser near his dying body so that he can have a case ."

Do you see anywhere any mention of color?

Again, my position is, people in the position of authority is going to find it harder and harder to get away with stuff in today's technology. And if we see so many incidences in such short period of time, it truly scares me what must have happened in the past. Obviously not every cop is crooked. But we are not supposed to do anything about the ones that are?