Stealing should now be a capital crime?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tradd
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Stealing should now be a capital crime?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tradd
You might want to read what the laws of your state say about riots...Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Maybe I'm missing it but it doesn't appear that inciting a riot, or failure to disburse, is a capital crime in California.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
"A capital crime" refers to punishment. So you are probably looking in the wrong place.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Look in the laws concerning use-of-force. The RCWs in Washington are pretty clear that lethal force can be used to deal with riots and arson.
California's is Section 197 of the CA Penal Code, and thereabouts.
The misconception that use of force in defensive situations equals capital punishment is far too common.
Obviously based on all the cases where cops use lethal force and don't get punished it's pretty much a given that lethal force can be used against the population almost any time cops feel like it. Maybe before the day is out tradd will get her wish and the cops in Baltimore will kill a few more people and then we can all cheer and be happy. The alternative, of cops learning how to defuse situations and avoid killing people in the first place so as to not cause people to protest seems less and less likely every time I read the news.
No. That's not how it works, really.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
But fan the flames, by all means.
There are actually very clear, and simple, rules regarding the use of lethal force. It may be used in defense of yourself or another, not "any time cops feel like it". Should police officers be punished for defending themselves or others?Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Alan.....you've mentioned people needing to be responsible before, and I totally agree. But that's never going to happen. What then?
And what concerns me about these situations is that the public is becoming more and more hostile, and capable of really doing damage to the police/innocent bystanders/local businesses.
And that teaching cops how to defuse situations, etc., does get further and further from a possibility, when nothing they do matters to these criminals. Some people are very dangerous and enjoy venting their various angers (perhaps not even the anger that peaceful protesters might feel) and they wait for times like this to destroy things. I'm sure they probably didn't know who worked in that CVS store, or whose cars they destroyed (except for police cars........and maybe it belonged to a black cop)..........So waiting for rational behavior to happen is living in a fairytale. I want the law to come down much harder on these people......but how do we do that? I'm sure there will be some law suits against some of the police in this situation.......and it will be ridiculous. Police aren't automatons. How would you feel if you were being pelted with rocks and bottles and seeing people running out of someone's store with stolen loot in their arms and a big smile on their face?
This is getting to be a pretty crazy place. And if we don't start coming down hard on some of these thugs, things are going to get uglier and uglier......
Turning and turning in the widening gyreQuote:
Originally Posted by CathyA
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?