first of all you shouldn’t point a gun at a cop…second of all cops lie all the time so who knows what really happened. (wasn’t it Dershowitz who once illustrated how cops are taught to lie in court?)
Don’t you just love how the news media just prints whatever the police tell them like it’s the gods-gospel truth? That guy got shot simply because he had a gun. That’s all the excuse the police need today to be a justifiable threat. Make you think twice about opening your door to someone with somekind of a gun in your hand only to find out it’s the police?
Now why would you need ” somekind of a gun in your hand” when opening your door? Must be quite the neighborhood you live in. A simple trip wire IED would be more effective, no?
Another victim of Prohibition (the “Hispanic man”) and possibly another near-victim (the cop).
By the way, Eric, here are two new interesting pieces on public opinon re: Prop 19, in case you might want to make this the subject of a new post:
The first link is to a brief piece at TPM noting that Prop 19 has apparently gained ground in the last month, now showing 50.4% in favor and 42.7% opposed. I’m starting to think this thing might actually pass, though it’s by no means a sure thing.
The second link is to a thoughtful piece at fivethirtyeight.com about the interesting discrepancy between what people are telling live poll-takers, versus how they are responding to automated polls. The discrepancy is greatest among minority voters, which the author astutely notes might be due to the greater stigma and higher levels of arrests, among minority users of cannabis. The suggestion is that some folks, especially minorities, may be unwilling to admit support to a live person, but may feel more comfortable expressing support to ini an automated poll, which may give a greater sense of anonymity. I’m not sure it’s all that clear exactly what’s really going on there, but IF Prop 19 ends up passing, and by a surprisingly large margin, I expect this analysis might help explain why.
By the way, I don’t see any reason why the cops felt it wa necessary to identify the shooting victim as a “Hispanic,” except of course to feed into negative stereotypes of “Mexican gangsters” in an attempt to lead some members of the public to dismiss his death as unimportant, or as justified even before any investigation of the shooting has taken place.
Maybe it WAS justified, or at least unavoidable given the circumstances (if he was really aiming to shoot the cop), but if so this would be just as true if the rifle-toter was not Hispanic.
It’s actually not atypical for the police to identify the race and gender of a subject of their press statements. But I agree with your point. It automatically conjures up a mitigation which may not be justified by the facts.
Usually giving the identification of “race” (or in this case “ethnicity”) of a subject is justified by the need to provide information on the person’s appearance so that the public can help police locate and apprehend them. Given that this guy was dead, that justification is certainly not applicable.
Aside from the desire to provide a description in order to help identify and locate the subject of a search, I really can’t think of any reasonable justification for listing the “race” or ethnicity of someone involved in an arrest or other police-related incident. Gender, well, O.K. people want to use the correct pro-noun. But “race” or ethnicity? It may be common practice, but it shouldn’t be.
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July 28, 2010 at 5:49 am
anon
first of all you shouldn’t point a gun at a cop…second of all cops lie all the time so who knows what really happened. (wasn’t it Dershowitz who once illustrated how cops are taught to lie in court?)
July 28, 2010 at 7:10 am
Joe Blow
Don’t you just love how the news media just prints whatever the police tell them like it’s the gods-gospel truth? That guy got shot simply because he had a gun. That’s all the excuse the police need today to be a justifiable threat. Make you think twice about opening your door to someone with somekind of a gun in your hand only to find out it’s the police?
July 28, 2010 at 9:04 am
Jim Buoy
Now why would you need ” somekind of a gun in your hand” when opening your door? Must be quite the neighborhood you live in. A simple trip wire IED would be more effective, no?
July 28, 2010 at 10:06 am
the reasonable anonymous
Another victim of Prohibition (the “Hispanic man”) and possibly another near-victim (the cop).
By the way, Eric, here are two new interesting pieces on public opinon re: Prop 19, in case you might want to make this the subject of a new post:
The first link is to a brief piece at TPM noting that Prop 19 has apparently gained ground in the last month, now showing 50.4% in favor and 42.7% opposed. I’m starting to think this thing might actually pass, though it’s by no means a sure thing.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/insert_pot_joke_here.php#more?ref=fpblg
The second link is to a thoughtful piece at fivethirtyeight.com about the interesting discrepancy between what people are telling live poll-takers, versus how they are responding to automated polls. The discrepancy is greatest among minority voters, which the author astutely notes might be due to the greater stigma and higher levels of arrests, among minority users of cannabis. The suggestion is that some folks, especially minorities, may be unwilling to admit support to a live person, but may feel more comfortable expressing support to ini an automated poll, which may give a greater sense of anonymity. I’m not sure it’s all that clear exactly what’s really going on there, but IF Prop 19 ends up passing, and by a surprisingly large margin, I expect this analysis might help explain why.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/07/broadus-effect-social-desirability-bias.html
July 28, 2010 at 12:38 pm
The Reasonable Anonymous
By the way, I don’t see any reason why the cops felt it wa necessary to identify the shooting victim as a “Hispanic,” except of course to feed into negative stereotypes of “Mexican gangsters” in an attempt to lead some members of the public to dismiss his death as unimportant, or as justified even before any investigation of the shooting has taken place.
Maybe it WAS justified, or at least unavoidable given the circumstances (if he was really aiming to shoot the cop), but if so this would be just as true if the rifle-toter was not Hispanic.
July 28, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Eric Kirk
It’s actually not atypical for the police to identify the race and gender of a subject of their press statements. But I agree with your point. It automatically conjures up a mitigation which may not be justified by the facts.
July 28, 2010 at 2:54 pm
The Reasonable Anonymous
Usually giving the identification of “race” (or in this case “ethnicity”) of a subject is justified by the need to provide information on the person’s appearance so that the public can help police locate and apprehend them. Given that this guy was dead, that justification is certainly not applicable.
Aside from the desire to provide a description in order to help identify and locate the subject of a search, I really can’t think of any reasonable justification for listing the “race” or ethnicity of someone involved in an arrest or other police-related incident. Gender, well, O.K. people want to use the correct pro-noun. But “race” or ethnicity? It may be common practice, but it shouldn’t be.