if i was a parent whose daughter was this batshit, i would be wholly embarrassed. you know how you show your appreciation for actors and singers? buy a ticket to see their movie, show and or album. you know how you hurt them? don't buy. that is the end of the transaction. showing up screaming at movie sets or stalking them on the street just illuminates your crazy.
the problem with trying to have a discussion about this is knee-jerk bigotry of people rushing out of their way to point out that there is probably NO WAY NO HOW this had to do with racism. here is the bottom fucking line, kids: if this were two black cops, or two white cops, the shooter cop should still be fired. sorry! that's just how it is! you can't just have any fast draw on the job (unfortunately in nyc those are the people who are attracted very, very often, since the pay is so bullshit). just like if the dead cop had survived, he should also be disciplined for running around outside of protocol brandishing a gun! since it's the nypd, they're not going to even actually discipline this guy in any kind of way but you know, in an ideal world and all that. but keep on defending, white dudes. let's not admit that cops need better training, better pay, better recruits, and higher standards than, say, you would in the same situation.
It's true that he probably didn't have time to identify himself, and that this will probably end up being a 'racially charged' story, but I don't see why everyone's jumping on the other cop. It seems to me that he did everything right, and just got stuck in a crappy situation.
Why did Edwards have his gun drawn when he was chasing an unarmed theif? Why did he turn on the other cop with his gun still drawn? And why does anyone assume that he wouldn't have gotten shot if he was white?
Do you think the fact that the man killed was a rookie officer played into this? He was running down the street, plainclothes, with a gun in his hand. Is that protocol for chases (realizing that shooting someone 6 times probably isn't protocol either)? Because that doesn't seem smart in a city like NYC.
@Fry_Bread_Power: yeah. both of these dudes were acting completely outside of protocol! the thing with this line of argument/defense tho is that one dude died because of the other guy acting like a wild untrained yahoo. i doubt the shooter will even lose his job over this.
@resipsaloquacious: says the knee-jerk cop defender who seems to actually know nothing about cop procedural? it's pretty clear that everyone involved behaved completely out of order. fuck off and shove your world view up your ass, princess.
Just because it involved white and black people doesn't immeidately mean it was 'racially charged'. If you read the Times coverage, it says the off-duty cop was not holding his shield - it was in his pocket. Usually there's a 'color of the day' worn on clothing of undercover officers so that they can be identified by other officers. The details aren't out yet...so maybe you could hold off on the NYPost-worthy coverage.
@YouMustBeHarveysSqueeze: It's not that the cop was racist, per se. It's more the culturally ingrained attitudes that a majority of people share which cause them to view black people as a more direct threat than white people. It's not 'minstrel show' racism, but it's a definite variant that when combined with weapons often ends tragically.
@YouMustBeHarveysSqueeze: you know that stating an event is "racially-charged" does not mean that one is accusing the participants of actually being racists, right?
Crap. Young father, off duty, living his dream of being a cop ends up chasing some idiot who broke into a car and gets shot. Makes you want to cry.
(I'm going to say its too soon to draw conclusions about the racial politics of this. But just to clarify the original post, he was "carrying" his shield but it was not visible, police say)
Let's all jump to conclusions about how the cop was obviously a racist because he shot an armed man chasing someone. Are you people that knee jerk? What was this cop doing drawing a gun on a crowded street while chasing someone accused of breaking into a car?
What would you have done, you are a cop on a 125th St and there is a report of a stolen car, then you see what appears to be a civilian man running down the street with an exposed weapon, you ask him to stop and drop the weapon. Instead, he begins turning around with the gun in his hand.
Yea, you'd wait to sort the situation out -- talk it out right?
@resipsaloquacious: "As he started to turn toward him - the gun still in his hand"- Was he firing? No. Stop trying to defend an unnecessary action.
"If a police officer sees someone with a gun, you don't just fire without asking questions or trying to apprehend the person," said Ricardo Edwards, 72. "If the person was firing at a police officer, I understand."
You quoted his Father who is dealing with an unspeakable tragedy, not really an objective source.
You ask was he firing? I don't think it is Police Procedure that you can only discharge your weapon if you have been fired upon.
If someone at the scene of a crime has a gun in his hand and is turning around with it, are you going to wait?
My point is that you have no fucking idea what was necessary in that situation. Either do I. But you love to make these assumptions of wrongful conduct because (i) it's easy and (ii) it makes you politically correct and cool to say "fuck the police".
@resipsaloquacious: the point is not to shoot to kill. this is a city, not a war zone.
i'm not making assumptions because i "love" to. i'm commenting on how unfortunate and sad the situation is. i have nypd cops in my family and i hear about race relations between them constantly, so no i am not saying "fuck the police."
@allyzay: In this circumstance, it's entirely probable that it would have happened exactly the same way to a white man. Saying anything otherwise is just silly. Are you imagining that a policeman in fear for his life is going to pause longer to identify a white man he thinks is going to shoot at him than a black man he things is going to shoot at him?
@Pope John Peeps II: Agreed, it could. But I think the concern is that a cop is going to be in greater fear for his life if the unknown is black. And that apparently goes whether the cop doing the shooting is white or of color.
@Moishe: We can't seem to regress to the point where there are heroin addicts in Bryant Park and porn parlors on 42nd and Broadway and no Starbucks anywhere but racial tension regression we can do.
@Moishe: My honest opinion: I think race does play a part. I'm not getting into the whole why was the off duty cop chasing someone with a weapon. For me the answer is simple. He's a cop, off duty or not, and in pursuit, the knee-jerk is to take out the weapon. It's a little Kojack, but what's he going to do if the other guy draws a weapon, smack him with a glove? But the racially motivated thing comes in, in my opinion, when a white person sees a black person running with a gun. Especially a young black male. The knee-jerk there is to think what? Be honest. The knee-jerk is to believe that a black person with a weapon is acting in a criminal manner. Now, if it were the other way around...I think it's possible the black cop would have paused before shooting, because hasn't society trained us to believe that a white man holding a gun usually has a reason to be doing so?
@Spirit Fingers: There's absolutely no conceivable way you could prove that hypothesis in any valid way. You're just saying what you think would happen based on your opinions. There's no way you could explore that.
This is like one of those Jezebel arguments where you hear "if the world was run by women there would be no problems". There's no way to prove it.
@slainte_pants: hahaha. "Lean Back" was not a productive song for black marksmanship.
@slainte_pants: That's exactly my point. So when it does happen, aren't we more apt to believe there's a reason for it? I was talking about what our, collective, perceptions are. Because aren't we "used to" seeing black people in plainclothes running around with guns for nefarious reasons? I can turn on a television right now, midday, and see that image. Tell me that doesn't influence how we view the world.
@Pope John Peeps II: Proving that point could become dangerous, but ah, it got you thinking. Didn't it, Peeps? There have been numerous studies done with children about perception, and if I remember correctly there's one out there about the smiling white police officer being the beacon of safety and trust and other images of the opposite, of course meant to illicit other more wary feelings in children. Does race play a part? It's certainly possible, even if on a subconscious level.
Also, in my experience "Officer Smiley" was never a black man. Was yours?
@Pope John Peeps II: No, it wouldn't have happened to a white guy. As Resipsaloquacious noted above, if you are on 125th Street (Nilla speak translation: Surrounded by black people), as a white person, you're gonna scared out of your mind and shoot everyone that moves. Its only natural.
It wouldn't happen to a white cop b/c white people aren't scared of other white people, they're scared of the coloreds.
@Shariq Torres: That's violently untrue. As an urban white person, I'm way more scared of class than of colour. I'd be more scared of a poor white kid who looked trashy than a rich black kid who looked well-dressed.
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Why did Edwards have his gun drawn when he was chasing an unarmed theif? Why did he turn on the other cop with his gun still drawn? And why does anyone assume that he wouldn't have gotten shot if he was white?
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You have no idea whether he was acting like a "yahoo". Stop jumping to conclusions because it fits into your world view.
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(I'm going to say its too soon to draw conclusions about the racial politics of this. But just to clarify the original post, he was "carrying" his shield but it was not visible, police say)
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I know, important point.
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i feel like the city is progressing backwards.
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It's called regressing.
What would you have done, you are a cop on a 125th St and there is a report of a stolen car, then you see what appears to be a civilian man running down the street with an exposed weapon, you ask him to stop and drop the weapon. Instead, he begins turning around with the gun in his hand.
Yea, you'd wait to sort the situation out -- talk it out right?
Full of shit.
05/29/09
"If a police officer sees someone with a gun, you don't just fire without asking questions or trying to apprehend the person," said Ricardo Edwards, 72. "If the person was firing at a police officer, I understand."
05/29/09
You quoted his Father who is dealing with an unspeakable tragedy, not really an objective source.
You ask was he firing? I don't think it is Police Procedure that you can only discharge your weapon if you have been fired upon.
If someone at the scene of a crime has a gun in his hand and is turning around with it, are you going to wait?
My point is that you have no fucking idea what was necessary in that situation. Either do I. But you love to make these assumptions of wrongful conduct because (i) it's easy and (ii) it makes you politically correct and cool to say "fuck the police".
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i'm not making assumptions because i "love" to. i'm commenting on how unfortunate and sad the situation is. i have nypd cops in my family and i hear about race relations between them constantly, so no i am not saying "fuck the police."
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Ree-gress-shun ur doin it rong
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This is like one of those Jezebel arguments where you hear "if the world was run by women there would be no problems". There's no way to prove it.
@slainte_pants: hahaha. "Lean Back" was not a productive song for black marksmanship.
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Also, in my experience "Officer Smiley" was never a black man. Was yours?
05/29/09
It wouldn't happen to a white cop b/c white people aren't scared of other white people, they're scared of the coloreds.
05/31/09