3260

That is a good response. A black female Chief of Police - inspiring and I wonder how many glass ceilings she smashed along the way.

3261

This horrific incident has been on Reddit for the past week or so (I guess business owners in Memphis are taking out riot insurance.) The victim suffered from a broken neck, multiple organ failure and died to cardiac arrest three days after being hospitalized.

Because the five officers who murdered Nichols are Black a lot of the comments are sadly what you’d expect. I won’t repeat them here, but instead here’s a quote from a random redditor that succinctly explains systemic racism. Suffice it to say, it’s going to be a long time before this shit gets fixed.

Systemic racism in police departments doesn’t conveniently skip over the black police officers. If you are bought in to the belief that in your line of work certain people are more likely to be violent, dangerous, or committing crimes, you will treat those people like they are violent, dangerous, or committing crimes.

Pretending that black officers are somehow immune to racial bias in policing does a disservice to the people killed by the police. There is a reason it is called SYSTEMIC racism.

There were Jewish cops in Warsaw that herded other Jews into the Ghettos at the behest of the Nazis. Unfortunately the interactions we see between black and brown people and American police are one tiny symptom of a problem that pervades countless aspects of modern American society.

3262

Davis went on to insist that any sign of unrest would only give the forces of unconscionable evil an excuse to impose even more wanton suffering on those who have no choice but to endure it.

3263

The beatings will continue until morale improves sprinked with Stop Hitting Yourself!!

3264

The video has been released.

3265

It’s real bad. Like stupid bad.

3266

Evans does a break down for people who don’t want to watch the video. And honestly, it’s fucking horrific enough on it’s own.

3267

Again, I have to compare this to my time in the military. (I know the US Army hasn’t had clean hands when it comes to unnecessary deaths.) I’ve helped to subdue/detain people that were literally shooting at my squad minutes before, and a bunch of 19 and 20-year-olds, even more heavily armed than these cops, were able to handle the job with far more humanity and far less violence than the yahoos in this incident. The videos that were released just shows a bunch of undisciplined assholes losing their shit and killing someone because they lost their goddamn minds. It’s infuriating.

3268

Also, these cops were in something called, I shit you not, the “SCORPION unit.”

The SCORPION unit, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, was announced in October 2021 and launched a month later. It encompasses 40 officers split into four teams who patrol “high crime hotspots” throughout the city, the police department announced in November 2021.

MPD Assistant Chief Sean Jones told reporters during the launch that SCORPION officers would focus on auto thefts, gang-related crimes and drug-related crimes.

3269

I gotta say that I think that as bad as the bodycam footage is, I think the video from the streetlamp POV is worse even though it’s silent. Maybe it’s worse to me because it’s silent? My brain has to fill in the noises? It’s bad though. You can clearly see all the hits, and there are a lot.

3270
3271

The overhead video isn’t quite as visceral, maybe because it doesn’t have the sound, but length of it makes up for that. CNN was showing 10 minutes of it where NIchols is lying on the ground and everyone including the paramedics seems to be ignoring him.

At the Killing fields in Cambodia, there were descriptions and pictures of just how casual the killing were, same thing is true for most good films about the holocaust. As the police chief said it is the utter lack of humanity which is the most disturbing thing about the video.

I assume the cops are going away for decades, I wonder if that will be enough to move the needle.

3272

Greenfield seems fed up.

This isn’t his fault. This is the fault of five cops in Memphis. This is the fault of a thousand cops everywhere. This is the fault of ten thousand cops who let those cops inflict harm without doing anything to stop them, who lied to cover up their crime, Memphis gave its cops the training so many pretend will fix this problem, and it failed because no one can train someone not to be violent monster against their fellow human being. No one can train a cop to not stand there as they watch a fellow human being murdered before their eyes.

Expect violence. Expect non-compliance. Expect someone to get hurt, and expect that’s going to be a cop when that guy you stopped believes he’s about to be murdered and he doesn’t plan to die that day. You brought this on yourself.

3273

I’m so angry over videos like we just saw that when that inevitably happens, there’s going to be a part of me that’s going to react in a “Good, glad someone turned the tables on them” way. Which really disturbs me, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the case.

3274

So…

This was back in 2011.

But wait:

As a commander, she led Atlanta’s Special Operations Section, which included SWAT, mounted patrol, motors, APD’s helicopter unit, vice and narcotics. She also led the city’s infamous REDDOG unit, according to her biography on the Memphis police site.

So Davis is in Atlanta in charge of a notorious police squad that was disbanded because they couldn’t stop being pieces of shit. She goes to Memphis and founds SCORPION which is… basically another REDDOG. Oh and she also got fired in Atlanta for covering for her husband’s child pornography, but then got reinstated because of course she did.

Edit: I missed she was IA. Jesus Christ, of course she was.

3275

What is IA?

3276

Internal affairs.

3277

When those things happen, it isn’t just cops or politicians that bear the brunt of it. Businesses, homes, and property of ordinary folks (often the poorest folks) are hit.

3278

I think he was referencing Greenfield’s comment about how people are going to start to respond to police with violence.

3279

I’d vehemently disagree that there would be significant sentencing, but since the cops are black in this case, you might be right. :/