Quote:
Originally Posted by Radii
I've almost replied in this thread about 10 times and stopped myself. But this just keeps coming up. The police that shot and killed this individual either acted properly based on what was happening during the arrest, or they did not. If the police are determined to have overstepped their bounds then they need to be punished and prosecuted. They should be punished and prosecuted equally if they killed a priest vs someone who has raped someone in their past. If a police officer kills someone during an arrest and the circumstances did not justify the use of deadly force, then they grossly overstepped their bounds and need to be punished. That's just all there is to it.
The casual mention of crimes that happened long ago as if they are supposed to exonerate the police officers who shot and killed this man is getting unbelievably painful to read. Did the cops fuck up or not? Isn't that what matters here? If the cops fucked up, they need to be dealt with and not allowed to hide behind the badge. If they didn't, ok, fine. This goes for Baton Rouge and Minnesota, despite the apparent different backgrounds of the victims.
And to extend the point, awareness and protest of an unjust killing by police are not any less valid if the victim turns out to have done bad things in his past. When I read so many of these posts here, I get the feeling that the sentiment is that MAYBE the use of deadly force was unjustified, but that its ok because who cares, it was just some rapist. That doesn't feel very good to me at all.
I'll note that I cut off your quote on purpose, I left out the part about resisting arrest and having a gun. That's relevant to whether deadly force was justified. But when you say "was a rapist and domestic abuser who resisted arrest and had a gun" ... well, some of those things just are not relevant to whether this was justified, and mixing them into the rest of the conversation like they are going to make your point stronger is disingenuous.
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I think his background matters when it comes to protesting. I thought Ben made a great point that you need to pick your battles. When you're trying to create change, you need to have a sympathetic story. Alton Sterling is not a sympathetic character. He's a career criminal who is a nuisance to any community he is a part of. He has no regard for the law whatsoever (and particularly no regard for women). Shutting down bridges for this man when you don't do the same for a
4-year old who gets shot looks bad. You're turning a gigantic piece of shit into a martyr and that doesn't sit well with people.
Now the shooting in Minnesota is another story. That's an individual that by all accounts is sympathetic. He worked at a school cafeteria and the kids loved him. He had no criminal history. He registered his gun properly with the government. This is the person the protest should be over, not Alton Sterling. And mixing those two together just muddies the waters.
I'd also add that I do think his background is relevant when determining fault. The video doesn't show everything. We ultimately have to use our own judgement here as to whether their actions were justified. His background tells us about who he is as a person. It shows us he is violent, he has no regard for the law, and that he has resisted arrest. So in a situation where fault isn't clear, I'll take the side of the individual who doesn't have his background.
Mind you if the officers involved end up having a dozen excessive force complaints and a history of abusing their authority, I think it's equally as valid. If they have racist postings online it's valid as well. And you can bet the people saying his criminal history doesn't matter would be screaming about those officers history if it was bad.