I think black people commit more crime than other races based on the fact that black people are arrested at a larger proportion than other races. I simply see no reason not to accept the data at face value.
Doesn't fly. You simply cannot accurately judge criminal tendencies based on arrests; people are arrested without being charged. Or they might be charged, and acquitted of the charges. Or, if convicted, they might later be exonerated if new evidence comes up.
I found them irrelevant. While the data shows more whites found with guns, it does not demonstrate that fewer crimes are committed by blacks. So whites are found with guns at a higher proportion than blacks during a stop and frisk. That doesn't disprove my point. It only demonstrates that whites are found with guns at a higher proportion than blacks during a stop and frisk.
And that is the point. Data that shows more blacks arrested does not demonstrate that more crimes are committed by blacks, it only demonstrates that blacks are arrested at a higher rate than other races.
You may choose to interpret the data to mean that whites are more likely to use a gun in the commission of a crime, or that whites are more likely to carry a gun in self defense. The data makes neither claim, so it's open to interpretation.
I did neither, as it would be inappropriate and irresponsible of me to jump to conclusions about the reasons why more whites were found with guns when they were stopped and frisked than blacks without having further information about it. Just as it is inappropriate and irresponsible of you to jump to conclusions about the reasons why more blacks are arrested than whites without further information on the subject.
Neither does the data report how many of those found with guns had permits to carry them, undoubtedly some did. Were a greater percentage of those legally carried weapons found on blacks or whites? We don't know.
Just as we don't know how many of those stopped and frisked were stopped and frisked because they were suspected of committing a crime, as opposed to because the officer judged they looked guilty of something.
Officers claim that he repeatedly moved towards them despite their orders to stay down. Only at those moments did they resume their attempts to subdue him. At several points they stopped attacking, only to have King get up again, despite their orders, and make what they believed was an attempt to attack one of them.
I don't buy that; if he had actually attempted to strike or otherwise injure any of the police officers, that might work as a reason, but it sounds much more like they did the same thing you're doing now and assumed that he was a threat, and thus used more force than was necessary to subdue him. Whether or not he was actually trying to assault one of the officers in that initial lunge is unknown, but even if that justified the use of force to subdue him, I do not consider it to justify dozens of blows.
Considering that this man had just led them on a high speed chase, and had a record of violent crime, they had no way of knowing whether or not he was armed and I think they were right in erring on the side of caution.
The fact that he was unable to attack any of them does not mean he didn't try, it simply means they were successful in preventing his attack.
No, it does not mean that. Unless you can actually show that he attempted to attack them, you should not jump to the conclusion that they were "successful in preventing his attacks". I think they were right to be cautious about him as well, but you can be cautious without striking someone dozens of times and breaking bones. Also, I do not think the police officers actually knew of his criminal record at the time they arrested him. What they knew at the time is that he had led them on a high-speed chase, that he was acting in an unusual and bizarre manner, and that he was resisting arrest. They also suspected some things that ended up not being true, such as him being under the influence of PCP. All of that certainly suggests they were right to be cautious, but I cannot jive caution with striking him over five dozen times, counting the kicks he also suffered.
Not sure why you brought him up then. Rodney King is an example of a black man who was in fact a criminal, not someone who was falsely treated as a criminal simply for being black.
Think about it. Those police officers gave him a severe beating in the course of arresting him. Police officers are supposed to use the minimum amount of force they can in order to apprehend a suspect, consequent with their own safety. Some of this is hindsight on my part, and I'm aware that in an arrest situation, a police officer simply doesn't have the time and luxury to come up with the best possible solution. But they did not know that he had a criminal record when they arrested him, they only knew he'd broken traffic laws and the other things I mentioned above. Police officers are also supposed to be able to use their judgment in an arrest situation so as to avoid exactly the situation that arose - severely beating an unarmed suspect who apparently never even tried to strike a return blow in the course of arresting him.
King was taken to the hospital with broken bones, the police made no attempt to cover up his wounds or the incident even before the tape came out. The tape probably helped him, but I don't think you can make the claim that there would have been no trial without it.
We'll never know for sure what would have happened in this case had there been no videotape. However, there are some points which support my argument. For example, the officers who brought King to the hospital openly joked and bragged about the number of times they struck him, according to the hospital nurses. The federal civil rights trial covered the training of officers at the LAPD. Neither of these inspire confidence that the officers involved would have faced any major consequences from their actions, or that there would have been a trial of said officers. My point was not that there would certainly have been no trial, but that it did not seem likely there would be one.
Is that racism or the result of resisting arrest? The other two black men in the car with him were tased 0 times and beaten 0 times. How many times would he have been tased if he had gotten out of his vehicle as ordered? How many times would he have been beaten if he had gotten down on the ground as ordered? How many extra hits did he buy himself when he grabbed his ass in a lewd sexual gesture towards a female officer which was mistaken as a reach for a weapon?
The very fact that you suggest that he might have "bought" extra hits for himself as a result of that undercuts your argument. Police officers are not supposed to punish suspects for their actions towards the police. Furthermore, LA at the time was a city where racial tension between police and the black community was already quite high. You don't have to have a bigoted racist involved for racism to be a factor.
Your position here is coming across as that Rodney King deserved to be beaten because of his previous criminal record and because of his actions during the course of his arrest. That is not the case. Police officers were justified in using force on him to subdue him, but I do not consider dozens of strikes, many of which were delivered to him while he was on the ground and most of which were with police batons, to be a justified use of force. It's entirely possible that if the officer who drew her gun and initially got King to comply with instructions to lie on the ground had continued to cover him with her firearm while another officer handcuffed him, that he would not have been tased or struck at all.
I steal TVs when I'm angry too.
I highly doubt you have ever been involved in any riot, so what you, as an individual, would do when you got angry is far different from what a mob, any mob, would do.
That happens to people of all races.
Indeed. But you ignored the real point, which is that the arrest data does not itself say anything about whether black people are criminals. It simply shows that more black people are arrested.
I'm simply suggesting the possibility that the data is actually accurate. I see no reason to believe otherwise.
You've stated several times now that you see no reason to believe otherwise, yet I've pretty well shown by now that your reasoning is flawed in using arrest data alone to state that black people are more likely to commit crimes. Furthermore, you are not "simply suggesting the possibility that the data is actually accurate". You are also stating that your interpretation of the data is correct, that black people are more likely to commit crimes because black people are arrested more frequently, and that is what I'm contesting.
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Also, no comments on the Tulsa race riot, Joe? I think this, and the almost countless other examples of apartheid in the American South where virtually none of the perpetrators were ever even charged with a crime, rather dramatically undercuts your whole position. You judged that black people are more likely to commit crimes because they're arrested more frequently, yet I showed a case where hundreds if not thousands of white people were involved in the commission of a major race-based crime and never even arrested. The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow apartheid, and the pervasive racism that still inundates America today, is that if a black man and a white man are both suspected of a crime, the black man is frequently judged more likely to be guilty, regardless of any actual evidence (or lack thereof). You may not have intended it as such, but your statement that blacks are more likely to commit crimes because blacks are arrested more frequently is symptomatic of this general attitude.
I personally think that if you treat a person like a criminal long enough, including presuming guilt without even the courtesy of considering the evidence, they're very likely to decide they might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb (or more accurately, if they're going to suffer the consequences of being considered a criminal regardless of what they do, they might as well get something out of it). Regardless of their race. Same thing applies to a group of people. That's human nature, Joe.
