Your thoughts on police brutality... Cops were right to shoot those foos dead

[Gandalf]

All I know is I would not like to live in America, nor even the UK anymore. The authorities including the police are one reason. They will arrest you for practically anything and they abuse their position of power. In the West the police exist to protect the rich and keep you from challenging that. If the police and society were conditioned more appropriately, you would have less of these police brutality stories or snipers being aimed at protestors or people being beaten.

Out here the police are not armed, they are a quiet hands off presence, and nobody is getting shot dead by them. I am not on the side of the police who kill people at will and dress like storm troopers and arm themselves. I am on the side of the police who are gentle and let society be. The American model does not seem to be on the side of the people. They use confiscation as a means of profiteering too. It is basically just looting, beating people up, and occasionally killing people. It is wrong. It seems to me, certainly from looking at the US, that the police are firmly against the American people. They chose to let it lead to this. There are many good police officers, but when you let the muck rule the roost and sour the name, then you have an uphill struggle.

The police in the West are seemingly beyond all law like the rich. The police exist to protect the rich. The two work hand in hand to dominate, divide, and control. On that basis, I think things have become more than obvious.

[El Kabong]

All I know is I would not like to live in America, nor even the UK anymore.

I know I'm devastated at that

I don't much care for cops, however they have a thankless job. I've yet to have a cop do 1 single good thing for me...that said I appreciate that they DO on occasion catch criminals, they DO provide security to the population to a certain extent, they DO engender a status quo of peace by their mere presence.

Black people are upset at cops why? Because of cops pulling people over for "Driving while black"? Or a stop and frisk beef when they aren't breaking any laws? Ok I can understand THAT...but resisting arrest, grabbing for an officer's gun, and pointing a firearm at an officer WILL GET YOU KILLED...I'm sorry that's regardless of race/gender/sexual orientation.

Some folks have been quick to point out that James Holmes(Dark Knight theater shooter) and Jared Loughner were taken into custody alive.....THOSE DUDES WERE WHITE AND THEY WEREN'T SHOT AND KILLED! Well John Lee Malvo (Beltway sniper) and Colin Fergusson (Long Island Railroad Shooter) were black and were taken into custody alive as well so that's a moot point at best.

[Gandalf]

Is it really a thankless job? I think people generally appreciate traditional community based policing. That has undeniable merit.

It seems since the war on drugs which was in essence an attempt to criminalise poor people whilst ignoring that sectors of government were involved in aiding drug distribution, policing has firmly turned into an 'Us against them' mentality. You have the highest prison population in the world and yet serious white collar criminals regularly get away with crimes that have a far bigger impact on society and the world. Also with the militarising of the police and the mass scale looting of anyone under the phoney suspicion of having drugs in their vehicle, means that not only the relatives of the deceased are angry, but anyone who has been threatened, beaten, or outright fleeced by these supposed protectors of the people.

I think what you are seeing is not only anger about murder, but the bubbling of a general resentment at how the police behave. People have taken it for years and years now and quietly stood by while Darth Vader came along to 'protect them'. I think it is fair to make a connection with the police who think they can act with impunity and with foreign policy and things like drones. There is no concern for the rule of law. It is merely that might makes right and be damned with what any of you ordinary people think.