Police aren't the problem, they're the solution.

[Anti Federalist]

From an exchange of comments at this UK Guardian story.

I’m black, my brother’s white … and he’s a cop who shot a black man on duty

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/25/white-brother-police-shot-black-man

More at link...

POLICE AREN’T THE PROBLEM; THEY’RE THE SOLUTION

http://www.michaelmedved.com/column/police-arent-problem-theyre-solution/

Michael Medved

“It’s easy for a black male to keep himself from being shot by a white cop,” the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley said on my radio show. “It’s much harder to keep from getting shot by other black men.” Riley’s point is that if you defer and don’t try to challenge a police officer he may insult you but he won’t kill you. In fact, an African-American is 60 times more likely to be killed by a fellow African American than he is by a white cop, and more whites than blacks are victims of deadly police shootings. These tragic numbers make media obsession with Ferguson, Missouri even less defensible. Police risk their lives daily to try to stop black-on-black crime that afflicts every big city. When it comes to keeping black youths from violent death, police aren’t the problem – in fact, they’re a crucial part of any solution.

[Anti Federalist]

A reply at the Tampa Bay Tribune:

Talk show host: Police kill more whites than blacks

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/21/michael-medved/talk-show-host-police-kill-more-whites-blacks/

The turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., has spurred many assertions that blacks are unfairly victimized by police. Conservative talk show host Michael Medved aimed to turn that argument on its head.

In a post-show summary on his website this week, Medved cast police as the protectors of African-Americans. Medved said that blacks are much more likely to be killed by another black person than they are by a cop.

"When it comes to keeping black youths from violent death, police aren’t the problem – in fact, they’re a crucial part of any solution," Medved said.

As for the charge that police target blacks, Medved said the opposite is true.

"More whites than blacks are victims of deadly police shootings," he said.

We asked Medved’s producers for the source of that claim and did not hear back before we published. Thanks to the good work by the team at fivethirtyeight.com, we know that there is no precise accounting of how many people the police kill. An unknown number of deaths go unreported because the coroner failed to note it or police departments categorize deaths in different ways, or some other data glitch got in the way.

However, even the incomplete figures gathered by the government tell us that Medved could be partially correct and still ignore a huge piece of the picture. Yes, more whites than blacks die as a result of an encounter with police, but whites also represent a much bigger chunk of the total population.

In a country that is about 63 percent white and 12 percent black, the probability that an African-American will die in a confrontation with police is much higher than for whites.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps data on fatal injuries from 1999 to 2011 and one category is homicides by legal intervention. The term "legal intervention" covers any situation when a person dies at the hands of anyone authorized to use deadly force in the line of duty.

Over the span of more than a decade, 2,151 whites died by being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks. In that respect, Medved is correct.

However, Brian Forst, a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology at American University, said this difference is predictable.

"More whites are killed by the police than blacks primarily because whites outnumber blacks in the general population by more than five to one," Forst said.

Rather than comparing the raw numbers, you can look at the likelihood that a person will die due to "legal intervention" in the same way you might look at the chance a person will die in a car accident or a disease like lung cancer. When you do that, the numbers flip.

A 2002 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that the death rate due to legal intervention was more than three times higher for blacks than for whites in the period from 1988 to 1997.

That is not the final story though. There are different theories as to why the black rate is so much higher.

Candace McCoy is a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. McCoy said blacks might be more likely to have a violent encounter with police because they are convicted of felonies at a higher rate than whites. Felonies include everything from violent crimes like murder and rape, to property crimes like burglary and embezzlement, to drug trafficking and gun offenses.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that in 2004, state courts had over 1 million felony convictions. Of those, 59 percent were committed by whites and 38 percent by blacks. But when you factor in the population of whites and blacks, the felony rates stand at 330 per 100,000 for whites and 1,178 per 100,000 for blacks. That’s more than a three-fold difference.

McCoy noted that this has more to do with income than race. The felony rates for poor whites are similar to those of poor blacks.

"Felony crime is highly correlated with poverty, and race continues to be highly correlated with poverty in the USA," McCoy said. "It is the most difficult and searing problem in this whole mess."

On his website, Medved tried to link police killings with whether someone resisted arrest. "If you defer and don’t try to challenge a police officer, he may insult you but he won’t kill you," Medved said.

(Tell that to Kelly Thomas - AF)

But criminologist Lorie Fridell at the University of South Florida told PunditFact that the research on this point is mixed. Some studies that factor in the level of resistance show that race doesn’t matter, and some show that it does.

Our ruling

http://static.politifact.com.s3.amazonaws.com/rulings%2Ftom-halftrue.gif

Medved said that police kill more whites than blacks. In absolute terms, that is accurate. However, the statement ignores that there are more than five times more whites than blacks in America. When comparing death rates, blacks are about three times more likely than whites to die in a confrontation with police.

Medved’s statement leaves out significant information that would change someone’s understanding of the topic. We rate his claim Half True.

Update: The number of deaths due to legal intervention were changed after we initially published this report to include only firearms deaths, which lowered the overall totals. The rating remains the same.

[Anti Federalist]

As the economy continues to deteriorate, expect the violence to accelerate. The unfairness of the distribution of wealth that is caused by economic intervention is the constant, smoldering issue that can turn a skirmish with the law into something much bigger. When root causes are not understood, emotions can easily take over. A simple, short version of what would help us is:

1. Understand the true nature of civil liberties and the right to own property.

2. Keep government small and the police local.

3. When a nation is prosperous and the middle class is large, envy and hate are minimized.

4. Prosperity for the maximum number of people can only be achieved through a free market economy and not by excessive policing of an authoritarian government involved in the redistribution of wealth.

Ron Paul - 21 August 2014

http://www.voicesofliberty.com/audio/police-initiated-violence-should-surprise-no-one/

[Christian Liberty]

Race isn't really the issue. The issue is control.

[pcosmar]

Race isn't really the issue. The issue is control.

And the police are out of control.

[Christian Liberty]

And the police are out of control.

I was thinking that the police are controlling, but what you say is true as well.

[thoughtomator]

I'm not sure I like this 'solution'.

This just happened about 10 miles from me, 2 days ago, caught on tape. Note the guy on the ground, not visibly resisting, getting brutally punched in the head repeatedly by a man with a badge, while another man with a badge holds the victim down.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=998s2qSvB40

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2014/08/24/deputy-leave-walmart-incident/14536431/

[SeanTX]

Michael Medved is like most conservaties/Reich wingers , he just wants to keep the status quo. And he knows, being a rich, well-connected guy, that the police are like his own personal security detail, just three easy button pushes away. Even being rich and well-known, he is still a lesser being, but the cops know where their bread is buttered, and they will come-a-running when called to a wealthy neighborhood, charging like the cavalry, running red lights (little people better get out of the way, or, oopsie !).

Kind of like how the average response time to a bank robbery is something like 2-3 minutes (or at least it is around here). However, if you're a lesser being living in the hood, calling in about a home invasion in progress? Maybe 10-15 minutes, if you're lucky, if they can pull a nearby cop away from doing a roadside search on some old lady's car.

Michael Weiner (Savage) is the same way, being a good conservative/Reich winger he loves the Heroes in blue. He's always whining about how the police are "outgunned" by people who have AR-15s and AK-47s, how we need more gun control, and always trying to raise money for dead cop's families, etc.

One time Micheal Weiner read a news story about cops shooting dogs and he mocked it, acting like he didn't even know it was an issue, or why anyone would be concerned about such a silly thing. Of course, he knows that no cop would ever come and shoot his stupid little poodle (Teddy), such things don't happen to the well-connected, only to the "little people."

[AuH20]

Race isn't really the issue. The issue is control.

No. It's about revenue. The black population is a walking money bag, thanks to the all the dysfunctional knuckleheads. That's why cops target blacks. If you want to pad arrest totals, major busts and asset forfeitures are you going to waste your time on a lower crime probability group? Nope.

[willwash]

As the economy continues to deteriorate, expect the violence to accelerate. The unfairness of the distribution of wealth that is caused by economic intervention is the constant, smoldering issue that can turn a skirmish with the law into something much bigger. When root causes are not understood, emotions can easily take over. A simple, short version of what would help us is:

1. Understand the true nature of civil liberties and the right to own property.

2. Keep government small and the police local.

3. When a nation is prosperous and the middle class is large, envy and hate are minimized.

4. Prosperity for the maximum number of people can only be achieved through a free market economy and not by excessive policing of an authoritarian government involved in the redistribution of wealth.

Ron Paul - 21 August 2014

http://www.voicesofliberty.com/audio/police-initiated-violence-should-surprise-no-one/

Nothing a few extra turns of the bread and circus knob won't fix. Isn't the football season about to start?

[otherone]

More Whites are on welfare than Blacks, PROVING that government dependency is less a problem in the Black community than the White community!
THANKS OBAMA!

[AuH20]

More Whites are on welfare than Blacks, PROVING that government dependency is less a problem in the Black community than the White community!
THANKS OBAMA!

All true, but it doesn't exactly tell the entire story. When you only make up 12 to 13% of the population and you're soaking up close to 40% of all welfare dollars, well you better come up with a plan B very soon.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/

And we certainly are aware of some white dominated communities in Appalachia in which 3/4s of all people in the town are wholly dependent on government aid.

[PaulConventionWV]

There's a reason they're a minority, you know. That means there are less of them than white people. So any statistics dealing with raw numbers are pure bullshit.