Devil's advocacy: Girlfriend's dad was a psychiatrist who worked with the homeless. One of his clients made the papers by taking Matthew 18:8 literally: And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. So since he couldn't stop masturbating, he took a machete to his right arm. Here's another one of his clients: That's the end of an 11 hour standoff. Now - if Tony Allison decided to swing a katana on Pike in a post-911 world, I'm not sure he'd have walked away with bruises. I'm also fully aware that his odds of living though it would be better if he were white. BUT Having spent a fair amount of time downtown amongst the homeless, this looks a lot to me like the way the cops take down someone they've judged to be dangerous and mentally incapacitated. They're trying to restrain him. Then he kicks. Then they restrain him some more. Then they ask the crowd to step back. Then at 1:49 they say "I think we're okay, we might wanna call a 408" - California radio code for "send an ambulance." Throughout, you can see one officer talking to the homeless man, three officers restraining him, and a goodly number performing crowd control. You can also hearing the cops asking the poor dude to relax several times. Thing of it is, if the SFPD brought the poor dude in for mental health issues, they couldn't say a thing about it. Patients' rights. I don't see any of the cops there who look at all mad (or even at all happy to participate). This looks to me like the regrettable human sideshow you get whenever the cops have to haul someone in because they think they're jeopardizing the health of themselves or others. Not saying that's the only interpretation. However, there are motivations other than "racism" that lead to regrettable displays like this.But I do know that the police didn’t even put him under arrest: SFFD medics strapped him, against his will, to a stretcher and took him to hospital, for no apparent reason. I do know that he was humiliated, crying and deeply upset, but that and being physically handicapped are not enough reasons to be sent to the hospital. I do know that 14 officers to take down a presumably homeless man with one leg seems like a waste of resources and unreasonable.
First of all, I wonder what this homeless man's prior history with the police was? Perhaps the police knew that things could get out of control with him? But still, that was tough to watch as you would like to think there was an easier way of doing this. Also did anyone else notice how vicious the crowd's insults towards the police got at one point? The camera didn't catch all of them but some of them were pretty hostile. Overall, this was not pretty to watch.
It's a meme that's popular on Reddit whenever an article about police misconduct is posted. It's sarcastically saying that each article is an isolated incident and that there is no trend or social dilemma regarding the behavior of law enforcement as a whole, a satire at statements made by law enforcement officials and their supporters. I'm personally of neutral opinion about the statement.
God I do not frequent the corners of Reddit a lot of other people here frequent. I really do not. I mean don't get me wrong I know it's a shitty place and I'm not trying to dispute that or even say that I haven't seen it. But there's a lot I don't realize I don't see. I did kick almost every front-page sub off my front page several months or maybe longer ago, and I am pretty sure that is why. (Plus the fact I am subscribed to like 50 tiny subreddits.) I don't look at reddit without signing in, it's such utter and terrible garbage.
Yeah. I'm only on there for the niche stuff now, but it is getting to the point where I'm going to drop it altogether I think. While the subs I'm on are great, the site has changed greatly in the past five years. It's hard though, because the abundance of material is like a sirens song to me. While I like Hubski better for that small town feel, sometimes it just seems a little too slow.