So they are burning and looting in Baltimore tonight

[Billy T]

... Yeah, I have heard your arguments before and I have repeatedly debunked each of them, just as I did in this post with respect to your assertion as to the legality of switchblade knives. That wasn't the first time you made that same fallacious assertion, nor do I expect it will be the last. ...

I did not expect you to so soon again provide another example of "Putting words into someone's mouth." I did NOT assert that. I asserted exactly the opposite!
Here is what I asserted in post 277:

"Switch blade knives (automatically opening knife, when the lock mechanism is released. I.e. the blade always under force trying to open it.)
are all forbidden to be sold by US government, except to certain qualified buyers.

Freddy's knife was NOT switch blade knife. In closed position the blade is without ANY force acting on it trying to open it. There is not only no locking mechanism, but no need for one. When closed the blade is "stress free." There is spring that only exerts a force on the blade AFTER, the human has partially opened knife. Hence these knives are legal thru out the US, except in few counties where ALL pocket knives with blade greater blade length greater then the county's law specifies are illegal. These legal knives are called "spring assisted" knives. Again they are NOT illegal switch blade knives."

 

[joepistole]

Nonetheless, it bears repeating that in cities with large black populations and where many black citizens hold positions of power, majority-black police forces are quite often guilty of being harder on black people than white. This was once called the "Uncle Tom Syndrome."Indeed. The Uncle Tom Syndrome is alive and well. As I noted earlier, Washington also has a black mayor and a majority-black police force, and black people there are routinely hassled by the police.

Well, that is certainly the impression or the belief. But based on my experiences as an EMT and working with a black partner for 10 years in a heavily populated black urban area, I saw little if any evidence of same with one exception. Wilfrey, my black partner, got a little roused if someone called him an Uncle Tom. He didn’t take that slander easily. Wilfrey took his ethic origins and community seriously, and he worked two jobs. I think people too easily dismiss kind of conflict as racism, when it is much deeper and more pervasive than that and the result is nothing changes. None of this is new. When I worked as an EMT some 30-40 years ago, every time a white cop shot a black resident it caused a stir in the community. Now if a black resident was shot and killed by a black cop, no one seemed to care. I remember one case a black housing authority cop shot and killed a black resident. The victim had 4 shots in his chest, he wasn’t going anywhere. He was dead, but cops had him handcuffed. EMTs, doctors and nurses can’t really work on a patient like that with his hands cuffed behind his back.

I think sometimes the Uncle Tom accusation, like racism, has become an easy excuse, and it prevents us from looking at the real issues and becoming accountable. It’s really easy to cast blame and call people names. It’s much more difficult to take an honest look at the issues, become accountable, and effect real change.

Nonetheless As I noted earlier, the police detention center routinely refuses to accept arrestees because of health issues, and one of the most common health issues is facial trauma.The charges which actually were filed are serious enough, and easier to prove in court.As I noted, Billy is an expat who, as far as I know, has no first-hand knowledge of contemporary American culture. I'm almost as old as he is and I've seen incredible changes since President Eisenhower began integrating the schools. The mere fact that the Democratic and Republican parties have almost precisely traded platforms since President Johnson, a Southerner, championed the civil rights campaign, says a lot.

Well, it is good the jailers are refusing to accept prisoners for which they are unable to provide adequate healthcare. However, just because the numbers are high, it doesn’t mean police officers caused those injuries. I am sure the DOJ will conduct a thorough review of the Boston Police Department in the coming months and I believe the Justice Department will render a fair and impartial analysis of the problems within the Baltimore Police Department, and work with the department to effect change. Obviously something is seriously amiss within the Baltimore Police Department when a person in their custody suffers such a violent demise as was the case with Mr. Gray. But it shouldn’t stop there. And I am afraid, that is exactly what will happen. This appears to be a systemic issue. I seriously doubt Ferguson and Baltimore are the only cities suffering similar maladies. In another 5 or 10 years when this happens again, we will be back in the same boat. Everyone will be pissed, and we will find someone to blame and call people names and that will make us feel good for a time, until it happens again. The problems are bigger than just the police department. Everyone has some culpability here. So while we might begin with examining and reforming police departments, it shouldn’t end there.

And one more thing, I don’t know that we can ever create a perfect police department. In my experience, new cops are a perpetual pain in the ass. They are the guys who are always out there giving frivolous tickets and putting bag ladies on psychiatric holds. Rookies are the guys who sometimes become enthralled with their police powers and zealously use their powers without good judgement. And veterans can become hardened, and burned out, especially in areas like Oakland where police resources are severely stretched. And it’s not just white cops, black cops, Hispanic cops or Asian cops who get burned out or suffer from Rookie Syndrome. It’s all cops, regardless of race. And that’s why procedure and culture are important. It ain’t easy working the streets. But there are things police agencies can do and should do to better themselves. There really is no excuse for what happened to Mr. Gray.

Definition of Bag Lady:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bag lady

 

[iceaura]

You need a timeframe. You need to know the total number of blacks who were lynched by the KKK over that timeframe and you need to know how many blacks were killed by other blacks over the same time period.

I picked a timeframe - the year 1892, the usual nomination for the peak year of lynching in the US, the year in which the number of KKK lynched black men was most likely to exceed 10% of the number of black men conventionally murdered by other black men.

You don't like that year? I could have picked the tine frame 1877 - 1950, and run the totals - but that would have been slam dunk, and not quite supportive of my claim that lynch killings of black men "never" exceeded 10%

Please provide the text in which I claimed to know why certain charges were dropped.

So you agree that you don't know why those charges were dropped: you are making no claim that they were dropped because both the search and detainment of Gray were legal.

You are not asserting that the reason the prosecutor dropped those charges was that both the search and detainment of Gray were legal.

Say it. Write that down and sign your name.

I suggest you try being honest. The issue here was the right of police to detain and search people.

I quoted the assertion of yours I took issue with. Here is the entire exchange:

"But they also have the power to detain anyone indefinitely"
That would violate habeus corpus, also the 7th, 8th, and 10th amendments to the Constitution, and require a Supreme Court ruling at the very least - probably a Constitutional amendment.

As you can see, the issue was not the right of the police to "detain and search" people. The issue I addressed was your claim that they can detain anyone, and detain them indefinitely. Everyone agrees the Baltimore police have the power to detain some people briefly, and search them given reasonable suspicion. The power to detain anyone indefinitely is expressly forbidden them by several articles of the United States Constitution and the principle of habeus corpus also enshrined in American Constitutional law.

So craftsmen carry around “switchblades” do they? The Baltimore statue clearly and unequivocally identifies and forbids switchblades. It doesn’t make knives carried by tradesmen illegal

Freddie Gray's knife was not a switchlade. Neither is mine, which closely resembles his in the newspaper description.

"You have a serious reading comprehension problem. You had just quoted my post, for chrissake."
LOL, yeah I did quote you and I’ll do it again for your edification, “You can also see that the knife Gray was carrying was almost certainly legal under that law”. Why did you preface your statement with the word “almost”

The word "almost" in my sentence immediately precedes and modifies the word "certainly". When you edited out the word "certainly", to make it look as if I had said "almost legal", you were either careless, incomprehending of the language, or dishonest. When you then based an entire diatribe and series of personal accusations on your careless/dishonest edit, starting with this

And where your proof is the knife in question was “almost certainly legal”? And how is something “almost” legal exactly? It’s either legal or it isn’t.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt and laid the whole shitass scene to your ever more obvious inability to read with comprehension. But that's enough, already.

Read the damn law, will you? All modern jackknives have springs, and in all jackknives set up to open with one hand - such as the tradesman's and hunting and fishing knives sold in the Baltimore stores - that spring helps lever the blade open and lock it in place. The simple existence of an assisting spring does not make a switchblade out of a jackknife. The law is a bit vague, because a careless or agenda-biased reading of it could lead one to believe it banned all spring-assisted jackknives - but the reasonable or ordinary person would recognize that the law was not intended to ban all modern folding knives from the city of Baltimore. Since a judge probably would be a reasonable person, and a jury probably would be made up of such ordinary people, it's almost certain that Gray would not have been found guilty of carrying an illegal knife, in a court of law.

The question of whether the police were legally entitled to find any knife at all is of course a separate one. So is the question of whether the police should be forgiven for taking the knife to be a pretext for detaining Gray , given the overall situation and whatever their enforcement policies have been however mistaken. We forgive policemen such errors of judgment. But where such patterns of ill treatment correlate with race, as in Baltimore, the forgiveness should be examined and evaluated and measured, and conditional.

If I had a mind to, I could walk out the door right now and buy a switchblade knife at a local store.

In Baltimore there would be no way to stock the shelves with switchblades, or for the customers to carry the merchandise home. They're illegal. But regular springloaded jackknives are OK.

Racism past and present is a significant factor in every single one of those - often the major factor, as in Baltimore.
Except you have no evidence to support that belief.

Whereupon the question becomes what planet white Americans are living on.

Take a look at this, for example:

Half of the police officers involved in the Baltimore case were black, and the officer charged with the murder of Mr. Gray is black. So that kind of works against your belief in racism as a causal factor in Mr. Gray's untimely demise.

What is the actual motive behind this kind of assertion? Does the poster actually believe that's how racism works - that it afflicts only individual people with white skin, and affects only the particular black people dealing with those individual white people at the moment of their dealings? How great a degree of obliviousness or stupidity are we allowed to assume in an adult American, before we start looking for other motives and factors?

 

[joepistole]

I did not expect you to so soon again provide another example of "Putting words into someone's mouth." I did NOT assert that. I asserted exactly the opposite!
Here is what I asserted in post 277:

"Switch blade knives (automatically opening knife, when the lock mechanism is released. I.e. the blade always under force trying to open it.)
are all forbidden to be sold by US government, except to certain qualified buyers.

Freddy's knife was NOT switch blade knife. In closed position the blade is without ANY force acting on it trying to open it. There is not only no locking mechanism, but no need for one. When closed the blade is "stress free." There is spring that only exerts a force on the blade AFTER, the human has partially opened knife. Hence these knives are legal thru out the US, except in few counties where ALL pocket knives with blade greater blade length greater then the county's law specifies are illegal. These legal knives are called "spring assisted" knives. Again they are NOT illegal switch blade knives."

A couple of things BillyT, first I think you need to reread my post. I think it is pretty obvious I never wrote or inferred that you said you said switchblade knives were legal. If you would have read my post and understood it, you would no that. I wrote, "your assertion as to the legality of switchblade knives." That translates to "your opinion" on the legality of switchblades. And if you read my post, you should know that your belief that switchblades are illegal is just plane wrong.

Two, you have repeatedly said Mr. Gray's knife was not a switchblade, and you have been repeatedly challenged to prove that assertion...something you and Ice have not been able to do. Obviously the police officers thought Mr. Gray's knife was illegal since it was the basis for his arrest. And as I have repeatedly asked, why did the prosecutor drop the charge of false arrest if the Mr. Gray's knife was in fact legal? You haven't been able to answer that and other questions. Instead, you persist with the deceptions and distractions.

 

[iceaura]

Two, you have repeatedly said Mr. Gray's knife was not a switchblade, and you have been repeatedly challenged to prove that assertion...something you and Ice have not been able to do.

Actually, pretty much everyone involved has always agreed that the knife was not a switchblade. The Baltimore cops said it wasn't, all knife authorities consulted have agreed it wasn't, everyone. Nobody except you has been trying to claim that Gray's knife was a switchblade. Here's a discussion: http://reason.com/blog/2015/05/06/cops-and-prosecutors-disagree-about-whet#.vqw0ne:Q4B3

The question in Baltimore is whether it was illegal under the relevant Baltimore city ordnance, and whether the policemen involved were well acquainted with that ordinance. The question here includes whether that ordnance is equitably enforced, regardless of what it says or how well the police understand it.

Obviously the police officers thought Mr. Gray's knife was illegal since it was the basis for his arrest.

What the police were actually thinking when they used the pretext of the knife to abuse Gray is not well established. One hopes it will come out at the trial. It is not obvious that they were sincere in believing that knife to be illegal, for example, although it is possible.

In New York City, for example, a carefully arranged "confusion" over the legality of ordinary jackknives has been used by the police to systematically abuse certain neighborhoods and certain kinds of people: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/10/nyc-gravity-knife-law-arrests.php?page=all
Five points for a correct guess as to which neighborhoods and which kinds of people turned out to be carrying illegal knives. Hint: they resembled Freddie Gray and his Baltimore neighborhood in a couple of traditionally significant ways.

And as I have repeatedly asked, why did the prosecutor drop the charge of false arrest if the Mr. Gray's knife was in fact legal?

We don't know. Neither do you. Many possibilities exist, including a decision to defuse the loud and repeated personal attacks by police apologists dominating the media coverage and certain posters here, who are using the complicated and uncertain circumstances of that charge to throw chaff at the entire prosecution. For example.

 

[joepistole]

I picked a timeframe - the year 1892, the usual nomination for the peak year of lynching in the US, the year in which the number of KKK lynched black men was most likely to exceed 10% of the number of black men conventionally murdered by other black men.
You don't like that year? I could have picked the tine frame 1877 - 1950, and run the totals - but that would have been slam dunk, and not quite supportive of my claim that lynch killings of black men "never" exceeded 10%

Uh, you run the totals, it’s your argument, and it’s your assertion. You need to prove it. And you have been repeatedly asked by at least 2 different people for the source of your data and you have yet to provide it. What’s the matter Ice? Instead, you continue to obfuscate. You need to prove your case. You need to provide your source material.

So you agree that you don't know why those charges were dropped: you are making no claim that they were dropped because both the search and detainment of Gray were legal.

I asked another one of those pesky questions which you keep trying to evade. I’ll repeat the question for the umpteenth time, if Mr. Gray’s weapon is illegal as you assert, then why did the prosecutor drop the charges directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray’s weapon? It’s a simple question. Why haven’t you answer it?

You are not asserting that the reason the prosecutor dropped those charges was that both the search and detainment of Gray were legal.

I have asserted nothing in that respect, I have repeatedly asked a question which you have repeatedly refused to answer…probably because you don’t like the answer. If Mr. Gray’s knife was legal as you assert, then why were the charges directly related to Mr. Gray’s knife dropped?

Say it. Write that down and sign your name.

Say what exactly? Answer the questions which have been repeatedly put to you?

I quoted the assertion of yours I took issue with. Here is the entire exchange: As you can see, the issue was not the right of the police to "detain and search" people. The issue I addressed was your claim that they can detain anyone, and detain them indefinitely.

If that is what you believe, I suggest you go back and reread the conversation, this time more slowly, or perhaps get someone to help you.

Everyone agrees the Baltimore police have the power to detain some people briefly, and search them given reasonable suspicion. The power to detain anyone indefinitely is expressly forbidden them by several articles of the United States Constitution and the principle of habeus corpus also enshrined in American Constitutional law.

Well that is a sea change. We have gone from the police had no right to detain Mr. Gray to “everyone agrees the Baltimore Police have the power to detain people”. I again suggest you go back and reread this conversation, apparently reading comprehension isn’t your forte. And this is what I actually said with respect to detention:

I suggest you try being honest. The issue here was the right of police to detain and search people. And as I previously wrote and provided references, police can detain people based on reasonable suspicion and I referenced a Wiki article on the issue of reasonable suspicion. I also referenced articles on detention. Contrary to your assertion, police in this country do have the right to detain people long enough to complete their investigation and I have examples. In most jurisdictions, people can be detained for a period of 72 hours (Saturday, Sunday and Holidays excluded) without charges being filed. I also cited an article published by the American Civil Liberties Union which voices its objection to the indefinite detention provisions contained within the National Defense Authorization Act.

Not surprisingly, you have misrepresented the facts yet again.

Freddie Gray's knife was not a switchlade. Neither is mine, which closely resembles his in the newspaper description. The word "almost" in my sentence immediately precedes and modifies the word "certainly". When you edited out the word "certainly", to make it look as if I had said "almost legal", you were either careless, incomprehending of the language, or dishonest. When you then based an entire diatribe and series of personal accusations on your careless/dishonest edit, starting with this I gave you the benefit of the doubt and laid the whole shitass scene to your ever more obvious inability to read with comprehension. But that's enough, already.

Well you can and probably will repeat that until the cows come home, but that doesn’t make it so. So again, where is your evidence, your proof, that Mr. Gray’s knife was not a switchblade and was legal? You have been asked repeatedly for days now to prove your assertion. You have evaded answering that challenge now for several days.

Read the damn law, will you? All modern jackknives have springs, and in all jackknives set up to open with one hand - such as the tradesman's and hunting and fishing knives sold in the Baltimore stores - that spring helps lever the blade open and lock it in place. The simple existence of an assisting spring does not make a switchblade out of a jackknife. The law is a bit vague, because a careless or agenda-biased reading of it could lead one to believe it banned all spring-assisted jackknives - but the reasonable or ordinary person would recognize that the law was not intended to ban all modern folding knives from the city of Baltimore. Since a judge probably would be a reasonable person, and a jury probably would be made up of such ordinary people, it's almost certain that Gray would not have been found guilty of carrying an illegal knife, in a court of law.

The issue here is not what the law says because that is fairly clear. The issue here is this, is Mr. Gray’s knife compliant with the law? Without examining the knife, you have repeatedly said Mr. Gray’s knife was compliant with the law. Now how you can know that without examining the knife is a bit puzzling since the knife is evidence and hasn’t been released. So either you have ESP or your really don’t care about truth and honesty.
And then there is that nasty question you keep evading, if Mr. Gray’s knife is legal as you have repeatedly asserted, then why did the prosecutor drop the charges directly related to Mr. Gray’s knife? If the knife is legal as you have repeatedly asserted and I have repeatedly reminded you, the false arrest charges are a slam-dunk. But the prosecutor who repeated the "no justice, no peace" chant from the podium and in front of the press, dropped those charges suddenly and without explanation.

The question of whether the police were legally entitled to find any knife at all is of course a separate one. So is the question of whether the police should be forgiven for taking the knife to be a pretext for detaining Gray , given the overall situation and whatever their enforcement policies have been however mistaken. We forgive policemen such errors of judgment. But where such patterns of ill treatment correlate with race, as in Baltimore, the forgiveness should be examined and evaluated and measured, and conditional.
In Baltimore there would be no way to stock the shelves with switchblades, or for the customers to carry the merchandise home. They're illegal. But regular springloaded jackknives are OK.
Whereupon the question becomes what planet white Americans are living on.
Take a look at this, for example:
What is the actual motive behind this kind of assertion? Does the poster actually believe that's how racism works - that it afflicts only individual people with white skin, and affects only the particular black people dealing with those individual white people at the moment of their dealings? How great a degree of obliviousness or stupidity are we allowed to assume in an adult American, before we start looking for other motives and factors?

That is the rantings of a severely deluded mind. You have no evidence to support any of that nonsense. It struggles for coherence.

 

[iceaura]

Uh, you run the totals, it’s your argument, and it’s your assertion. You need to prove it.

I already presented the evidence, for my assertion. I used 1892, to discuss the matter - a year cherrypicked to provide the most severe challenge possible. What more do you need?

Are you ever going to go back to considering the actual argument it was tangent to? My guess is no.

I have repeatedly asked a question which you have repeatedly refused to answer

I have answered that question at least three times now, directly: I don't know. We don't know. You don't know.

I then, once, elaborated by presenting a possibility for the prosecutor's motives. But that was only a possibility. I don't know what the prosecutor's motives were. You don't either.

What about that is so difficult for you to acknowledge?

 

[joepistole]

I already presented the evidence, for my assertion. I used 1892, to discuss the matter - a year cherrypicked to provide the most severe challenge possible. What more do you need?

You do understand what the word "source" means don't you? Fraggle and I have both asked for your source here. And you have repeatedly failed to product it.

Are you ever going to go back to considering the actual argument it was tangent to? My guess is no.
I have answered that question at least three times now, directly: I don't know. We don't know. You don't know.

So after all that, the answer is you don't know why the prosecutor dropped the charges directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray's knife. Do you think she did it because the evidence was strong? I have never known a prosecutor give up a slam-dunk case for no reason.

I then, once, elaborated by presenting a possibility for the prosecutor's motives. But that was only a possibility. I don't know what the prosecutor's motives were. You don't either.

You don't know the prosecutor's motive for dropping the illegal arrest charges, but you do know Mr. Gray's knife is legal even though you haven't seen it and have no definitive source to say it is.

What about that is so difficult for you to acknowledge?

Difficult to acknowledge what?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

You don't know the prosecutor's motive for dropping the illegal arrest charges, but you do know Mr. Gray's knife is legal even though you haven't seen it and have no definitive source to say it is.

Note from someone who lives in Baltimore County and is inundated with news about this topic on a daily basis: It has been definitively determined that Mr. Gray's knife was legal, and did not constitute grounds for arrest.

 

[joepistole]

Note from someone who lives in Baltimore County and is inundated with news about this topic on a daily basis: It has been definitively determined that Mr. Gray's knife was legal, and did not constitute grounds for arrest.

Well they probably believe Mr. Gray's knife was legal because their state's prosecutor told them it was legal when she went before the press and repeated the chant, "no justice, no peace" and charged the involved officers with assault, false imprisonment, and misconduct. Attorneys for the accused police officers then sued the state's prosecutor in order to examine Mr. Gray's knife, and the state's prosecutor responded by dropping the charges against the accused police officers and in doing so made the legality of Mr. Gray's irrelevant.

The state's attorney didn't go before the press weeks later to announce her retraction of those charges. If it has been definitively determined Mr. Gray's knife was legal, where is the definitive proof, and why did the state's attorney drop the charges which were directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray's knife? By retracting the charges directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray's knife, the state's attorney has effectively made the debate over the legality of Mr. Gray's knife irrelevant.

 

[Billy T]

... why did the state's attorney drop the charges which are directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray's knife and in doing so effectively nullify the legality issue?

The courts allow some leeway / excuse for officer's illegal arresting action, if he believed, even falsely, that that a crime had been committed. Proving that the officers arresting Freddy did NOT believe Freddy's knife was an illegal switch blade would be very difficult. There were other much more serious crimes committed by the officers and repeated violations of the police rules for safe transport of prisoners, all much easier to prove and with much greater penalties.

I assume, that these facts are why the prosecutor's office is not bothering to include, the hard to prove, minor penalty if proved, "false arrest" charge.

 

[Bells]

Well they probably believe Mr. Gray's knife was legal because their state's prosecutor told them it was legal when she went before the press and repeated the chant, "no justice, no peace" and charged the involved officers with assault, false imprisonment, and misconduct. Attorneys for the accused police officers then sued the state's prosecutor in order to examine Mr. Gray's knife, and the state's prosecutor responded by dropping the charges against the accused police officers and in doing so made the legality of Mr. Gray's irrelevant.

The reason folks believe Mr. Gray's knife was legal is because the state's attorney told them so when she went before the press and announced her charges against the police officers. She didn't go before the press when she retracted those charges weeks later.

How many more excuses are you going to make?

They trussed that guy up like a pig and threw him into the back of a police paddywagon and did god knows to him, until his spinal column in his neck was nearly severed. He didn't do that himself. They did it to him. They ignored his repeated pleas for help and for medical aid.

They broke the law, they broke regulation by not restraining him in that van. They guy had injuries one would sustain in a bad car accident.

And here you are still making excuses and defending it, to the point where you actually have the nerve to demand evidence that police treat black people differently, despite DOJ reports detailing just how they are treated differently, despite clear evidence of just how they are treated differently.

Have you no shame?

At this point, you are arguing on the basis of being as dishonest as you can be. And you keep asking for evidence, and then failing to read or refusing to read even the legislation that is put to you as evidence. Now you are claiming that the AG does not know the law, because you, in your armchair computer police role have determined the knife was illegal with absolutely no evidence to support this claim.

The police officers even lied to try to hide what happened to Gray after he was arrested and they were forced to come clean when they could not account for many minutes of that drive, just as they had to come clean when video evidence emerged of Gray's treatment in their custody and their care. And this isn't the first time the police in Baltimore nearly severed someone's spine in the back of a police van. Gray's spine was likely damaged or broken when they dragged him out of the van and then put him back in. His legs were no longer working and he couldn't move his head. They ignored it. They ignored it when they stopped again and put him in leg irons and trussed him up and threw him back into the van. Because of those officers, he died.

And you are lying and ignoring all the evidence presented to you, evidence you keep demanding and refuse to read? I'll give you some advice, Joe, you are heading down a dangerous road. We take an exceptionally dim view of this sort of intellectual dishonesty.

You claim the knife he had was illegal, then prove it. I'll give you a hint, you cannot. Because the police have described the knife, a knife that is legal, but have point blank refused to show it to the public or to anyone else. Which is not surprising, considering what will happen if the knife turns out to be legal.

If you are going to claim that those police officers did not kill him through their negligence or on purpose, then I would suggest you provide evidence to support your claim. It's time for you to put up or shut up. Because people who have been participating in this thread have supported their arguments. You have yet to do so. If you keep demanding evidence and then ignoring it or not reading it, and you keep making erroneous claims, it is very dishonest.

 

[joepistole]

The courts allow some leeway / excuse for officer's illegal arresting action, if he believed, even falsely, that that a crime had been committed.

Does the court allow that discretion or the prosecutor? I think it's the prosecutor.

"When officers make mistakes, the usual consequence is the exclusion of evidence, Alperstein said.
"Now in this case the prosecutor's gone further, much further. What she said is -- if you violate the law by arresting these people falsely, then we're going to charge you with assault for touching them, false imprisonment," he said." - CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/06/us/freddie-gray-knife/index.html

Courts render judgments of guilt. There is no exemption (i.e. leeway) for police in criminal law.

Proving that the officers arresting Freddy did NOT believe Freddy's knife was an illegal switch blade would be very difficult. There were other much more serious crimes committed by the officers and repeated violations of the police rules for safe transport of prisoners, all much easier to prove and with much greater penalties.

I thought the proof was definitive? If the proof was definitive, then proving such shouldn't have been very difficult to prove in a courtroom.

I assume, that these facts are why the prosecutor's office is not bothering to include, the hard to prove, minor penalty if proved, "false arrest" charge.

Or perhaps the evidence didn't support the state's prosecutor's charges? If proof is definitive as represented, then it shouldn't be difficult to prove in a courtroom.

 

[Billy T]

Courts render judgments of guilt. ... I thought the proof was definitive? If the proof was definitive, then proving such shouldn't have been very difficult to prove in a courtroom. ...

But only when proven. How do you prove what an officer believed? If the officer BELIEVED Freddy's knife was a switch blade then he is NOT guilty of false arrest. Proving he is lying when he now tells that is what he believed at the time of the arrest is what is hard or impossible to prove.

I am wondering if permanent ban on Joepistole is not long over due. He has years long record of lying, putting words in other mouths and then demanding they defend them, of blatant dishonesty, removing qualifying words from other's post before quoting them to distort the meaning, citing non-existent sources for his quotes ( after asking for link 17 times to his invented quote of Bloomberg, I stopped asking) and NEVER has appoligized for his abuses of others, nor once admitted his own errors.

 

[joepistole]

How many more excuses are you going to make?

And what excuses would those be exactly?

They trussed that guy up like a pig and threw him into the back of a police paddywagon and did god knows to him, until his spinal column in his neck was nearly severed. He didn't do that himself. They did it to him. They ignored his repeated pleas for help and for medical aid.
They broke the law, they broke regulation by not restraining him in that van. They guy had injuries one would sustain in a bad car accident.
And here you are still making excuses and defending it, to the point where you actually have the nerve to demand evidence that police treat black people differently, despite DOJ reports detailing just how they are treated differently, despite clear evidence of just how they are treated differently.

Did they truss Mr. Gray up like a pig? I was raised on a farm and I have raised pigs and I have never seen a pig “trussed up”. You have a lot of demagoguery going on there but unfortuatnely not a lot of fact or reason.

Yes, the officers did ignore Mr. Gray’s pleas for medical assistance. That has been discussed at length in this thread. And whatever the Baltimore Police Department did or didn’t do, the Baltimore police officers who were responsible for Mr. Gray care are responsible for Mr. Gray’s death and Mr. Gray died a horrible death. And as I have stated in this thread, I think it took more than just an unrestrained ride in a paddy wagon to inflict the wounds inflicted upon Mr. Gray. But that doesn’t in anyway mitigate the responsibility or culpability of the involved police officers, it makes it worse. The only ones able to inflict those wounds on Mr. Gray were the police officers who were responsible for his care and wellbeing.

Have you no shame?

Do you know what you are talking about? Apparently not…

At this point, you are arguing on the basis of being as dishonest as you can be. And you keep asking for evidence, and then failing to read or refusing to read even the legislation that is put to you as evidence. Now you are claiming that the AG does not know the law, because you, in your armchair computer police role have determined the knife was illegal with absolutely no evidence to support this claim.

Oh, then perhaps you can provide me with a list of what you think I have said which is in anyway dishonest. But then again, probably not, so here is your chance. Where is the list?

The police officers even lied to try to hide what happened to Gray after he was arrested and they were forced to come clean when they could not account for many minutes of that drive, just as they had to come clean when video evidence emerged of Gray's treatment in their custody and their care. And this isn't the first time the police in Baltimore nearly severed someone's spine in the back of a police van. Gray's spine was likely damaged or broken when they dragged him out of the van and then put him back in. His legs were no longer working and he couldn't move his head. They ignored it. They ignored it when they stopped again and put him in leg irons and trussed him up and threw him back into the van. Because of those officers, he died.

And if you had been paying attention to the posts in this thread, you would know, that isn’t an issue of contention. You would know I have never defended the Baltimore Police Department’s mistreatment of Mr. Gray or ever tried to absolve them of his death…oops one of “dem” damn details again.

 

[joepistole]

ed

And you are lying and ignoring all the evidence presented to you, evidence you keep demanding and refuse to read? I'll give you some advice, Joe, you are heading down a dangerous road. We take an exceptionally dim view of this sort of intellectual dishonesty.

A threat, why am I not surprised Bells? Where have I lied? What evidence have I ignored? What evidence have I refused to read exactly? You don’t even know what my position are on this issue. It's more than a little odd you are making this assertion when you refuse to believe the DOJ investigation doesn't exonerate Officer Wilson when it explicitly does. So you want to accuse people of intellectual dishonesty, you need to take a long serious look at yourself before you accuse others. Fact and reason are do not make a case of intellectual dishonesty Bells.

You claim the knife he had was illegal, then prove it. I'll give you a hint, you cannot. Because the police have described the knife, a knife that is legal, but have point blank refused to show it to the public or to anyone else. Which is not surprising, considering what will happen if the knife turns out to be legal.

Let’s start with you showing me where I claimed Mr. Gray’s knife was illegal? I merely asked a question which has been repeatedly ignored by both you and Iceaura and Il repeat it again once more for your edification. If Mr. Gray’s knife was legal as Ice claimed, then why did the state’s prosecutor drop the charges which were directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray’s knife? Ice finally answered that question. He/she didn’t know. BillyT attempted to explain it in his last post.

If you are going to claim that those police officers did not kill him through their negligence or on purpose, then I would suggest you provide evidence to support your claim. It's time for you to put up or shut up. Because people who have been participating in this thread have supported their arguments. You have yet to do so. If you keep demanding evidence and then ignoring it or not reading it, and you keep making erroneous claims, it is very dishonest.

And what makes you think I have or am going to make that claim? It’s called a straw man Bells. If you had been paying any kind of attention or could see past your biases and penchant for demagoguery, you would know my position.
My first Post in this thread:

“Well, your conclusion is more than a little premature. But the police do have some explaining to do. From the video I saw, the arrested man appeared to be fine when he was placed in the paddy wagon. So whatever happened to this young man, it happened while he was in custody of police. And it is difficult to envision how he sustained such deveistating wounds in the back of a paddy wagon, even with the nickel ride. The police have some serious explaining to do. Was he injured by another prisoner? I don't know. Either way, police have some culpability here and some serious explaining to do.” - Post 17

And a subsequent post:

“That said, it doesn't mean some police departments need to change. Because they do, Mr. Gray's case clearly demonstrates that point. There is absolutely no justification why Mr. Gray should have lost his life after being arrested by Baltimore police. Now how Mr. Gray came to lose his life still remains a bit of a mystery. But regardless of how it happened, the Baltimore Police Department had a duty and obligation to protect his life and obviously they didn't. And there are police departments like Ferguson which were really out of touch with the community they policed. Unlike other developed nations, the US has a very fragmented police system and that make consistent police practices difficult and very vulnerable to local politics. That is a larger structural issue, but I don't see that changing anytime soon, if ever.

And another:

President Obama spoke on this issue earlier today (i.e. Baltimore). And as usual, President Obama was spot on. There are larger issues afoot here and they need to be addressed. But like President Obama, I don't see those things happening with this Congress.

And another:

Our inner city youth need opportunities other than working in the drug trade. They need better education. They need better role models. We need to improve our infrastructure. There is a problem in our inner cities that goes far deeper than alleged police misconduct.

Now what is so difficult to understand about those statements and the many similar to it which I have posted in this thread over the course of this discussion? What about those statements would lead you to believe that I condone the treatment of Mr. Gray by Baltimore police officers? I still don’t know how Mr. Gray sustained his injuries. As I have said from the beginning, Mr. Gray’s injuries are just not consistent with the police story. The trauma endured by Mr. Gray was extreme and severe and certainly not warranted or in any way justified.

If you read through this thread and could see past your biases, you will find numerous posts in which I accuse the Baltimore police department of wrong doing. If you had been paying attention, you would know my position is the problems which vex the Baltimore Police Department are more related to a social class rather than a racial bias and I supported that position with the fact that police officers charged with the most heinous crimes against Mr. Gray are black and the victims and perpetrators of Baltimore Police abuse transcend race. My position is the issues with the Baltimore Police Department and our inner cities are much deeper and more pervasive than just race.

And I am virtually the only person who has supported anything in this thread with evidence to support my assertions. Just who has supported their claims with evidence other than me? Where is Ice’s source which has been repeatedly requested to back up his/her assertions? Where is Ice’s assertion Mr. Gray was poisoned and somehow that is racist? Don’t look now Bells, but your biases are showing. So you Bells obviously don’t know what you are talking about and are significantly impaired by your biases and prejudices as demonstrated in your most recent post.

Perhaps you should take a long and seriously look at yourself before you accuse others Bells. My issue with people like you is the same issue I have with people on the right, they fly off the handle and fact and reason become immaterial to hype and misinformation (e.g. your fallacious comparison of the incident in Waco to the Ferguson incident). Your refusal to acknowledge what is clearly stated in the DOJ report which exonerates Officer Wilson. That's intellectual dishonesty Bells. My position is fact and reason need to matter.

As I said from my very first post in this thread, the Baltimore police are culpable in Mr. Gray’s death. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Gray’s knife was legal or illegal. It doesn’t mean the Baltimore police officers involved in Mr. Gray’s death were or are racists as some people who have posted in this thread, you included, believe. And it doesn’t mean Baltimore police officers didn’t have the right to detain and arrest Mr. Gray. Nor does it mean Mr. Gray was poisoned as Ice has alleged.

 

[joepistole]

But only when proven. How do you prove what an officer believed? If the officer BELIEVED Freddy's knife was a switch blade then he is NOT guilty of false arrest. Proving he is lying when he now tells that is what he believed at the time of the arrest is what is hard or impossible to prove.

Well, that is what courts do every day. The court system is a trier of fact. Either the defendant in this case is guilty or he isn't. That is what courts do every day. There is no "get out of jail" pass for ignorance of the law or a mistake. That's what differentiates manslaughter from murder. Either police officers made an illegal arrest or they didn't. If the prosecutor didn't think she could gain a conviction, then why did she file the charges? Prosecutors are not suppose to file charges in cases which they believe are not prosecutable. So are you accusing the state's attorney here of misconduct?

I am wondering if permanent ban on Joepistole is not long over due. He has years long record of lying, putting words in other mouths and then demanding they defend them, of blatant dishonesty, removing qualifying words from other's post before quoting them to distort the meaning, citing non-existent sources for his quotes ( after asking for link 17 times to his invented quote of Bloomberg, I stopped asking) and NEVER has appoligized for his abuses of others, nor once admitted his own errors.

The truth isn't dishonesty BillyT. It's just the truth. I have been a Sciforums member for 8 years and never been banned once. Disagreement doesn't constitute intellectual dishonesty. Frivolous and fallacious accusations do not make for truthful discourse either. Those who run Sciforums will need to decide if they want to be the liberal version of Fox News or if they want Sciforums to be a place for rational discourse.

 

[iceaura]

You do understand what the word "source" means don't you? Fraggle and I have both asked for your source here. And you have repeatedly failed to product it.

I made a back-of-envelope round-off estimate from the census data, the murder rate data, the lynching data, the known demographics of violent crime ( checked through history via these various numbers and so forth) . Some of the relevant data was simply remembered, from past familiarity, but is probably easy to refind in some venue most people would accept. Of these various sources, which ones do you want?

Here are three:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/nearly-...-from-1877-to-1950-study-20150210-13b93y.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021998000
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_20/sr20_006acc.pdf

Have fun calculating your own upper bound ratio estimate - post the reasoning, of course, as I have. My bet: you can't even accurately describe the estimate itself, let alone deal with the argument in which it came up. You've lost track of the entire matter.

So after all that, the answer is you don't know why the prosecutor dropped the charges directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray's knife.

After all what? You mean after I posted that four times, and you ignored that in favor of pages of repetition of the original bs question?

Do you think she did it because the evidence was strong?

I posted one obvious possibility, among the several. What do you think is unlikely about that, or the several other, possibilities?

One possibility has been eliminated: she did not drop the charges because she found that the knife was illegal and justified Gray's arrest.

- - - -

Side topic, because it has disturbed this thread in particular:

My position is fact and reason need to matter.
- - -
Well that is a sea change. We have gone from the police had no right to detain Mr. Gray to “everyone agrees the Baltimore Police have the power to detain people”.
- - - - -
you do know Mr. Gray's knife is legal even though you haven't seen it and have no definitive source to say it is.
- - -
So after all that, the answer is you don't know why the prosecutor dropped the charges directly related to the legality of Mr. Gray's knife.
- - - - -
Nor does it mean Mr. Gray was poisoned as Ice has alleged.

That's just from this page.

While I appreciate that certain moderators here have similar trouble following a particular kind of argument I (among others) attempt on occasion,

to the point of themselves posting quite as Joe has there, in what appears to be sincere obliviousness motivating absurd presumptions as to what's been typed in front of them (so I wouldn't trust them to ban anyone on grounds of making bad arguments, misconstruing evidence, etc)

and while I think any "permaban" efforts should be prioritized, posters such as Photizo having no redeeming features or exculpatory background issues to balance their ugly,

it is true that of late Joe has taken to posting reams of stuff like that, in response to my posting among other's. It is abusive.

 

[joepistole]

I made a back-of-envelope round-off estimate from the census data, the murder rate data, the lynching data, the known demographics of violent crime ( checked through history via these various numbers and so forth) . Some of the relevant data was simply remembered, from past familiarity, but is probably easy to refind in some venue most people would accept. Of these various sources, which ones do you want?
Here are three:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/nearly-4000-blacks-lynched-in-the-us-from-1877-to-1950-study-20150210-13b93y.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021998000
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_20/sr20_006acc.pdf

Ok, after more than a week and multiple requests, this is what you claim is the source for your assertion. Where is the back “back-0f-the envelope round-off” estimate calculation from the census data? There is no census data in any of the above references. The references you cite are from the “Sidney Morning Herald” which references an unnamed study and never once mentions the KKK. You have referenced the Democratic Underground which discussed murder rates. But I could find nothing in there which directly relates to your post. I found no mention of the KKK or the race of the murder, and says nothing about lynching. And the third source you claim is the CDC. The CDC isn’t in anyway part of the US Census Bureau and again, I can find no reference to the race of the murder in that material.
This is the material you were requested to provide a source for (post 246):

The KKK never lynched a tenth of the number of black men that other black men killed fighting over women or money - that does not diminish the nature or significance of what they did.

And on follow-up you expounded on your initial post with this:

That would be me. It's spitballed, from an acquaintanceship with the murder stats in the US (black men murdered almost all the black men not lynched) and the stats on lynchings (the KKK did only some of the lynching, and a good fraction of their victims were white, female, children, etc).
If you want to argue it, probably your best chance would be 1892, the peak lynching year. I might actually be wrong, that year - more than 200 black men lynched, probably, and fewer than 1500 murdered, probably, so the question would be the percentage of lynchings of black men that were KKK actions. (The contemporary stats I can recall off hand show about 160 lynchings of black people total including women and children, around 7000 murders in a country 12% black with a prison population about 30% black. All those numbers are low, but finding the best modern comparison stats is a royal pain).
The point is that one cannot measure oppression by comparing kill stats. A killing by the police is far more significant than other killings, just as a lynching is far more significant than a gang fight death.

So where are these “lynching stats” you say you are familiar with in post 262? With the exception of the Sidney Morning Herald’s unnamed study, you haven’t provided any source related to lynching.

Have fun calculating your own upper bound ratio estimate - post the reasoning, of course, as I have. My bet: you can't even accurately describe the estimate itself, let alone deal with the argument in which it came up. You've lost track of the entire matter.

Well before we can worry about doing any calculations, we first need to get the relevant data and that data was previously spelled out for you. And that data isn’t in any of your above 3 references.

After all what? You mean after I posted that four times, and you ignored that in favor of pages of repetition of the original bs question? I posted one obvious possibility, among the several. What do you think is unlikely about that, or the several other, possibilities?

Well then perhaps you would be good enough to point out the 4 times you claim you have provided the source of your data? What are the post numbers? My bet is you cannot. This is the first time you have posted those 3 sources you listed above; a simple search will verify that. Additionally, for the reasons I have just mentioned, you have still not revealed the source of your “lynching statistics”. The three sources you listed above don’t provide the information needed to support the assertions you have made in your two posts which I have referenced here and where you were requested to support with a source. What you have done in your most recent post is to reference a lot of irrelevant data as your source. Statistics begin with a good data source. What you have done is obfuscate. Have you not been taught how to document a source? Pull up a Wiki article and look at the documentation at that bottom on the Wiki page. That is how you document a source, even a simple URL would be fine. And your sources have to be relevant.

One possibility has been eliminated: she did not drop the charges because she found that the knife was illegal and justified Gray's arrest.

Oh and where is the source of that assertion?
- - - -

Side topic, because it has disturbed this thread in particular:
That's just from this page.
While I appreciate that certain moderators here have similar trouble following a particular kind of argument I (among others) attempt on occasion,
to the point of themselves posting quite as Joe has there, in what appears to be sincere obliviousness motivating absurd presumptions as to what's been typed in front of them (so I wouldn't trust them to ban anyone on grounds of making bad arguments, misconstruing evidence, etc)

The truth and being nonbiased and rational isn’t insincere nor is it irrational or absurd. And as we all know, Bells shares your beliefs and biases.

Yes, there is. Quite a bit, ranging from Gray's history of lead poisoning to the manner in which the police handled his detainment.

And as previously requested, where is your evidence Mr. Gray suffered from lead poisoning, and how is that racist as you asserted?

Beliefs must be backed up with evidence Ice. When asked for a reference and you respond with a vague reference of your general knowledge and restating your belief, that isn't a reference or a valid source. That doubling down on your belief and an obfuscation. Would your high school English teacher have accepted that as a reference? How far would you have gotten in high school if you told your teacher "well it is true because I have a general knowledge that it is true"? In my high school, and you did that, you would get a F or an incomplete.

 

[iceaura]

What you have done in your most recent post is to reference a lot of irrelevant data as your source

Those were three of the sources I actually used. In addition: I drew from memory the facts that the KKK was only a major, not sole or even majority, agency of lynching in the US, that between 20 and 40 % of the KKK lynchings (depending on year) were of people other than black men (whites, women, children, yellows, browns, etc), and that the black population of the US in the peak lynching years was around 12%, while the prison population in the late 1800s was around 30% black. I also checked a graph of the US population since 1900, to do a quick estimate of the minimum number of black men murdered at a given homicide rate.

So the spitballed estimate was borderline - like I said, 1892 looks chancy - but overall clear and solid support for the point I was making - that the significance of a killing depends on who commits it and why. You cannot dismiss or deprecate police killings because they are nowhere near as frequent as ordinary homicides of black men. They are far more significant and influential than ordinary murders, gang shootings, etc.

As example: the KKK lynchings even at their peak were numerically insignificant compared with the ordinary homicides - that does not reduce their influence or importance in the slightest.

Yes, there is. Quite a bit, ranging from Gray's history of lead poisoning to the manner in which the police handled his detainment.
And as previously requested, where is your evidence Mr. Gray suffered from lead poisoning, and how is that racist as you asserted?

Black people live where they do in the US, and always have, because of racial bigotry and oppression in the US. Lead poisoning is one of the common effects of living where black people have been confined - dirty and uncared for communities next to busy roads and industrial zones where white people do not want to live, in areas contaminated by lead paint, leaded gasoline, and industrial waste. So black children were (and are) lead poisoned at much higher rates than white children, in the US, due to racial bigotry. I am not going to go find evidence of this - you're expected to know it.

As has been reported several times on this forum and probably in this thread, Gray's mother had won a monetary settlement for the diagnosed lead poisoning of Gray and his sister as children. The building codes for lead paint had been ignored by her landlord (typical in black neighborhoods), she could find no better place to live (tibn), and the city did not enforce its codes or defend her against her landlord's threats (tibn) or help in any way to make up for the lack of code enforcement and biased landlord/tenant regulations (tibn).