Outrage sweeps nation after two black men murdered by police

Livewire · Jul 7, 2016

ST. PAUL ? Amid protests and national outrage over the brutal police slaying of Philando Castile, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) said Thursday he believed racism played a major role in the killing.

?Would this have happened if ... the driver and those passengers in the car were white?? Dayton asked. ?I don?t think it would?ve.?

A police officer shot Castile, 32, at point-blank range Wednesday during a traffic stop in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights. Castile?s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, recorded the aftermath in a graphic video she posted to Facebook. The video shows his final moments as she sits in the car next to him, with her young daughter in the back seat.

The Justice Department announced Wednesday it will monitor an ongoing state investigation into Castile?s death. A DOJ spokesperson said the department is also prepared, if necessary, to conduct a separate investigation and consider the matter under federal law.

Reynolds said she and Castile were pulled over ?for a busted tail light.? She said he let the police officer know he had a gun in the car as he was reaching for his driver?s license, and the officer shot him four or five times ?for no reason.?

Reynolds accused the officers at the scene of not providing first aid to Castile after he was shot. They did attend to the officer who shot Castile, who was upset following the shooting, she said.

?They pulled him over to the side,? she said. ?And they began to calm him down and tell him that it was OK and that he was going to get through this ? as they put me in the back of the police car.?

The news of Castile?s death sparked outrage across a nation already reeling from a string of high-profile police killings of black men, the most recent of which occurred less than 48 hours before in Louisiana. Alton Sterling, 37, was shot dead by a police officer early Tuesday morning outside of a convenience store in Baton Rouge.

Sterling?s death led to protests and calls for an independent probe into the slaying. The Department of Justice has already opened an investigation into the incident.

Politicians, celebrities and Americans of all stripes have reacted to the deaths with anger and sadness.

In remarks on Thursday, President Barack Obama called for a greater sense of urgency around police reform.

?We have seen tragedies like this too many times,? Obama said. ?All of us as Americans should be troubled by these shootings because these are not isolated incidents, they?re symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system.?

?There is no contradiction between us supporting law enforcement? and also saying that there are problems across our criminal justice system,? he added. There are biases, some conscious, some unconscious, that have to be rooted out.?

Philando?s mother, Valerie, 60, told CNN Thursday her son knew to ?comply? if he was instructed to do so by law enforcement, which makes his death at the hands of the police that much more difficult to comprehend.

?They took a very good person,? she said. ?Everybody that knows my son knows that he is a laid-back, quiet individual, that works hard every day, pays taxes ... that?s it. He?s not a gang-banger, he?s not a thug, he?s very respectable and I know he didn?t antagonize that officer in any way.?

?He worked an honest job five days a week,? she said.

That sentiment was echoed by St. Paul Public Schools, where Castile had worked in the nutrition services department since 2002. The school system issued a heartfelt statement Thursday, and described a kind man with a ready smile who will be deeply missed.

?Kids loved him. He was smart, over-qualified. He was quiet, respectful, and kind,? said an unidentified coworker. ?I knew him as warm and funny; he called me his ?wing man.? He wore a shirt and tie to his supervisor interview and said his goal was to one day ?sit on the other side of this table.??

He?d been promoted to a supervisory role two years ago, the school district said.

St. Anthony interim police chief Jon Mangseth acknowledged during a Thursday press conference that the shooting had occurred, but offered few details. He confirmed that officers recovered a handgun from the scene, and that the officer responsible for the shooting has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.

Castile was the 561st person to be killed by police in the U.S. this year, according to unofficial data maintained by The Guardian. He?s also the 123rd black person to be shot and killed by police, according to a similar tracker kept by The Washington Post.

Spoiler:

Video is graphic, you have been warned.

How to not get shot in the US:

1) Be White
2) Be White

Her · Jul 7, 2016

Wallet.
Sleeping.
Skittles.
Cell phone.
Loud music.
Cigarettes.
Cigarillos.
Shopping at Walmart.
Toy gun.
Failure to signal.
CD's.

It continues.

Livewire · Jul 8, 2016

And now we have an active shooter incident in Dallas, two snipers have shot and killed several cops during a BLM protest there. There aren't many incidents that truly make me turn off the news at night and make me just shake my head in disgust, but this was one of those. It's just sad at this point, we go from mass shooting to mass hosting and racial tensions blowing up again. At what point does the scale truly tip and things blow up to the point that we actually get change?

Her · Jul 8, 2016

This is simply unsubstantiated gut feeling with zero info outside of the official police tweets on the matter, but I can't help but feel like it was an intentional attack meant to deflect sympathy back to cops. It's all too common, unfortunately. Infiltration of black protests/rallies leading to escalation of said events and allowing the general public to return to calling them 'thugs', if not more direct words which I don't think need to be said.

But Occam's Razor would dictate that this sniper attack is a result of someone's foolish unrestrained aggression against a corrupt system, amplified by the seeming inevitability of the lack of change. Which is the likely answer in this case.

Sir Codin · Jul 8, 2016

Livewire said:
How to not get shot in the US:

1) Be White
2) Be White

~~Hate to break this to you~~, Live, but even being white doesn't make you safe:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-video-shooting-dylan-noble-20160707-snap-story.html

In other news, Peter Rosenberg saying exactly what needs to be said of the police brutality and nepotism amongst officers sweeping the nation:

Esper · Jul 8, 2016

A Trump supporter also pulled a gun on BLM protesters in Portland, OR. No one died there, thankfully. He "feared for his life" apparently.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/hit...-gun-on-black-lives-matter-rally-in-portland/

CarcharOdin said:
~~Hate to break this to you~~, Live, but even being white doesn't make you safe:

But you're still safer being white than being black. That's backed up by statistics and countless examples. That's the main point. I don't mean to completely dismiss this man's death at the hands of the police, but it shouldn't be used to say that everyone is equally at risk. That isn't the case.

Sir Codin · Jul 8, 2016

Esper said:
A Trump supporter also pulled a gun on BLM protesters in Portland, OR. No one died there, thankfully. He "feared for his life" apparently.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/hit...-gun-on-black-lives-matter-rally-in-portland/

But you're still safer being white than being black. That's backed up by statistics and countless examples. That's the main point. I don't mean to completely dismiss this man's death at the hands of the police, but it shouldn't be used to say that everyone is equally at risk. That isn't the case.

Doesn't mean it can't get like that though.

I'm as white as they come: I have never felt safe around cops. EVER.

gimmepie · Jul 8, 2016

There is a culture of division and violence in the US right now that needs to be changed. Right now, being different to another person in any way is likely to get you shot and killed. If you're black, a white man will shoot you. If you're white, an Arab will shoot you. If you're Arab, a black man and a white woman will take turns. If you're gay, if you're a bigot, if you believe, look or live different than your neighbour or even if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - you're more likely to be shot than in any other Western country. I won't go as far as to say a "civilised country" anymore. There's millions upon millions of wonderful people living in the United States, and it's so wasteful that at any moment any one of them stands so much more of a chance of having a bullet put in their skull than they do here, or in New Zealand, Canada, the UK etc.

Obviously these attacks were racially motivated, whether they were consciously so or not is irrelevant. At this point though, the violence in the US is so excessive and disproportionate to the liberties and ammenities the country offers that I honestly don't think the reason matters anymore. There is something fundamentally wrong happening in the US right now where people - whether they are police officers or civilians or whatever - are finding it far too easy to turn to violence for whatever reason and where it's too easy to justify lethal force in people's minds.

We can talk all we want about stamping out racism, but this is clearly a problem that runs far deeper into the US' culture than just that. It's like in general the society there doesn't value life to the same extent as the western world. Whilst attacking racism is fantastic, its never going to completely go away, so something has to be done about the pro-violent culture children are growing up in if you want attacks like this to stop. It's not just about race anymore, it's about nobody valuing each other as equals.

/end rant

Her · Jul 8, 2016

CarcharOdin said:
Doesn't mean it can't get like that though.

I'm as white as they come: I have never felt safe around cops. EVER.

The point being though is that your fear is unlikely to have been derived from your race in correlation with an abusive, corrupt power structure. I'm sure your fear itself is more than justified (I don't know anyone who isn't afraid or distrusting of cops), but is not the same kind of fear that black people and other racial minorities commonly experience.

Kanzler · Jul 8, 2016

Did anybody else hear about the five dead cops in Dallas?

Arsenic · Jul 8, 2016

Kanzler said:
Did anybody else hear about the five dead cops in Dallas?

That's what I was just hopping on the site for. Two snipers I think it was, just shooting officers according to witnesses.

All these recent situations make me sick...

OuterTsuchinoko · Jul 8, 2016

I had a feeling this was gonna happen yesterday. I called my mom and was talking to her about those two guys who got shot recently. I was telling her that I was scared for my brother because he is puerto rican but has a darker skin tone. He's always hanging out outside. I told him if he ever got stopped by a cop just to put his hands up and not even move, if the cop asks him for anything just tell them you're not gonna move and that they can take your ID or whatever out of your pocket themselves.

I also thought to myself that what happens if cops started getting attacked now in response to all this thats going on. And now it actually happened that same day. I wish officers would just use tasers like they used too. Why go straight for a gun when the taser will do just fine to take down a suspect. I used to watch Cops and other law enforcement shows all the time and first thing they would do was pull out the taser and it always worked. When did they switch that to a gun? Do they even carry tasers anymore honestly? Ugh, seeing people die unnecessarily makes me sad especially when it happens so often.

Lucid · Jul 8, 2016

What happened in Dallas was a tragedy, without a doubt. It's really awful, but I'm surprised that this is the first big incident of this kind. I think the biggest problem right now are the police forces themselves. Every time one of these shootings happens, the officers respond without much remorse, assuring it was justified because the officer felt threatened or they were just following protocol, and protecting their own and their use of excessive force rather then acknowledging that the situation should of been handled differently, or that the situation got out of control. You don't see many cops admitting they were in the wrong in these situations. The us vs. them mentality has to go, the police aren't the victims here. The desire of these police officers to protect their own does nothing but harm for the justice system. There's already little to no sense on community in America.

The way that these officers are trained needs to change, to be revamped in general. With racial profiling, domestic violence, the way they deal with the disabled--there's a mountain of issues and situations they just don't have proper, or any training on how to handle, and if they do, it's insanely out of date. Hell, make the psyche evaluations more thorough and in depth, keep tabs on these officer's mental health ideally.

I'm from Louisiana, and with the passing of the blue lives matter bill, the state has pretty much spit in the face of the black lives matter movement. People here are blatantly racist, it's passed down from generation to generation and the idea that cops are somehow immune to that when its such a big part of the rest of the population is a fucking joke. It's important to keep these instances in the public eye, in social media and in the news, people need to know that these American citizens are being targeted, harassed and murdered. As sad as it sounds, making racism unfashionable is a productive way of combatting it. But the public needs to push for some sort of big change with the way or police departments work and operate, the way things are handled now is obviously isn't working. Being angry, disgusted and heartbroken about these situations isn't enough and needs to be a motivator for change and improvement.

Sir Codin · Jul 8, 2016

The most disturbing thing about the Dallas cops being shot is that I just somehow couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for them. Didn't matter if they were good cops or bad cops....all I could think about was that the inevitable just happened and it was the result of too much police corruption and the "good" police barely doing a thing to stop it. Like they've kind of brought it on themselves. It scares me to have myself react in such a way.

There's a song made by a band I listen to called Machine Head. They wrote a song that alludes to the LA Riots of '92, but somehow I feel like it was a timeless song because it fits even more today than it did back then:

Spoiler:

"America has to go through some kind of radical change."

Sydian · Jul 8, 2016

It's really disgusting. Time and time again, things like this happen and I think to myself, when is anyone in this country going to do something about this? And time and time again, nothing is done. Nothing gets changed. Rinse and repeat.

I don't feel safe in this country. I haven't for years, for myself or others.

Kanzler · Jul 8, 2016

Apparently the sniper was a Black Army Reserve Veteran who hated white people and is reported as wanting to kill white people, especially white officers.

I feel as if there's going to be a race war coming down soon if things keep going this way.

ShinyUmbreon189 · Jul 9, 2016

colours said:
And of course some ass had to make headlines for himself by claiming that it was the President's fault (and threatening the guy, on top of that), because we can't go one shooting without some idiot turning it into a political stunt.

People like this make me absolutely sick.

The world would be a better place without the media shoving biased crap down our throats, actually it would be better if the media just vanished and people started figuring shit out on their own. The media has a lot to do with why things are the way they are, they're a complete joke yet people blindly follow their crap.
Speaking politically. I don't know if it's just me, but with the way things have been going the last year this next election scares the living shit out of me, not that the last year hasn't already. this country is officially doomed.
We're at the end of our ropes it seems, there's no turning back. We cannot be saved. The human race will never see eye to eye, we will never get along with eachother. As I said in another thread, it's just going to get worse. This is nothing yet.

Aliencommander1245 · Jul 10, 2016

ShinyUmbreon189 said:
We're at the end of our ropes it seems, there's no turning back. We cannot be saved. The human race will never see eye to eye, we will never get along with eachother. As I said in another thread, it's just going to get worse. This is nothing yet.

Sheesh that's some pretty ominous pessimism there, but I severely doubt that idea that humanity intrinsically can't work together for some reason and that this is a turning point vs the eras of slavery and colonialism preceding this more or less relatively good time to be alive

Kanzler said:
I feel as if there's going to be a race war coming down soon if things keep going this way.

"Race war" is a pretty strong way to put it, but I don't think there'll be any more escalation than Ferguson, just protest and lobby for change (Which is already partially working)

CarcharOdin said:
The most disturbing thing about the Dallas cops being shot is that I just somehow couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for them. Didn't matter if they were good cops or bad cops....all I could think about was that the inevitable just happened and it was the result of too much police corruption and the "good" police barely doing a thing to stop it. Like they've kind of brought it on themselves. It scares me to have myself react in such a way.

I feel like it should be scary to justify/accept loss of human life as an inevitable conclusion of systematic corruption, because it's very easy to use that to justify/accept the killings of the people themselves for the same reason?

Weren't those police parading alongside too, not just around? I feel like that's as "good" as you can assume a police officer being from this small amount of information

Guest123_x1 · Jul 10, 2016

I am so sick of this race war that has been brewing since Trayvon Martin was killed several years back. With all this stuff that's been happening, especially with the Black Lives Matter movement, I just know the outcome won't be good. I know, it's probably considered "racist" of me by saying this stuff, but I'm not going to submit to the politically correct demands of communists and the New World Order cabal.

What do these protesters think they're going to accomplish by these riots and stuff? If the goal of rioting and violence is to bring about racial harmony, why did Detroit go into such a decline following the 1967 blind pig riot (which my mom and her parents lived through, BTW)?

ShinyUmbreon189 said:
The world would be a better place without the media shoving biased crap down our throats, actually it would be better if the media just vanished and people started figuring **** out on their own. The media has a lot to do with why things are the way they are, they're a complete joke yet people blindly follow their crap.
Speaking politically. I don't know if it's just me, but with the way things have been going the last year this next election scares the living **** out of me, not that the last year hasn't already. this country is officially doomed.
We're at the end of our ropes it seems, there's no turning back. We cannot be saved. The human race will never see eye to eye, we will never get along with each other. As I said in another thread, it's just going to get worse. This is nothing yet.

The fact that every time these acts of violence and terrorism occur in our country, Obama and HiLIEry surge in the polls sickens me. Obama hasn't brought about racial harmony and neither will HiLIEry. I'm also sickened by our one-sided media always going in favor of these protesters (it's bad enough that they're always kissing Wall Street oil speculators' butts when they report on the economy and commodities).

At this point, since it looks like it's a virtual lock that Hillary will be our next president, I would rather live under a reincarnated FDR, Truman, or LBJ than her for a single day. Even Jimmy Carter, as bad as he was in his single term (with the overthrow of the Iranian shah and the hostage crisis), would've been better than Mrs. Clinton.

If I had the money, I would have packed my bags and emigrated this country years ago.

KingMarz · Jul 10, 2016

Amerikkka has never been safe for us black people especially black men slavery, willie lynch, and the jail system have made sure of that. What confuses me about the racism is that we never did anything to white people always stayed to ourselves and lived in peace but for some reason they bring their asses to our land kill rape and mame us then drag us across the ocean to this god forsaken land and force us to work for them doing their work then we get "freed" but still down trodden with fake rights that mean nothing cuz were still separated by color still being killed and mamed until the civil rights act was passed to basically protect us from said atrocities just to be secretly hated by the now formed KKK. All that stuff affected our development as a people so we build black wall street which was burned down by the clan then formed the Black Panter Party to rival the Klan but still slavery (house and field n!&&@s) and willie lynch made sure there was in-fighting and a separation that only we could determine between light and dark skin which is stupid af all the while still being hated by whites just for being of darker color. Just a little history lesson for those that dont understand the plight of being black in america.

BlackLivesMatter aint sh- but propaganda to make money its not a true movement for black liberation.

I agree obama hasnt said sh- about the racial problems in the country but he can speak on afganistan smh if the black president puppet wont even address it then how can we even expect the country to understand it.

The sniper was someone hired to die for that false flag operation just to fan the fires of hate even more.

Outrage sweeps nation after two black men murdered by police

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