This latest terrible situation where the man was gunned down is horrific. Yeah, yeah, we know there are thousands of policemen over the pond who are principled and beyond reproach but time after time we have had incidents about over-reaction. And before someone jumps in about the alleged stealing of a box of cigars we should note that the police gunman did not know about that. Involved in a confrontation between the officer and the man (black as the norm) the man knelt down and raised his hands asking not to be shot. He was shot but more than once even though unarmed. When this spread into a town protest the sheriff department went bananas running about like solders - and just as I said months ago this is an increasing situation in the country.

At least the State Governor showed more wisdom than the local police acting like someone had invaded the nation. No doubt pressed by the White House but none of this should have been needed there or in the other places where we have seen pictures and film of policemen beating up people with a vengeance or shooting like cowboys. In the majority of cases the officer or officers never get done and only oddly. Isn't this way things are going a bit worrying?

You can feel "disgusted," Jochie... But is that the best you can find, to react to? Is that really the most pressing problem? (Nothing in your country, for instance...) Bizarre cases occur.

I can react to a lot of things. Like very stupid and venal politicians starting and getting into useless wars.

Police malfeasance is a serious issue. NY City alone pays about 80 million dollars because of police malfeasance. And the settled cases are only the tip of actual incidents. Most cases are never reported and when reported there is mostly no settlement.

Chicago paid over 1/2 billion over 10 years.

The cost is no problem for the cops. They personally don't pay. Its the taxpayers who pay.

With this Chicago shooting if there were no video, the story the police initially spread would as usual have been accepted. A justified shooting because MCDonald was "attacking" the cops with his weapon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/11/25/why-did-authorities-say-laquan-mcdonald-lunged-at-chicago-police-officers/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_chicago-1015pm:homepage/story

Americans worry about ISIS? Maybe they should worry about those who really terrorize the public, the American police, who kill many, many more here than ISIS ever will.

You do actually have a strong corner there whilst the mind people like Oakdale who are in millions there just shut their minds off. It is amongst the worst places on Earth like dictatorships, etc that put people in uniform and then those in it think they are "it."

It is not as id such things are remote they are as regular as the young getting shot to death in the damn school system. I pointed out that the police psycho thing has went on for a century and more and some things have been hidden but that is much, much harder to do nowadays. The USA has more spy agencies than any other nation on Earth and much of that excessive expenditure is on the freedoms of Americans at home. The guff is all about the usual word - "security." City police forces have this inbuilt arrogance and I watched it on my two visits over there years ago. They think they are it and if you resort to disagreeing with any of them watch yourself. Oakdale has this approach that cannot face the attitude of too much of the police. Elsewhere one can find many examples of where unarmed police deal with some of the things that US cops routinely face but the difference comes in quick regarding reactions. Usually because one has had the damn cheek to think they have a right to have a different view from the officer on an incident. The baton comes out too quickly and so too does the gun.

What I said about that American woman who was a railway station (London Euston) supervisor kind of emphasises what I say. The time for shooting comes too quick and far too often too heavy. These incidents happen actually in a regular fashion but the Oakdale mindset closes off to any criticism and ignores the hard facts that American police do not get a very good reputation by the world who see the incidents consistently.

Let American police to behave as savages. Their problem, not ours.

Very true but the Yanks do not realise how the place looks! Anyway you are quite right and the problem is staying with them.

Your preening and strutting seem to be all you have left... So, yes, leave us to ourselves.

Well I wish you would leave yourselves to yourselves on the world sgate dear boy when one considers the way you run your country.

I have already said that the standard levels for joining many city police forces in the US of A were deplorable then last night I got a surpise news report on tv. It was an interview with a retured captaon of the Philadelphia City Police. He was annoyed at the number of vicious police actions across the country and stated that the problem was the mentality and standards of those allowed to join. Indeed he said that thehey should be doing. He also made it plain that far too many due to their ignorant and bloody-minded self-importance were a disgrace.

You meanwhile cannot cope with the truth and come back with this limp stuff of leave it to yourselves. Well considering the number of arrogant, mentally retarded and killing instincts of so many of your police you are not doing very well sorting it are you? Too many of your cops think they are the law and "it" and have got away with it as a tradition. Pathetic that police elsewhere can deal with many routine incidents without battering a person to bits or shooting them repeatedly even when the person concerned is not armed.

Years ago on one of my two haunts to the ex-colonies and got into a chat with a city policeman in NYC he saidto me was it kind of true at the time that our cops dealt with issues with a truncheon and a notebook and I laughed and said "yes." He looked at me for a minute with a look of almost disbelief and didn't know what to say. Kind of says it all dear Police State acceptor!

Pathetic that police elsewhere can deal with many routine incidents without battering a person to bits or shooting them repeatedly even when the person concerned is not armed.

And little girls were raped, indeed sold into slavery -- in Great Britain! Yeah: Quit you like men pussies!
Of course, you don't care, RJ. You have no daughters -- and care for no one else's. You're a mighty poor specimen.

But you want to blame the U.S. for -- what? Is there anything in your country that we've had any fingers in...? Nah! You've done yourselves in...
Oops-y!
------------------------------------------

Years ago on one of my two haunts to the ex-colonies and got into a chat with a city policeman in NYC he saidto me was it kind of true at the time that our cops dealt with issues with a truncheon and a notebook and I laughed and said "yes." He looked at me for a minute with a look of almost disbelief and didn't know what to say. Kind of says it all dear Police State acceptor

(Howie tried to post a link... )
Your "cops" allowed young girls to be raped, repeatedly; abused in horrible ways... For what?
Your "political" correctness.

You don't like people dying? Nonsense! You don't care the least about such; but you've never been involved... Take your sorry ass away from anything that matters!
You have no balls!

So, yes, leave us to ourselves.

Only if you promiss to be some kind of lemmings jumping from the cliffs...

Anyway you are English fault not anyone else. I think they are open to do whatever you demand from them. It must be some kind of freudian relationship between colonizer and colonised.

You are making yourself look silly Oakdale and a child mentality. Nowhere compares to America to wayward so-called city policemen but you don't have the honesty to admit such  and instead try to body-swerve the widespread idiots and low life knuckle-draggers that pas for policemen. The figures speak for themselves. Too many of your so-called defenders of the people namely what passes for police are as I pointed out, low life, ignorant, full of their own importance and think they are it and above anyone else. There is probably no country that competes with yours for arrogant and dangerous people in a uniform and call them police. Singling out a town when in your country the police problem is EVERYWHERE is so damn stupid. You have had over two centuries to grow up and still not there yet.

You have had over two centuries to grow up and still not there yet.

Oakdale Earp is waiting for you outside of the saloon Jesse James Howie...

He had better run away because he is as physically out of shape as mentally! Based on the obvious fact that he cannot answer very direct points so being a nutjob supporter even if fired the bullets would be everywhere but the target. I meantime, would not draw mine but let him run away.

Marshall Wyatt Earp Howie

You'll like this, RJ:

As the historian Jill Lepore once summarized it, in reviewing Pieter Spierenburg's A History of Murder: By the time European states became democracies, the populace had accepted the authority of the state. But the American Revolution happened before Americans had got used to the idea of a state monopoly on force. Americans therefore preserved for themselves not only the right to bear arms -- rather than yielding that right to a strong central government -- but also medieval manners: impulsiveness, crudeness, and fidelity to a culture of honor. We're backward, in other words, because we became free before we learned how to control ourselves.
(source)

-- I'd note, that we became free -- before we were consigned to control, by others.

Mark, if you will, that weird reference to "a culture of honor..."You'd dispense with Honor entirely...?

Just as a qualm, I'd ask: how much of virtue need we reject, to be "modern"?

I'd note, that we became free

Have you? really? how interesting.
Free from what? Indians? Buffalos?

Free from Europeans who think they can tell us how to live. That'll do for starters.

Daft answer from a man with grey cells. Tell you how to live? You would just ignore it as you totally ignore you have one of the worst countries in the world for  silence and your police are very much part of that. Something you choose to ignore and pet the lip. If as a country you spent less time proclaiming to the world how brilliant you are thenj a better situation would be available. As I earlier pointed out, police violence is a very long standing thing over there and although blacks got the most it was not restricted to them. For much of the last hundred years or so much of it would be neatly overlooked but the rise of mobile phones has well balanced that subterfuge out. You also neatly avoided the television interview I mentioned with a retired Philly police captain. He was very competent and directly said that there were far too many in police forces who should never be in them. Arrogance and thinking they are special is a trait in too many policemen. Trouble is that far too many people in America have just put up with it and for decades too many police thought they were "it" and their attitude to the people they were meant to be protecting was something else. Chicago is another long standing example of inappropriate and dodgy stuff.

It almost seems like a tradition with too many over the pond that the hypocrisy is sidelined tthe we-are-the-greatest. Added bother is that too many policemen think that of themselves and would jot get that job in more educated police forces elsewhere. That retired captain was very honest.

Free from Europeans who think they can tell us how to live. That'll do for starters.

You are Europeans. *grins*

Free from Europeans who think they can tell us how to live. That'll do for starters.

You are Europeans. *grins*

Only partially. I seem to have Chippewa on my mother's side of the family.

Free from Europeans who think they can tell us how to live.

Do they? 
Does Merkel?

You are Europeans. *grins*

Does Obama look like an European?

You are Europeans.

well,

most americans thinks they are native people .

not europeans .

Have you? really? how interesting.
Free from what? Indians? Buffalos?

Free from the pestilence of Monarchy, rule by genetically deficient in-breeders...
While it's true that dispensing with this pox is no guarantee of better rule, it does offer the possibility of a better result -- if only by chance!

Some wish only to serve, Bel; they need Masters! Others would be their own masters... Is that why you dislike Americans so much? They think they're their own masters? Of course, you know better: What kind of "whipped" you are, I'm not sure; but your macho is a façade!

A policeman could be under stress? Uh? With so many police shooting incidents that were not needed it only goes to illustrate my point that many city officers over there are mental midgets and should never been in the uniform. They think they are it and mentally swagger at their self-importance. With so many police dodgy incidents it only falls into the wide mental stuff over there.

Only partially. I seem to have Chippewa on my mother's side of the family.

I'm almost half German if you go by blood.

Does Obama look like an European? 

Yes. And even if he didn't, it's the linguistic and sociocultural aspects that count.

Yes.

No. As for the linguistic and sociocultural aspects is even worst.
Europe doesn't need three hundred millions American africans and others, we've already the syrians.
Let them turn "republicans " or whatever.

Some wish only to serve, Bel; they need Masters! Others would be their own masters... Is that why you dislike Americans so much? They think they're their own masters?

Three times masters on a row...

The last time I've heard an American mentioning masters...
I'm the Captain of my soul
The master of my fate....

You've executed him immediately.
Don't speak about masters.

Meanwhile maybe they should appoint head shrinkers to city police forces across the country. Finding heads with common sense maybe sensible would get a medal and with the number to be issued would not cost very much......