I have no concern for those who run from cops and resist arrest.
Cops cannot be nicey nice all the time when they deal with these punks.
Furthermore- I say if you do run - cops have the right to beat your ass down.
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I have concern only in as much as this means that the police can shoot/brutalize you any time there aren't witnesses around and say that you were resisting. I know most cops are probably good people but frankly I don't want to trust any government agent with that kind of power.
Yes- abuse of power is bad. DUH - but if we knew the suspect tried to run - either by testimony from other cops, witnesses, security cameras = I have no issues with cops beating suspects down.
I mean seriously how many cops would go - OH great now i can go shoot people and get away with it. I am guessing there are few. Also there would be a record or theme if you will if a cop kept doing that and people would start asking questions.
In the end, the moral of the story is DONT RUN FROM THE COPS YOU JACK ASS!
yeah, but I'm saying if we allow it when there are witnesses then we're pretty much stuck with allowing it when there aren't. And as to whetehr cops would actaully abuse that power, I'd say why not- if you were a cop and you were ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that the guy you were bringing in had abducted and killed a little girl, isn't there a good chance you'd beat the shit out of him a little before putting him in the system? If you knew your case was too strong to get a conviction but you were CONVINCED he was the killer, isn't there a chance you (or someone) would just kill him while you had the chance so he couldn't hurt anyone else?
The problem there is it completely circumvents the idea of trial by jury, which personally I'm a fan of. As I've said, I really don't feel comfortable giving that type of power to any government agent- I'm really pretty insistent on the whole 'innocent until proven guilty, jury of your peers' thing.
Every instance you are talking about is a small percentage. Add to the fact that a small percentage of cops would do that and you are talking about such a small number of possible events that I do not care. Now on the other hand - people run from cops all the time - whether on foot or in a car. So when they catch up to your ass they can beat you down. Maybe that would stop people from running and possible hurting innocent people along the way.
I don't think people are thinking that far ahead when they decide to run. But either way I still feel that I'm not willing to give the government that extra power even if it would bring me some personal safety. You're willing to give them the power in exchange for that safety you think you'd get.
Ironic that you consider yourself a libertarian and I consider myself a liberal.
I find it interesting that no one is discussing the reasons behind why one chooses to run from the cops. I agree that generally speaking, if you run from the cops, it sure looks suspicious (why would anyone who's innocent run?). But the following article delves into that reason a little.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/117605,CST-NWS-mitch31.article
It's easy for someone who is white to universally condemn those who run from cops. Someone who is a minority however has some valid feelings of why you would run from the cops.
Although the student in the article didn't run (and admittedly, the article's author admits that she has no idea whether or not the kid is innocent), the article brings up the notion that innocent young black men are fairly often arrested by the police (and sometimes wrongly convicted) simply because they are black.
If you know that you could be arrested and convicted of a crime simply because of your skin color, you are probably more likely to try and run away from cops.
Darwin - my main argument is not safety. I am sick of cops getting a bad rap for being to tough with criminals. These guys take so much shit on a daily basis and add that with those punks who take off when cops say freeze - I am okay with cops being rough. I am not saying they should be able to shoot the guy (though i will think about it)- I am saying I do not feel bad when criminals get roughed up a bit IF they decide to run.
Every times there is a story like this you hear Cops manhandle suspect. Then you hear from the suspects family about how he is such a nice guy and everyone loves him. They never mention how this asshole is a three peat drug offender with a huge rap sheet and he jumped bail, fled the scene and all that. Cops are always looked at as the bad guys and the crimanals are looked at as the innocent victims. I am sick of that. Thats all - Nothing to do with power or safety or anything like that.
As for Nuclear - my reply is coming.
Yeah, I agree I don't have much sympathy for actual criminals who do something stupid and get beat down, and that it's annoying when people try to spin the cops as brutal/racist shits when actually they're good people trying to protect us.
However the last sentence of your orignial post was 'I say if you do run - cops have the right to beat your ass down,' and I needed to respond to that specifically because I'm not comfortable granting government agents that right.
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