Calls for Charges after Video of Fatal Shooting of Black Man in Georgia

[DADDYROCK]

I thought I had mentioned that that country is broken,this is how broken.

 

Noam Chomsky - The Crimes of U.S. Presidents

 

[RUPERTKBD]

2 hours ago, stawns said:

Watched another story about this........apparently the young man was poking around a house under construction across the road from the father's house and that's what led them to think that he looked suspicious.  It doesn't change much, but adds some context

nvm

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by RUPERTKBD

[Ryan Strome]

2 hours ago, stawns said:

Watched another story about this........apparently the young man was poking around a house under construction across the road from the father's house and that's what led them to think that he looked suspicious.  It doesn't change much, but adds some context

I watched another video where it says they claimed it was a citizens arrest. Again doesn't change anything imo.

[CBH1926]

Two suspects have been arrested.

Former Georgia Police Officer And His Son Arrested In The Death Of Ahmaud Arbery

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/07/852464328/former-georgia-police-officer-and-his-son-arrested-in-the-death-of-ahmaud-arbery

 

[Ryan Strome]

1 hour ago, CBH1926 said:

Two suspects have been arrested.

Former Georgia Police Officer And His Son Arrested In The Death Of Ahmaud Arbery

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/07/852464328/former-georgia-police-officer-and-his-son-arrested-in-the-death-of-ahmaud-arbery

 

Good to see.

[BPA]

But aren't they they the good guys with guns???

 

[Kanukfanatic]

21 hours ago, SILLY GOOSE said:

 

 

I don't post news threads at all,but I had to share this.  I am absolutely &^@#ing pissed off right now

No idea what actually happened as that video is crap. I wonder if there is actual video of the entire thing?

 

What is the back ground of all parties?

 

Sorry...don't want to get facts in the way of a hyped up video.

[Lionized27]

6 hours ago, BPA said:

But aren't they they the good guys with guns???

 

This isn't about guns.

Not that long ago people who committed a heinous crime such as this used rope.

[RUPERTKBD]

16 hours ago, stawns said:

Watched another story about this........apparently the young man was poking around a house under construction across the road from the father's house and that's what led them to think that he looked suspicious.  It doesn't change much, but adds some context

I haven't seen this. Do you think you can post it? I sort of recall one of the men charged making a claim something like that, but nothing to corroborate.

 

Meanwhile, this morning I read what I think is a good article about the systemic issue of "Citizen's arrest" laws that are all to often the root of these types of incidents:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/08/us/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-citizens-arrest-blake/index.html

 

Quote

 

It looks like every black man's nightmare.

A deserted Southern road. An open-carry state. And two armed white men chasing you in a pickup truck.

That's the scenario Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old unarmed black man, faced when he went jogging in a Brunswick, Georgia, neighborhood and encountered two men who later said they thought he was a criminal. A newly surfaced video appears to show Arbery tussling with one of the men before a shot rings out, blood spreads on Arbery's white T-shirt and he staggers off before collapsing.

That video has sparked national outrage. But there is another, rarely talked-about aspect to the encounter that should attract as much scrutiny: The citizen's arrest laws that make it possible for ordinary people across the US to stop any man they deem suspicious.

No discussion of Arbery's death would be complete without reexamining the value of these citizen's arrest laws. I've been stopped by armed white men in a different scenario. These laws make me feel like another bull's eye has been slapped on my back.

Citizen's arrest laws feed into dangerous male fantasies about taking out the bad guy, says Carol Anderson, author of "White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide."

"Every Tom, Dick and Harry strapped with a gun thinks they're going to play Clint Eastwood," she said.

Anderson, a professor of African-American Studies at Emory University, believes citizen's arrest laws are a vestige of a time when whites tortured and killed innocent black men.

"They reflect the era of vigilante justice and lynching," she said.

I know from personal experience what it feels like

The two armed men in the video told authorities they were making a citizen's arrest because they thought Arbery looked like a suspect in a recent string of burglaries. The men, Gregory McMichael and his son Travis, were arrested Thursday and and face murder and aggravated assault charges in the February 23 incident.

A Georgia law says civilians can arrest someone if they have immediate knowledge of an offense or if a perpetrator is trying to flee after committing a felony.

But Anderson says placing that type of police power in the hands of ordinary citizens is dangerous because many white people are "primed" to see black or brown men as violent threats. She cited the case of Trayvon Martin, a black teen who was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch coordinator in Florida in 2012, and an influential Stanford University study that showed how even trained police officers were biased to see illegal behavior in black men when there was none.

"Tamir Rice was a 12-year-old child playing with a toy gun and they rolled up on him and shot him dead within two to three seconds," Anderson says, referring to a 2014 incident in which a Cleveland police officer fatally shot the boy. A grand jury declined to indict the officer.

As a black man, I know from personal experience what it feels like to have armed white men detain you.

I had boarded a commercial flight in Miami and was waiting for the plane to take off when I saw them come down the aisle towards me. They were four grim, muscular white men in polo shirts and jackets with walkie-talkies. Their eyes rested on me.

They said a passenger had reported that I had triggered an airport alarm. This was no citizen's arrest. But I still felt helpless, and angry. I was taken off the plane and searched by airport security. I stole glances at their holstered guns as they rifled through my bag. I could feel their eyes watching every move I made. I held my breath and tried not to flinch.

I was lucky. I got back on the flight and returned to my life. I was about Arbery's age when this happened.

Professor: Citizen's arrest laws are relics from another era

Weeks after Arbery's shooting, we may get a legal resolution. Atlantic Judicial Circuit District Attorney Tom Durden, the third prosecutor in the case, said this week he'd submit evidence to a grand jury once the state's coronavirus restrictions were lifted.

But more needs to be done. What about a wholesale review of citizen's arrest laws? Why are they still needed when we have police, and 911 -- and when so much can go wrong?

Others have asked the same question.

Ira P. Robbins, a professor of law and justice at American University Washington College of Law, wrote in a 2016 research paper that the authority to detain, and even use physical force, is too much power in the hands of untrained citizens. He said a citizen can abuse the privilege, the laws are often ambiguous and people are often unsure about how long they can detain someone or what amount of force is allowed.

Citizen's arrest laws are relics from another era, Robbins wrote. They arose in medieval times because there was no police force or modes of transportation to quickly reach crime scenes. Citizens were expected to assist their king in detaining offenders.

"Citizen's arrest is a doctrine whose time should have passed many decades—or centuries—ago," Robbins wrote. "As official police forces became the norm, the need for citizen's arrest dissipated. Yet these arrests are still authorized throughout the United States today, whether by common law or by statute."

It will be up to the legal system to decide what actually happened to Arbery in February. But as long as America has the most armed civilian population on the planet, open carry laws and antiquated citizen's arrest laws -- a lethal combination -- there will more tragedy.

There will be another Ahmaud Arbery.

 

In the first section of the article I have bolded what I think is the most telling and most accurate line in the article. It's this "wild west" gunslinger mentality that all to often leads to tragedy...

[stawns]

10 minutes ago, RUPERTKBD said:

I haven't seen this. Do you think you can post it? I sort of recall one of the men charged making a claim something like that, but nothing to corroborate.

 

Meanwhile, this morning I read what I think is a good article about the systemic issue of "Citizen's arrest" laws that are all to often the root of these types of incidents:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/08/us/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-citizens-arrest-blake/index.html

 

In the first section of the article I have bolded what I think is the most telling and most accurate line in the article. It's this "wild west" gunslinger mentality that all to often leads to tragedy...

 

 

Citizens arrest is a joke, a dangerous one

 

[RUPERTKBD]

6 minutes ago, stawns said:

 

 

Citizens arrest is a joke, a dangerous one

 

Yeah, this is kind of what I thought....reports of Arbery poking around a house....

 

Kind of like how Trayvon "looks suspicious".....

[BPA]

4 hours ago, Lionized27 said:

This isn't about guns.

Not that long ago people who committed a heinous crime such as this used rope.

No doubt it's a racial thing.  But certainly guns are convenient/easier when do something this heinous.

Ropes were used to display their hatred.  Pretty sure they had other weapons to coerce their victims to comply. 

[stawns]

23 minutes ago, RUPERTKBD said:

Yeah, this is kind of what I thought....reports of Arbery poking around a house....

 

Kind of like how Trayvon "looks suspicious".....

Agreed, doesn't change anything for me.  I just hadn't heard that prior.

[Wilbur]

1 hour ago, stawns said:

 

Citizens arrest is a joke, a dangerous one

 

Way back when I did security guard training and they went over citizens arrest.  The general message was "Don't" because citizens arrest might as well be called "101 Ways to Get Charged For Illegal Confinement"

[NewbieCanuckFan]

 

 

1 - nobody actually shot
2 - in his own house
3 - white people breaking in

4 - black guy gets charged/arrested pretty quickly.

5 - State of Georgia

 

MAGA!!!

 

Topic of this thread:

 

1 - unarmed black jogger gunned down

2 - two white wannabe mall type cops carrying out vigilante justice

3 - a LONG TIME goes by before public pressure forces the prosecutor to get off their butt

Edited May 8, 2020 by NewbieCanuckFan

[Pickly]

As a runner this whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. What the hell is wrong with people and what the F is wrong with the US? That country keeps making itself a bigger joke on the world stage with this stuff continuing to happen. I hope these two get the death penalty for this. Probably won’t though cause..you know..

[DADDYROCK]

I hear that the shooting took place back in February and if not for the video surfacing and people seeing just how heinous a crime it was that poor guy and the community may not have gotten JUSTICE at all.

The prosecutors saw the same video and didn't press charges until it hit the web,some of those people in the southern USA can't be trusted to deal out JUSTICE fairly and should lose their positions of power.