Am I simply missing the OPs on the Baltimore Freddie Gray killing by police?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

The story seems to be getting a lot of press on TV, but if there are ongoing OPs about it, I seem to be missing them (or having some sort of brain blank episode and not remembering having read them.) I think I saw one or two early on, then it seems to have disappeared.

I realize there are new police killings of black men what seems to be every single day, but off DU the story seems to be getting a lot more coverage.

(This is the guy who was chased down and arrested because he 'made eye contact with police' then turned and ran away. Thankfully, somebody cameraphoned them, and you can hear him screaming in pain after they take him down to the pavement to 'secure' him. They drag him to a police van and ignore his pleas for medical attention for 40+ minutes, a week later he's dead, and they say his spine was something like 80% severed.)

Now obviously he wasn't running with an 80% severed spine, and he was in police custody from that point on until his death. Something happened between the time they 'took him down' and he started screaming in agony and that 40 minutes later when he finally got medical attention. Now the media seems to keep talking about his time in the van, the fact that no seatbelt was put on him, etc, but if I were a betting man, my money would be on it happening just before he started screaming in pain. Which would mean that however his spine was almost completely severed, it was a direct result of what police did to him, and not simply to some sort of negligence in 'securing him' with a seatbelt in the van.

My guess is that the police, knowing they can't simply blow this one off entirely, are angling to have it passed off as simply some sort of 'accident' from him not being seatbelted in the van. They don't want to admit that something they did while 'subduing' him directly led to his death, just as in the Eric Garner case. That he was killed BY a policeman, and not simply 'had an accident' while in custody.

[JonLP24]

1. Yes

I saw themmore like a week ago I haven't on a DU for a few days before yesterday or so I about around within last week I saw a few. Pretty lengthy. Baltimore. The take off, the van, etc. I've seen many posters suggest what you are betting on. One said there is a name for deliberately giving people in the back a bumpy right.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141066678

The threads I'm thinking of were posted in GD not LBN but there have been threads.

[justiceischeap]

3. "Nickel ride" I believe it's called.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nickel+ride

"Nickel Ride" refers to the act of police officers throwing suspects into the back of a police transporter. The suspects are left without restraints and are thrown around due to the reckless driving of the police, who intend to harm the suspect.

[justiceischeap]

2. There have been a few posts about it

but it seems people are more outraged by TPP and Clinton at the moment.

[daleanime]

11. Trust me....

plenty of outrage to spread around. Because there's plenty to be outraged about.

[Crabby Appleton]

4. Yes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026533750

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026544398

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. Thanks (to you and the other repliers as well.)

I still haven't figured out which forums/groups I should be looking under to find these sorts of stories.

I'm beginning to think we should have a new subtopic under 'Justice & Public Safety' just for acts of police brutality and killings of non-police by police.

[TexasProgresive]

6. Try the link to see a list of DU posts

https://www.google.com/search?q=freddie+gray&sitesearch=democraticunderground.com&gws_rd=ssl
Freddie Gray died after 'medical emergency' inside ...
www.democraticunderground.com/101410722...
Democratic Underground
3 days ago - 3 posts - ?2 authors
Freddie Gray was “arrested without force or incident” after a knife was found in one of his pockets and only required hospitalisation due to ...
US Department of Justice opens probe into death of Freddie ...
www.democraticunderground.com/101410734...
Democratic Underground
2 days ago - 3 posts - ?2 authors
Amid the public outcry over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, the U.S. Department of Justice is opening an investigation into the ...
6 Baltimore police officers suspended in Freddie Gray case ...
www.democraticunderground.com/100265406...
Democratic Underground
3 days ago - 5 posts - ?3 authors
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/charging-documents-freddie-gray-ran-from-police/32468120. Baltimore City police have since suspended six ...
Baltimore officer suspended in Freddie Gray case accused ...
www.democraticunderground.com/100265467...
Democratic Underground
2 days ago - 4 posts - ?3 authors
The Baltimore police officer who led the initial chase of Freddie Gray, the young man who died after being arrested and suffering a broken neck, ...
New video makes clear Freddie Gray was seriously injured ...
www.democraticunderground.com/100265501...
Democratic Underground
1 day ago - 1 post
New video makes clear Freddie Gray was seriously injured BEFORE he was dragged into police van. Shaun King @ShaunKing
"no evidence of any use of excessive force" - Democratic ...
www.democraticunderground.com/100265443...
Democratic Underground
2 days ago - Freddie Gray died Sunday, a week after Baltimore city police arrested him. A charging document obtained Monday by the Baltimore Sun said ...
Baltimore man dies, was healthy at arrest, spine 80 ...
www.democraticunderground.com/100265337...
Democratic Underground
4 days ago - 14 posts - ?12 authors
Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man injured during an arrest by Baltimore police last week, died Sunday morning at Shock Trauma, according to ...
More Than 1,000 March In Baltimore To Protest Death Of ...
www.democraticunderground.com/101410738...
Democratic Underground
1 day ago - 2 posts - ?1 author
BALTIMORE (AP) — The Justice Department said Tuesday it has opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Freddie Gray, a black man ...
Baltimore police name officers suspended over suspect's ...
www.democraticunderground.com/101410732...
Democratic Underground
2 days ago - 8 posts - ?4 authors
Freddie Gray, 27, was arrested by white officers on April 12 and died on Sunday after slipping into a coma. A preliminary autopsy report said he ...
'F*ck You! F*ck That! F*ck CNN!' Baltimore Protester Grabs ...
www.democraticunderground.com/100265497...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. I really suck at using the search function.

Maybe I need to cough up some bucks for the star membership to be able to use 'advance search'.

[Lurks Often]

7. No, you aren't missing the OP's

There were some when it first happened, but between DU's short attention span, Hillary running for President, the TPP, combined with, in my opinion, a somewhat more subdued (for lack of a better word) sense of outrage when these things occur in cities run by Democrats, most of the OP's have disappeared off the first page.

[justiceischeap]

9. I think it's a more subdued attitude because, sadly, we have a new story

every week it seems. It's hard to keep up with them all and even harder not to get desensitized to it all. I've been following Grey's case 'cause I'm not far from Baltimore and I want to see if it's handled any differently/better than previous cases.

[JonLP24]

10. Exactly

I was reading a Houston small business owner robbed for $34,000 by police literally seconds before this OP was posted.

[Lurks Often]

12. Shrug, I see it as a reluctance to be too critical of a Democratic politician

in this case, the Mayor of Baltimore.

How often do the heads of the police departments lose their jobs when one or more of the police officers does something like this? How often do senior police officers, the ones ultimately responsible for the training and supervision of the police out on the streets lose their job in these cases?

Until our elected officials are made responsible for the actions of the people and departments they are supposed to oversee, don't expect things to change very much.

[JonLP24]

14. I really doubt people pay much attention who the mayor is when it comes to these stories

Who thinks about the mayor really? Most of these stores are occurring in urban centers, what are odds the mayor is Democrat? I don't know, I personally didn't pay attention.

I actually know Stephanie Rawlings-Blake because of O'Malley & an interest in The Wire.

O'Malley still believes that 100,000 arrests in a city of 600,000 is a great idea.

BALTIMORE —Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday she will not combat crime by returning to the days of so-called mass arrests of minor offenses.

In an opinion-editorial piece published Wednesday in The Baltimore Sun, Gov. Martin O'Malley stepped up his campaign to get the city to go back to what he did when he was mayor: have a policing policy that led to more than 100,000 arrests per year -- many for minor offenses.

The mayor and governor are widely seen as friends, but they are not on the same page on this issue and the continuing debate, the mayor said, is causing many communities to worry.

"Homicides are going up for the second year in a row, and shootings are up year to date. Why? I believe it has to do with the fact that enforcement levels have fallen to a 13-year low," the governor wrote.

O'Malley called critics of his policy "ideologues on the left." . . .

"Honest minds can differ, but this honest mind is also fact-dependent, and the data show that more arrests didn't lead to a safer city," Rawlings-Blake countered Wednesday.

More: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/mayor-vows-not-to-return-to-days-of-mass-arrests-in-baltimore/22118078

She actually is an improvement over her predeccessors who advocated "zero tolerance policing"

David Simon on Martin O'Malley

To quote him: "In my city, Baltimore, we had a mayor, Martin O'Malley, who decided he was going to escalate the drug war. Zero tolerance was his mantra, and he put it out there: "Get everybody off the corners. Clear the corners." He was running for governor, so, for political reasons, he was basically trying to clear the street a year in advance of the election. We were filming The Wire in Baltimore at the time. And it got to the point that my African-American crew members and actors couldn't get back to their hotel without getting locked up, because they were driving while black. It was just presumed they were out there to cop drugs. So every now and then I'd have to go down and bail out my assistant director or one of my actors. Now, that was what was happening to people who were somewhat notable and had something to say to the cop. Can you imagine how many regular Baltimoreans went down to the city jail charged with nothing?"

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/30/david-simon-americas-war-on-drugs

Though you should read this thread of DUers supporting the wrong Baltimore mayor who advocated MORE of this.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026444039#post74

The issues with the Baltimore PD way back, I wouldn't suggest losing her job already because of this (cops also have very strong due process & administrative leave, leave with pensions, etc). I would suggest she bring in former Phoenix Chief Garcia (He was fired because the unions wanted him gone for his reforms)

City Manager Ed Zuercher had previously directed the chief not to hold the news conference, and terminated Garcia for insubordination immediately following the meeting.

The chain of events led many to speculate that Garcia had intended to get himself fired, a claim he flatly denied Monday in an interview with the Arizona Republic.

Garcia believes he was let go for airing unflattering information about the city, not for defying an order.

At the December news conference, Garcia touted his accomplishments — leading the department with 600 fewer officers and coming in under budget while the city experienced a continual reduction in crime.

The labor groups held a vote of no confidence in what they hoped would spur his ouster. The move was prompted in part by the suicide of a former officer who had been fired by Garcia for a DUI, despite the chief's knowledge of the officer's post-traumatic stress disorder.

<snip>

In response to public cries for officer accountability, Garcia blasted the city's civil service review board for what he said were insufficient disciplinary actions for officers that were largely shielded from the public.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2015/01/05/ex-phoenix-police-chief-garcia-terminated-line-duty/21310357/

The article lacks a lot of information. He also added body cameras which caught bad police.


Officer's body camera reveals 'unprofessional conduct'

PHOENIX -

Video has just been released of a Phoenix Police officer fired for unprofessional conduct. That officer wore a department-issued body camera for three months. The video captured by that body camera led to his termination.

This all started with one complaint against the officer for unprofessional conduct. Investigators went back and looked at all of his body camera videos. He was eventually fired after what they saw.

Video: "Turn around and look at me because I'm [expletive] talking to you, you piece of [expletive] now get the [expletive] over here."

Officer Richard Greco on a domestic violence call: "What in the [expletive] is your problem? What do I want you to say? Why can't you get along with your family? Why are you pulling your wife out of the car? Then [expletive] you, you're going to jail."

http://www.fox10phoenix.com/story/22798945/2013/07/09/officers-body-camera-reveals-unprofessional-conduct

He got blasted for showing sympathy to the mother of a deceased from an officer involved shooting. He brought in and asked DPS (highway Patrol) to do the investigation (an Independent). The man is out there c'mon mayors!! Give this man a job. Please. Though I'm sorry the cop had PTSD & killed himself because he got fired for DUI but c'mon cops are getting people fired all the time because they arrested them.

[FSogol]

17. O'Malley aready moved away from those policies while Mayor of Baltimore

From a 2010 article in the Baltimore Sun:

A lawsuit filed in 2006 on behalf of 14 people alleged that their arrests indicated a broad pattern of abuse in which thousands of people were routinely arrested without probable cause. The suit also alleged that the so-called "zero tolerance" system was endorsed and enforced by city officials under the tenure of then-mayor Martin O'Malley.

In a joint statement with the plaintiffs, the police department said it has agreed to institute policies that reject the "zero tolerance policing" and establish a range of appropriate officer responses to minor offenses. The department will issue written directives that spell out the elements of common minor offenses to ensure that officers are aware of the scope of their authority, and will train every officer on the new policies for offenses, the statement said.

Arrests in the city have fallen by the tens of thousands since O'Malley became governor, and the ACLU and NAACP said in the statement that they recognize that the current city leadership has taken steps to address the issue and "applaud those efforts."

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-06-23/news/bal-naacp-settlement-0623_1_arrests-by-city-police-zero-tolerance-naacp-and-aclu

[AuntPatsy]

13. Here is a good link that up dates daily on videos catching crime...

It's mission is trying to get people to understand in this day and age, they are the media....

http://photographyisnotacrime.com

[MineralMan]

15. Yes, you are missing something.

There have been many posts on the subject.

[fadedrose]

16. Is it only me?

When I'm shopping and see blacks also shopping, couples, kids, and loners, I feel so inclined to approach these folks whom I don't know and tell them not all whites are racists. These killings, one after another, day after day, are terrible for those victims' families, and are causing many whites pain discomfort.

We don't condone this profiling whether it leads to death or not, and at least, makes whites uncomfortable. Our town so far has not shown any of these tendencies, but who would know if they did?

I wish there were a way of making public statements against the use of too much force in the police handling of black people that whites can sign so that blacks as well as the police take notice that we are sad and getting fed up...and the statements should be mailed to all police departments.

This is so poorly worded, but you know what I mean, and how do we handle this personal guilt over what's happening to our black people and their children?

[brush]

19. Thanks for your post. What you proposed is much needed.

Citizens getting involved is what's needed to apply pressure to get police departments off their behinds to get rid of rogue, racist cops.

And we should all keep our cell phones charged and know how to operate the video function. You never know when you might need it to get involved.

[CTyankee]

18. Since it appears this is where we've come ever since the "broken windows"

philosophy of policing took hold, we'd better pay attention. These consequences are just intolerable.