Why Black People Running From the Police Makes Perfect Sense

[joshcryer]

1. I've seen enough episodes of COPS to agree with this.

I don't know why I watch COPS (I just watched yesterdays' episode where some guy got busted with marijuana and admitted to distribution, he'll be serving a good 5 years minimum, probably a lot more). Perhaps I watch just to sit there in bitter contemplation. I've seen literally one decent exchange that I can think of in over a decade of watching (interestingly, another marijuana case, but it was in Nevada, where the first offense of any amount of marijuana is a warning; they let some kid off with a glovebox full of marijuana).

Anyway, I'm rambling. COPS show police as these extremely aggressive people who basically ruin lives. It's also why I think police abuse is glossed over. The police on COPS take people down like in any video we've seen which led to injury, but we don't see massive injury, so we're conditioned to think it's acceptable.

There was a poster here who talked about how hard life is once you lose your ID and documentation. Forgot his name, Renew Deal? Randome? Started with an R. He pointed out that once he lost his documentation it was nearly impossible to get it back and he had zero recourse. Can't get a job can't get a place to live, can't do squat. Need a support system to even begin to recover from something like that. It's not just about not wanting to go in to get the documentation, it's about not having the various requirements to be able to get it back. If you can't prove who you are, you are a ghost.