am i missing somthing here? the choir boys in this case are told to stop by the police,and please don,t tell me they did not know these guys were cops. they ignore those commands, one choir boy guns his car towards the cop, while the other pretends to reach for something. and some people can,t figure out what went wrong? these guys knew they were being confronted by the police. thugs like them can sniff out cops in their sleep.

Gentlemen.

We have here the classic case why private citizens have a right to bear arms.

Look at the pathetic posts here.
Those policemen are the victims.
Those policemen are underpayed.
Those policemen work harder than everyone.

The NRA is right. The right to bear arms is important in defending one`s self against the government.

If the guys that swallowed 50 bullets had been legally armed the policemen who shot them would have had an easier defense. Just think of the possibilities...witness tampering...evidence tampering...

quote:

Originally posted by hydragoat:
Gentlemen.

We have here the classic case why private citizens have a right to bear arms.

The NRA is right. The right to bear arms is important in defending one`s self against the government.

Good idea, genius. A bunch of belligerent drunk idiots with concealed weapons.

Sure, why not? Why not have all those morons dead, instead of just one?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by hydragoat:
Gentlemen.

We have here the classic case why private citizens have a right to bear arms.


The NRA is right. The right to bear arms is important in defending one`s self against the government.
QUOTE]

I agree with the right to bear arms. I'm also a lifelong member of the NRA. I carry a concealed weapon. The NRA believes in the Second Amendment and how it is there to protect the citizens of this country from a "tyrannous" government.

You sir, have a dangerous mindset. I think I speak for several people when I say that comments like yours give us Second Amendment pushers a bad rap. Do us a favor and don't help.

quote:

Originally posted by flyboy25177:

I carry a concealed weapon. The NRA believes in the Second Amendment and how it is there to protect the citizens of this country from a "tyrannous" government.

You sir, have a dangerous mindset. I think I speak for several people when I say that comments like yours give us Second Amendment pushers a bad rap. Do us a favor and don't help.

The "sir" is a nice touch.

What would you have done if you were on the receiving end of those gun shots?
You can be a spokesperson for "several people" and "us Second Amendment pushers" if you wish.

I make sure my lifestyle is such that I would not be in that type of situation. He, on the other hand, chose the wrong side.

Fair enough.

I could not answer that question either.

Why do you carry a concealed gun?
U know...the lifestyle answer you gave. Seems contradictory.

Like I said before. I believe in the right to bear arms. I made my wife take her saftey course and get her permit. She now carries a small handgun with her. The reason for that shouldn't have to be explained. I myself carry mine on late night walks after work. We live in the worst possible area in our city, and with the amount of drug trafficing and drive-by's I like the idea that I can protect myself if needed.

quote:

Originally posted by hydragoat:
Gentlemen.

We have here the classic case why private citizens have a right to bear arms.

Look at the pathetic posts here.
Those policemen are the victims.
Those policemen are underpayed.
Those policemen work harder than everyone.

The NRA is right. The right to bear arms is important in defending one`s self against the government.

If the guys that swallowed 50 bullets had been legally armed the policemen who shot them would have had an easier defense. Just think of the possibilities...witness tampering...evidence tampering...

...Probably the most intelligent post on this thread. Leave it to a bunch of misinformed people to somehow find reasoning in an unarmed, black, male life being taken suddenly. Just think for a moment and imagine if things were different and that were your son, brother, father, uncle or friend. Would your opinions be the same? I think not. Don't bother e-mailing me or asking me any pointed questions on this thread. I'm done speaking on it.It is now time for me to smoke in memory of Sean Bell.A life that was cut short when it didn't have to be.

quote:

Originally posted by bklynkid:
am i missing somthing here? the choir boys in this case are told to stop by the police,and please don,t tell me they did not know these guys were cops. they ignore those commands, one choir boy guns his car towards the cop, while the other pretends to reach for something. and some people can,t figure out what went wrong? these guys knew they were being confronted by the police. thugs like them can sniff out cops in their sleep.

Well Said!

the un-armed black male referred to earlier was in fact armed, not with a knife or a gun, but with a 1,500 lb car which he tried to run over the cop with. and as i posted before, please don,t insult my intelligence by telling me these 3 alter boys did not know they were being approached by cops.hoodlums like them can sniff out cops in their sleep. i have worked in that area and without my uniform on mta.i am looked at as a cop.but over there all white guys are cops

quote:

Originally posted by Sean-DeMarco:
...Probably the most intelligent post on this thread. Leave it to a bunch of misinformed people to somehow find reasoning in an unarmed, black, male life being taken suddenly. Just think for a moment and imagine if things were different and that were your son, brother, father, uncle or friend. Would your opinions be the same? I think not. Don't bother e-mailing me or asking me any pointed questions on this thread. I'm done speaking on it.It is now time for me to smoke in memory of Sean Bell.A life that was cut short when it didn't have to be.

Who is to say that even 1 shot would not have killed Sean Bell? Would you have a problem if only a handful of shots were fired?

There is no question that those guys resisted the police. I've seen drunk guys out in front of bars at 4am here in NYC enough times to know that more often than not, some moron(s) will decide to get in the face of the cops.

The difference is, most people, even the drunk ones, have the good sense to comply when they think they have crossed the line. Adrenaline kicks in and it tends to inject a little common sense into their drunk brains. At that point, they comply or they let the arrest happen...they don't flee into their cars and try to run down the cops.

Any idiot knows that if you try to run down a cop, there is a good chance you will get shot at.

quote:

Originally posted by Sean-DeMarco:
...Probably the most intelligent post on this thread. Leave it to a bunch of misinformed people to somehow find reasoning in an unarmed, black, male life being taken suddenly. Just think for a moment and imagine if things were different and that were your son, brother, father, uncle or friend. Would your opinions be the same? I think not. Don't bother e-mailing me or asking me any pointed questions on this thread. I'm done speaking on it.It is now time for me to smoke in memory of Sean Bell.A life that was cut short when it didn't have to be.

Sean Bell is dead for two reasons and two reasons only:

1) he failed to obey an officer who was attempting to question one of his (jailbird) friends

2) he attempted to run down a cop with a vehicle. He didn't accidently hit someone that jumped out from behind a line of vehicles. He hit that officer in plain sight with enough force to embed the officer's pants in the bumper or fender of the car.

Sean Bell's death, while a tradgedy in that a young man lost his life, was caused by his own actions that night.

Leave it to opportunist Al Sharpton to try to make it a race issue when none of the officers were white and 2 of them were black. Al (I refuse to use the term "Reverend" as he is a smear on those that are ordained) should take a look at the whole picture instead of the race of the victims for a change. God forbid it should happen, but I'd like to see what Sharpton would do if he witnessed one of his partners get hit by a car. Al Sharpton, IMHO, is not a Civil Rights Activist. If anyone's a racist, it's him. When is the last time he came to the defense of someone that wasn't black and made it a media spectical? Can't think of one...can you?

Where was he when Berhard Geotz was about to be robbed and instead shot his muggers? Where was he when Reginald Denny was pulled from his truck during the L.A. Riots and was beaten so bad half his skull was literaly caved in? Where was he when ANYONE that wasn't black was a victim of a crime? If he were a true civil rights activist, he would speak out against all crimes no matter the race of the victim. But he doesn't.

quote:

2) he attempted to run down a cop with a vehicle. He didn't accidently hit someone that jumped out from behind a line of vehicles. He hit that officer in plain sight with enough force to embed the officer's pants in the bumper or fender of the car.

Pete, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I can't find any account that says Bell hit an officer or any person, just that he drove into a police van.

I'm also not arguing that deadly force wasn't appropriate, but 50 shots seems excessive, doesn't it?. I mean, several bullets went through neighborhood apartment windows and a Port Authority surveillance camera recorded a bullet shattering a window at the AirTrain station a half-block away, narrowly missing two Port Authority patrolmen. Fifty?

But then, I'm a civilian.

Warning, long post.

I have never been one for playing the race card, however, I do believe cops treat whites differently than they do blacks.

More times than not, blacks get shot while whites get tazed or maced.
There have been many state troopers who have stated on the record that they were told to profile blacks.

There are many whites who never believe these things because it doesn't happen to them as often, if at all.

Coming out of a movie theatre walking straight to my car, I unlocked the door (with the key) and a cop patrolling the lot hit the lights. He somehow thought I was stealing my car even though I had the key.
I had no tickets, the tags were current, and the plates were registered to my vehicle but he still felt the need to check me out.

I was detained and questioned once for sitting in my car outside of a restaurant while waiting on my friend to pick up his paycheck.

I've been followed in department stores by security. I don't dress like the sterotypical "gang banger" during that time I wore suits everyday, but they still followed me.

I worked in loss prevention at a department store and my co-workers (mostly white) very rarely turned the cameras to follow whites, but as soon a a black person entered the door they were practically foaming at the mouth while watching them.

I was driving home from a party once with a couple of buddies of mine. We hadn't been drinking, we each had milkshakes, we weren't speeding, didn't make any illegal lane changes, didn't run any lights, etc, yet I was followed for miles by a cop. I even slowed down so that he could go around me (two lane street) and he chose to stay behind me until I purposefully stuck myself behind road construction forcing him to go around.

None of my white friends have any incidents like mine (most of my friends are white). I'm sure it happens to whites too but I do not believe it happens to whites nearly as often as it happens to blacks.

Even outside of the police racism is very prevalent in our society and it will never go away as long as parents keep teaching it to their children.

My girlfriend who is white, lives in a predominantly white neighborhood. Last year I was walking to firestone to pick up my truck. I passed these two little white girls who were coming out of their house. They saw me and started running. One of them turned around and yelled, "please don't steal our candy". I wasn't even going in the same direction as they were.

Just last week a little white kid came to the door to ask if we needed our lawn cut. When I came to the door he cringed, he looked terrified.
I'm not disfigured, no scarring, in fact most people tell me I'm good looking, but this little boy was scared out of his mind when he saw me.

No one is born a racist, it is taught.

Pool_shark, thanks for sharing your first-hand, personal experience with institutional racism. I think we all need occasional reality checks like your post provided. I can only imagine your frustration and anger.

That being said, though, I think it's also necessary to bear in mind the other reality, which is that the police have to deal daily with people who have been shaped and informed by the hopelessness and rage felt by so many young urban African Americans, the 'nothing-to-lose' despair that's caused by poverty, drug abuse, unemployment, illiteracy, disease and alcoholism, and the ways in which that anger is manifested. Without justifying it, certainly, I can sometimes understand black profiling.

I don't think the percentage of police officers who are true racists is any larger than that of the population as a whole. But since we give them positions of trust and authority, it's incumbent on police departments to do their utmost to identify them and weed them out.

quote:

Originally posted by Jack White:
Pete, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I can't find any account that says Bell hit an officer or any person, just that he drove into a police van.

I'm also not arguing that deadly force wasn't appropriate, but 50 shots seems excessive, doesn't it?. I mean, several bullets went through neighborhood apartment windows and a Port Authority surveillance camera recorded a bullet shattering a window at the AirTrain station a half-block away, narrowly missing two Port Authority patrolmen. Fifty?

But then, I'm a civilian.

Actualy he hit the police van AFTER hitting the officer. It was even reported in the news broadcasts here that he hit the officer, then went into the van. Not to mention that one of the officers heard one of them say, "Yo yo, go get my gun." Check out the thread in the 2nd post.

As far as 50 shots being excessive, I can't answer that as I wasn't there. When I was trained to fire a weapon, we were told that you keep firing until you know your victim is no longer a threat. Meaning either dead or to the point that he can no longer retaliate...if they're moving, they're still a threat. With 3 shooters, 3 targets in a vehicle, the possiblity of one of them being aremed and an instant decision, it's very easy to go through 50 rounds. Officer Oliver fired 31 times in the matter of seconds. He may have been the first one to fire and not been aware of the other officers firing their weapon and with faced with the above scenario, it's pretty easy to go through that many rounds.

The unfortunate thing is that a young man is dead, 2 people are wounded. I feel for their families because they no longer have a son, brother, fiancee, etc. and my prayers go out to them. However, that was a decision that Sean Bell and his friends made with thier actions.

quote:

When I was trained to fire a weapon, we were told that you keep firing until you know your victim is no longer a threat.

That makes sense. But aren't they also trained to be aware of the surroundings in such a case, and cognizant of bystanders and nearby residences in the line of fire? The shooting seems pretty indiscriminate in the Bell case, no?

quote:

Originally posted by Jack White:

quote:

When I was trained to fire a weapon, we were told that you keep firing until you know your victim is no longer a threat.

That makes sense. But aren't they also trained to be aware of the surroundings in such a case, and cognizant of bystanders and nearby residences in the line of fire? The shooting seems pretty indiscriminate in the Bell case, no?

I don't know. I do know that bullets could have ricochetted <sp?> off the vehicle and it's windshield and continued to fly. Yes, a shooter has to take into account alot of things when they fire their weapon. However, there will be times that you will have to fire your weapon with structures behind the target and bystanders nearby.

I don't have law enforcement or military training, so I hope that someone here with that level of experience can address your post.