Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver on Cops Getting to be More Militarized

One Response to Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver on Cops Getting to be More Militarized

1. 

   Cory August 21, 2014 at 1:50 pm #

   Sorry guys. While that presentation was funny in a black comedy sort of manner, I 100% support the governor’s curfew and every piece of military equipment law enforcement possesses, with the sole exception of the vehicles mentioned. Major metropolitan areas might need an APC, but no more than two, and those things should never see the light of day except during SWAT training exercises. But small towns? Just like the video mentions, absolutely ludicrous.

   Here’s what I see as the problem as Mr. Oliver presents it: lack of understanding and trust between the two sides. Having the equipment (like riot gear, AR-15s, protective masks, etc) is one thing; it’s how you use it that matters. That said, with the picture of the black guy in the blue tanktop having all those guns aimed at him, we don’t know what was going on at the time the picture was taken. How do we know he wasn’t walking towards them, they told him to stop so they could question him from a distance, and in his “fuck da police” frame of mind, kept on walking toward them? In a situation like that, the police would absolutely execute “escalation of force,” which that photo exemplifies. Without context, judging that photo sight unseen is unfair and biased.

   As regards the governor’s “punish everybody,” yes it’s a case of curing the disease by killing the patient. But if the civilian population can’t police itself of the bad elements who are only using this incident as an excuse to damage/destroy property and commit acts of larceny & who knows what else, then they brought it on themselves and have no one to blame but themselves. The same exact statement applies to the appearance of law enforcement in riot gear: you brought that on. Don’t want to see it? Then demonstrate peacefully and within the law, and you won’t see it.

   Essentially, the only point Mr. Oliver makes here that I agree with is some of the completely insensitive and asinine comments & orders that a few of the law enforcement representatives have made.

   One last thing: the statistics “proving” that Ferguson police profile racially. If the majority of your town’s population is black, then the majority of your traffic stops are going to be of black folks. If black people per capita tend to commit more crime than their white counterparts, then the majority of your arrests & convictions are going to be of black folks. It’s called “probability,” and any attempt to “whitewash” (pun very much intended) this is merely an attempt to dodge responsibility by black leaders to address the problems within their own group and make them out to be victims. Sorry, I’m not buying it. Just like the caveat Mr. Oliver made at the end where he says “I’m not saying all cops are bad, they’re not,” that logic goes both ways. Meaning, I’m not saying all of Ferguson’s black inhabitants are criminals, they’re not. But just as there are bad apples in the police force, you better believe there are bad apples in the civilian population, and it’s those bad apples that are causing everyone to wig out over all this. Weed out those bad apples, or just have them not bring their Molotov Cocktails to the protest, and you’ll start to see the cops showing up in their regular duty uniforms.

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