police: two recent, local incidences that are disturibing

[Kountzer]

Early Sunday morning Dec 7th a Houston police officer, or hpd, who is white btw, attempts a routine traffic stop in an area a few miles from where I live. Lots of apartments in that area; it is a high crime area. Hpd officers should patrol in pairs in that area, or maybe in groups on 3s. Anyway, the driver gets out and runs off, into an apartment complex. The officer gives chase, by himself, a no no in that area, IMO. The driver hides, ambushes the officer, shoots him. The officer is down, the driver, a black male, just 2 weeks out of prison, then goes over and shoots the officer in the head point blank, and kills him. Very sad.

Fast fwd: New years eve, or early new years day @ 2am. this time incident occurs a few miles further away, in the Houston suburb of bellaire. Bellaire is surrounded by Houston. It has its own government, and police force. it is for the most part an upscale, tony area. But it is surrounded by urban Houston. The word on the street has always been watch your step in Bellaire, because the cops are suspicious of minorities. Anyway, a young black male Robbie Tolan is driving home from a fast food burger restaurant. Robbie, who is black, and his family live in Bellaire. Robbie's dad played outfield for the cincinnati Reds, so they can afford to live in Bellaire.

A bellaire police officer, who is white, starts following Robbie Tolan. tolan pulls up to the front of his house, where he lives with his parents, and he and his cousin, who is in the car with him, head for their front door. They are confronted by an officer holding a flash light and a gun. the officer tells them to stop. when asked why the officer tells them their car is stolen. They tell the officer that the suv belongs to them, and that they are at their residence, where they have lived for `15 years. The parents come out, all sorts of noise occurs. robbie is lying down on the ground. the officer grabs his mom and slams her against the garage door. robbie raises up to see what is being done to his mom, and the officer shoots him in the chest.

This happened about a week ago. What to make of it all? I don't know. Police work is stressful. I work in a police type environment. You have to watch what you say and do around those people. They are good people, but hey they carry around big magnum guns and practice with them all the time. And they need them too, as the first incident indicates.

As for the 2nd incident, this guy is driving home, in an suv that is registered to him, to his address. He is in front of his home. An officer pulls him over, and apparently doesn't bother to check his registration over the radio or by computer. I know for sure Bellaire PD have computers in their vehicles. And the guy ends up getting shot in the chest. ?? He is expected to live, but his probable baseball career is ended. I feel a big lawsuit resulting from this one. More info on both of these incidences can be found on google and other places.

DB

[Pockey]

Also, in the bay area:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/06/MNOV154P0R.DTL&type=newsbayarea

[phkrause]

Pretty sad. These things happen everywhere every day unfortunately. But how did the officer know the car was stolen, or was he just assuming because the men were black. By the way when I read the name, I thought to myself that name is familiar. And latter when you mentioned his dad played baseball I knew why the name was familiar.

pk

[Joe_in_RP]

Even secular people know something is about to happen.

[Amelia]

Well, we see that adults are going nuts but so are children. Did anyone see this article I posted in my forum?

http://adventistforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/209549/Boy_4_shoots_babysitter.html#Post209549

[BSW]

All one can say is, come Lord Jesus come.

[Gerr]

A white cop automatically assuming that a minority especially if a black does not belong in a ritzy neighborhood has been repeated probably thousands of times.

[Kountzer]

That's what's so baffling about this whole thing. This was a police sergeant, a sr. officer. All he had to do was run the license plates and see that the suv belonged to Tolan, and that it was registered to the address location where the incident occurred. If he had taken the time to do that the whole incident would of never occurred.

I heard from someone that the officer ran the registration, but there was a lag in response. He then pressed the issue, the whole thing escalated, the young man was shot. News cameras were soon on the scene. It was only then that information came back that the vehicle registration came back clear, meaning that tolan was indeed the owner of the vehicle.

[fccool]

It's kind of unfortunate timing too considering the incident in Oakland when police officer shot a young man hand cuffed on the ground at point blank. They've had a couple of riots this week due to the incident.

I have friends who are cops, and I would like to point out that their attitudes has completely changed. It is very sad, and at times I was fairly disgusted with some of the stories that they were telling... not because of the incident either, but because of the degree of desensitization that they underwent. They were laughing at things that frankly are really sad.

Unfortunately they go by the facts, and in many cases their lives depend on stereotyping people. Just like you have pointed out, they could be wrong, but they could be right. The sad deal is that these people are trained to be "the soldiers of the law", and they do lack the heart and common sense at times.

I do respect what they do, but I certainly do not appreciate their "I am the law" attitude at times, in which case reason is irrelevant.

[phkrause]

I agree with you. Its pretty sad. And I hate to say this but it seems that racism is still alive and well. I think that they need to put the golden rule up at all police stations where they can see it as they are going out to there cars. Or maybe even on there dashboards, so they can see it all the time. And I guess not just for the police but all.

pk