THE MISREPORTED AND THE DEAD: The shooting deaths which get disappeared!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

Who was (the late) John Geer?:
If you watched Rachel or Lawrence last night, there are certain things you weren't told.

In the process, you were misled. Rachel even said some things at the end of her TV show which were just plain false. (If we were like the rest of our tribe, we'd refer to those statements as "lies.")

We're referring to the cable stars' pleasing accounts of Donald J. Trump's recent "mini-strokes" tweet. We'll provide the basics this afternoon, along with the selectively reported basics about the leading suspect in last Saturday's homicide in Portland.

(Their tribe is allowed to hear about that; our tribe basically isn't. So it tends to go at times of tribal war.)

We'll fill you in this afternoon on those recent topics. For now, we'll tell you this:

If you watched Rachel or Lawrence last night, there were certain things you were told. Other things were withheld.

Certain facts were correctly reported. Others were disappeared.

Across the sweep of the national press, a similar pattern has obtained in the matter of police shooting deaths. Certain such deaths have been reported and widely discussed. Others have been disappeared.

The shooting death of Bijan Ghaisar is an interesting case in point. Yesterday, we outlined the basics:

Ghaisar, a 25-year-old accountant, was shot and killed by Park Police just outside Washington, D.C. in November 2017.

Since that time, the Washington Post editorial board has described the shooting death of this unarmed man as a virtual "execution."

The Post has further described the subsequent years of "stonewalling" by Park Police as part of a "cover-up," driven by a "code of silence" designed to protect two officers who "gun[ned] down a man for no defensible reason."

We won't be assessing those claims in anything we write. For the record, we'll add this basic point:

We would assume that most fatal shootings by police officers involve no police misconduct. Our nation is awash in guns, and this widely-noted state of affairs does have its effects.

We won't be trying to assess the conduct of police officers in this case. Our point is this:

The Washington Post is a very well-known newspaper. It has been publishing angry editorials about this "execution" and "cover-up" over the past several years.

Its most recent editorial about the shooting death of Bijan Ghaisar appeared just last month. But the shooting death of Bihan Ghaisar has occasioned exactly zero national discussion, even as the topic of police shooting deaths has come to dominate the public discourse.

Some such deaths get widely discussed, as is completely appropriate. But on the national level, the shooting death of Bijan Ghaisar has been disappeared.

So too with the late John Geer. Geer was shot to death by a Fairfax County, Virginia police officer on August 29, 2013.

As with Ghaisar, so too here. Geer was shot and killed in Washington's Virginia suburbs. For that reason, this shooting death was a "local" story for the widely-read Washington Post.

On the national level, the issue of police shooting deaths had just begun taking off as Geer was shot and killed. Over the next few years, the topic came center stage, even as the Washington Post published angry editorials concerning the circumstances of this fatal shooting and the subsequent alleged cover-up.

The Post is a well-known national newspaper. The glorious stars of the upper-end press read many accounts of Geer's shooting death in the Washington Post.

They read accounts of this shooting death in detailed news reports, and in detailed editorials. The angry editorial shown below appeared a year and a half after John Geer's death, and it wasn't the newspaper's first.

You'll note that some details of this shooting death resemble those in other such deaths—in other deaths deemed worthy of national public discussion:
WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL (2/2/15): In broad daylight and at close range, three Fairfax County police officers saw a fourth officer, Adam Torres, shoot John Geer once in the chest in August 2013. Two other witnesses, Mr. Geer’s father and a friend, also saw it. All five of those witnesses agreed that Mr. Geer, who had a holstered handgun at his feet, had his hands up at the moment Officer Torres pulled the trigger.

Mr. Geer, a 46-year-old father of two, committed no known crime that day. He had been speaking calmly with the officers for almost three-quarters of an hour
when the lethal shot was fired. He then bled to death just inside the doorway of his home.

That was more than 17 months ago, and still there has been no accounting for Mr. Geer’s death.
No charges. No indictment. No prosecution. And no information until last week, when the police, complying with a judge’s order, finally released thousands of documents.

Those documents provide a stark picture: Only Officer Torres contended that Mr. Geer made a sudden movement as if going for a gun.

Everyone involved in this case has dropped the ball and dodged responsibility, enabling what now looks like a coverup in a case of police impunity.

The police, who did not seek medical treatment for Mr. Geer or retrieve his body for more than an hour, falsely claimed Mr. Geer had “barricaded” himself inside his house after he was shot, then stonewalled prosecutors and the public for months.

The top prosecutor
in Fairfax, Ray Morrogh, punted the case to the feds over a supposed conflict of interest involving a courthouse shouting match between Officer Torres and a rank-and-file prosecutor. That seems a far-fetched reason not to pursue the case.

The feds—first the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, then the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division—sat on the case for months more, saying nothing.

Fairfax’s County’s governing body, the Board of Supervisors, seems incapable of getting its own employees
—namely the police and the County Attorney’s office—to conduct themselves responsibly and transparently...

That mind-set seems to have infected virtually every agency in Fairfax, in addition to the feds, that should have stepped up to see that justice was done in the Geer case. The case should be presented to a jury, which can weigh Officer Torres’s account against those of other witnesses. The delay and obfuscation represent a travesty of justice.
Some of these concerns and complaints have arisen in other police shooting deaths—in other deaths deemed worthy of national discussion.

The police didn't offer medical treatment, or retrieve Geer's body, in timely fashion? In our view, there was an explanation for that which wasn't crazy. In our view, the same was true in the case of the late Michael Brown.

That said, in the shooting death of Geer, it seems that it actually was a matter of "Hands Up, Got Shot." In this case, no one had to invent that claim in order to make a story read better. According to three (3) police officers on the scene, it seems that it actually happened that way in the case of the late John Geer.

As Fairfax County's alleged stonewalling dragged on and on and on and on, the Post wrote many editorials along this line. Here's a bit of the paper's first editorial, a full year after Geer's shooting death.

Headline included:
WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL (9/5/14): The unaccountable death of John Geer

At point blank range, a Fairfax County police officer a year ago fired one shot, killing an unarmed man standing inside his home.
The man, John Geer, was distraught and had been drinking—his longtime [common law wife] had moved out and called police when he threw her things into the front yard—but he held no hostages, brandished no weapons and, so far as we have learned, posed no serious threat either to police or to public order. (Mr. Geer did own guns, which he apparently told police.)

Shot in the chest, he was left to bleed to death inside his doorway while police officers, remaining outside the house, did nothing for an hour. Five and a half hours after the shooting, his body remained sprawled on the floor where he died.

Incredibly, the authorities in Northern Virginia—including Fairfax County police and state and federal prosecutors—have refused to furnish any explanation for this stupefying sequence of events last Aug. 29 in Springfield. They have stonewalled.

[...]

At every juncture, the authorities appear to have abdicated their duty
of accountability, both to Mr. Geer’s loved ones and to the public...
Press poobahs read many such editorials in the Washington Post. (Or who knows? Maybe they didn't bother!)

Beyond that, they could have read many detailed news reports about what happened that day. For one early example, click here.

As the year 2013 moved on into 2015, the topic of police shooting deaths became a major national focus. But the shooting death of John Geer was granted exactly zero attention within the national press.

In the past few years, the shooting death of Bijan Ghaisar received the same treatment. Other such deaths were widely discussed, as is completely appropriate. But these other unimportant deaths were wholly disappeared.

Now for a bit of a flier:

We regard LeBron James and Doc Rivers as eminently sensible, decent, mature, intelligent men. We wish we could say the same for many national figures within our frequently ridiculous corporate press.

We hold James and Rivers in high regard, as do the people who know them. We're also willing to make a guess:

James and Rivers strike us as very sensible and very decent. But we'll guess they've never heard of the late Bijan Ghaisar or of the late John Geer.

We'll guess that they've never heard a single word about those shooting deaths. Is it possible that misperceptions might take root, then proceed to grow, in such journalistic soil?

Tomorrow: Shot dead in Shasta County

67 comments:

  1. Defunding the police is the only way to get them to change their culture.
    This is the USA. You want someone's attention? Hit 'em in the wallet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 11;37,
      Good point. The deep-seated bigotry of such a large chunk of the electorate, is starting to look like the only American Exceptionalism left.

      It would certainly help, if the corporate media would stop gas-lighting us by saying "we're better than this".

      Delete
    2. Having LBJ (a Democrat) enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also got us Trump (as well as Nixon and Reagan).
      BTW, it was still the right thing to do.

      Delete
    3. LBJ would run with something smarter than "defund the police".

      Delete
    4. I've heard plenty of good arguments as to why we should defund the police.
      Are there any good faith arguments to be made to not defund them?

      Delete
    5. See "Portland, Oregon" for the answer to this.

      Delete
    6. Those good faith arguments are rarer than a freedom-loving, "Don't Tread On Me" t-shirt wearing, 2nd Amendment absolutist who doesn't recommend buckling under to authority.

      Delete
    7. Demilitarizing the police is much better framing than defunding. Let's shift some of that Robocop budget into better recruiting and training.

      Delete
    8. "Portland, Oregon"
      Defund the police, and they'll come to the table. You won't need protests to get their attention.

      Delete
    9. https://www.foxnews.com/us/black-portland-police-sergeant-defund-police-concern

      Delete
    10. "The cuts shuttered programs like the gun violence reduction unit, a youth services program and ended the presence of school resource officers in three school districts."

      This is why you zero out their budget, and re-negotiate on a line item basis.

      Delete
    11. Putting police in schools isn't necessarily a good idea.

      Delete
    12. The city of Portland OR has a referendum process. If rioters think defunding the police is so popular why are they not gathering signatures daily instead of setting fires nighty?

      Delete
    13. I think the vast majority of voters there really don't want the police defunded. Wonder if gun sales there reflect the national surge going on right now too?

      Delete
    14. Gloucon, you aren't making any sense. You are confusing the rioters and looters with protesters. The protesters are working toward legal change. The rioters set the fires. They aren't the same group of people.

      We get it that you don't like Portland protesters, but be fair. Not everyone marching is a rioter.

      Delete
    15. "The protesters are working toward legal change." Really? Where? Show your evidence. I watch the live feeds and I don't see any of the protestors holding clipboards gathering signatures ever, let alone at 1 AM every night when they're busy cheering people lighting fires.

      Delete
    16. Would you see it if they did, Glaucon X. You can't even see the obvious racism black people deal with on a daily basis.

      Delete
    17. Show us the 98 days or "legal change" work that 98 days of rioting produced?

      Delete
    18. This, perhaps?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auE5X68l-DE

      Delete
    19. Glaucon X,
      Before the protests, were you spending a lot of time discussing policing in America?

      Delete
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  2. Stories like this should accompany any discussion regarding police reform.
    The media are lying down on the job.

    ReplyDelete
  3. John Torres, the Geer shooter, was fired, charged with 2nd degree murder, plead down to manslaughter, and served a 1 year sentence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adam Torres, sorry. Too early to post, not enough coffee.

      Delete
  4. "Rachel even said some things at the end of her TV show which were just plain false. "

    Lol. "Even", dear Bob? 'far as we can tell, she hasn't said a single word in her whole life that wasn't plain false.

    As for the shooting, okay, maybe the cop accidentally pulled the trigger. Maybe he's a nice guy, and maybe other cops and "the authorities" aren't in a hurry to prosecute him.

    Tsk. That's life, dear Bob. Shit happens.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As an insider in the oil & gas industry, I'll just say her recent book "Blowout" was good. Very readable, she did her homework and the leftward slant wasn't overbearing. It's a shame she doesn't bring this relative objectivity to her show.

      Delete
    2. Lol, a good one. Thanks for the laughs, dear dembot.

      Delete
    3. Ешьте дерьмо, тролль

      Delete
  5. “We would assume that most fatal shootings by police officers involve no police misconduct.”

    The incident that sparked the recent massive round of protests, the death of George Floyd, was not a shooting.

    BLM’s focus goes beyond shootings by police officers to include all aspects of the interaction between African Americans and the police/justice system.

    Somerby seems to miss this part of it.

    He also seems to imply that, if only the media would report on the other cases that he highlights, then LeBron James might...what? Change his thinking about the police, or about the experience of black Americans?

    This assumes that James is unaware of the other incidents. Somerby admits to not knowing this. It is therefore simply an unworthy speculation on his part.

    Whatever the case may be, it is highly doubtful that James would think differently based upon media coverage of these other shootings. He is entirely capable of understanding more than one thing, especially since he has experienced life and the police as a black man.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The assumption that most fatal shootings involve no police misconduct is incompatible with the statistics showing that black people are disproportionately the victims of such shootings relative to their proportion of the population. Only by ignoring this statistical imbalance can Somerby make such an assertion. Bias is misconduct.

      Delete
    2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/07/03/police-black-killings-homicide-rates-race-injustice-column/3235072001/

      Delete
    3. All statistics about black crime emerge from a biased criminal justice system, starting with police, exacerbated by other inequalities. If you start with the idea that black people are more criminal than others, then you will get biased policing.

      Delete
    4. You start with the idea that black people are more criminal than others because you can't help but notice the much bigger pile of bodies killed by blacks and their disproportionately higher rate of violent criminal acts.

      Delete
    5. It is a vicious circle. You assume that those bodies are killed by black people, which is biased, so you arrest someone black for the crime, which contributes to the statistics that cause you to make that assumption in the first place. If you are looking for and suspicious of black people, then you will disproportionately arrest them and they will have a higher rate of crime.

      Remember those five teens arrested for wilding in NYC. Remember that they were innocent? There are high rates of black people who have pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit, or been convicted due to inadequate representation. Use of DNA and the Innocence Project are showing that many are now being exonerated after being falsely convicted. Our justice system is messed up. You cannot trust statistics coming out of that mess. We don't know what the true rate of black crime is, in any category (type of crime). We DO know that white people associate higher crime with being black. We know that from psychology studies. That is a bias that will influence whatever someone does, from cops to jailers to judges.

      Delete
    6. Yeah, they was "innocent", all right.

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflixs-false-story-of-the-central-park-five-11560207823

      Delete
    7. The disproportionate rate is a fact, it is a number, obvious to everyone. The reasons for that disproportionate rate and not obvious, but the fact of our American history of racism toward black people is a pretty obvious place to start explaining the rate.

      I'm done discussing anything more with you. I am convinced that you are a Russian troll attempting to spread dissension among liberals. If not, you are a huge asshole and not worth the time.

      Delete
    8. "The fact of our American history of racism toward black people is a pretty obvious place to start explaining the rate."

      Very good. There may be some hope for you after all. I see that it's not that hard for you to do critical thinking after all. Once we acknowledged the facts of disproportionate rates of black violence, a rational, and very necessary discussion of the cause of the rate can begin. Unfortunately, that's not what the owners this country and their corporate mass media and their army of thoughtless minions want.

      Delete
    9. Poverty.
      Now that the causes of crime have been acknowledged, a rational and very necessary discussion of what to do about it can begin.

      Can we do this with white collar crime next?

      Delete
    10. "Can we do this with white-collar crime next?"

      Sadly, no. There's no sign that the owners of this country want to do anything about white-collar crime, or the poverty that fuels violent crime, or any other serious problem.

      The basic thesis of this blog is that corporate-owned mass media deliberately fuels irrationality on all serious topics. They want to misdirect you with nonsense and encourage you to fight over trivia. Lemmings follow the corporate mass-media scripts, which ensure that no problem ever gets solved.

      The insanely wealthy crony-capitalist oligarchy that owns your country has built a perfectly tuned mechanism designed to grow their wealth and power. We are not allowed to tinker with perfection.

      Delete
  6. Almost every modification to the environment to benefit those with physical disabilities has wound up improving access for those without disabilities too -- an unintended consequences of the ADA.

    Similarly, enacting changes to policing that will eliminate racial bias and related cover ups of police misconduct will benefit black, brown and white people as well. A cop who misuses his or her authority to abuse minorities is not going to be a good cop in other respects, so enacting reforms encouraged by BLM will also affect the quality of policing experienced by all people in police encounters.

    Somerby perhaps hopes to reduce BLM's complaints to triviality by suggested that there be a white version of BLM, one for Muslims, one for Hispanics, one for women, and so on, because he dislikes identity politics (and perhaps the existence of distinct subcultures in a multicultural society). But people are diverse in important ways, whether Somerby likes it or not.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Implicit in Somerby's ongoing focus on non-black shootings is the belief that a policing reform movement should focus on all races and ethnicities, misconduct in general, for everybody. There are reasons why BLM is focused on black problems.

    First, race has been an ongoing problem in the USA and racial bias still exists and manifests most strongly in policing because that jobs attracts people with such a bent and gives them power to enact abuses. Some police forces are rife with overt white supremacists.

    Second, the methods for organizing around racial issues already exists among African Americans, while it does not to the same extent in other groups. There may or may not exist organizations ready to take up the cause among other ethnicities, nor a tradition for asserting civil rights claims.

    Third, public acceptance and support for BLM may partly reflect the bad experiences white and Hispanic and other groups may have already had with policing in their own lives. People may already be viewing BLM as a group with a wider scope than just black lives -- Somerby does tend to be excessively literal and in this instance may be more literal than white supporters of BLM about their ultimate aims.

    Fourth, I doubt that Somerby is sincere in his suggestion that white people are being abused by police too. I believe this is likely a subterfuge to undermine the claims of BLM and portray the cops as generally NOT engaging in misconduct, because white people are shot too, and thus imply that BLM is out of line for complaining (playing the race card in order to get special treatment they do not deserve). His insistence that white shootings be a big deal nationally, like black ones are, is actually a suggestion that no shootings become nationwide causes because the cops are just doing a difficult job and treating all people the same (he has never demonstrated that and it is untrue statistically and anecdotally).

    I'm sure that Somerby's preference is that no one ever be shot, but I don't see any interest on his part in addressing any policing issues, unlike most liberals who do support both BLM and the need for reform.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Portland exemplifies a situation that exists all over the country, where a liberal city core is surrounded by conservative rural areas. Portland and Seattle are not only surrounded by rural conservatives but have a flourishing white supremacist organizational network of militias and gun-toting bigots. Their history has been studied by David Neiwert who lives in that area and has published several books about the white supremacists there. Hunting culture in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho has been supplemented by white people who have moved to those areas explicitly to get away from minorities. These groups rally the troops with call-to-arms via the internet, as do the protesters. So the cities are focal points for protest and mayhem.

    Trump is making a fuss about planeloads of antifa coming into cities, such flights are apocryphal whereas it is truckloads of white supremacists and militia members, with their guns, coming into the cities to defend Trump and incite conflict (boogaloo) with protesters. Rioters and looters tend to be locals taking advantage of the situation, not antifa (there is no such organized group). All BLM protesters are anti-fascist, but the same cannot be said of the Trump supporters.

    Covid rioters include the anti-mask contingent and are paralleled by riots in other countries over covid restrictions. The frustrations of being shutdown, having no job (or business activity), not being permitted to congregate with friends, perhaps no health care or help for family members, etc., contributes to tensions that result in riots. BLM only provides the excuse. While Trump has focused antagonism on BLM protesters, he has simultaneously encouraged white supremacists to participate in the civil unrest. Between rock-throwing rioters and gun-toting militia members, the latter are far more dangerous to both law and order, democracy and people's well-being. It is ironic that just when the public is demanding police reform, vigilantes pop up all over the landscape.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Somerby will no doubt talk about Kevin Drum's post today about the contempt of the educated for the less-educated. Drum quotes a study of bias against the uneducated, which says: "Beyond revealing the disparaging views that college-educated elites have of less-educated people..." Isn't it kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy to label a group "elite" and then find that it holds "elitist" views? I find the word "elite" applied to educated people to be disparaging too.

    Then Drum conflates the uneducated with Trump voters, saying "Liberals, by contrast, all too often write them off...their attitude seems to be that if people are stupid enough to vote for Trump, then screw them." These are not necessarily the same people. The first factor that determines whether someone will vote for Trump is race, followed by education among men, but not women. Even less-educated women are no longer voting for Trump.

    I do think that anyone stupid enough to vote for Trump deserves him, but not because of education level. I often don't know what someone's education level is when they proclaim their love of Trump. GOP Senators are hardly uneducated, yet they are supporting Trump. I think there is a special kind of stupid required to vote for Trump and I think it has nothing to do with education.

    On the other hand, bias against the educated seems rampant to me. Somerby displays it and so does the Harvard researcher who labeled the educated "elites" without considering the difference between a state university education and a stay at Harvard. Somerby is more of an elite with his Harvard undergrade degree than is someone with a state university PhD. East Coasters are more elitist than those on the West Coast or Midwest and nothing in the South is considered elite.

    I don't think Kevin Drum thought his remarks through very well. He might ask himself why it is always the elites who are busy criticizing other people for being elitists (and Republicans, who invented the term and applied it to those with college degrees, in order to curry favor with their own less educated base). Harvard grads are often mocked for their ability to mention their Harvard degree in any sentence, no matter what the topic of discussion. That's not a game played outside the Ivy League, where most educated people got their degrees.

    Kevin Drum is just saying that liberals should stop being critical of Trump voters, again. I disagree. I believe there should be a social stigma for Trump voters and that every ounce of peer pressure we can muster should be used to get them to reconsider. Coddling them when they have imperiled our country isn't going to win the next election, and no amount of sneering is going to keep them away from Dear Leader. It is never that Trump voters didn't know any better. They vote for him because he will shake things up, own the libs, create chaos and do stuff they can laugh at (and about), such as supporting Rittenhouse and falling down ramps. He is their class clown.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. People vote for Trump as a big "screw you" to everyone else, so why can't we return the sentiment?

      Delete
    2. Because we're adults and confident enough in our positions to explain them to our neighbors?

      Delete
    3. Trying to explain your position to your neighbors will be like trying to explain anything to Cecelia. First, you will have great difficulty getting her to pay attention. Then you will have to ignore the smirks and adolescent quips. She will be too busy performing her act to listen. Your neighbors will be no different, except some will be like Leroy and will return toads for your politness.

      Delete
    4. I don’t have any problem with your having a political position different from my own or with your “explaining” it or championing it. Folks do.

      I’ll engage in that kind of exchange when I wish. If ever. My chief interest is in reading the blogger. I find him compelling and challenging. Not Anonymices.

      Delete
  10. From Rawstory:

    "A Trump supporter who allegedly shot a woman with a paintball gun during clashes between far-right and far-left groups in Downtown Portland is being sued for $250,000, according to The Oregonian.

    In her lawsuit, Meg McLain said she was observing a pro-Trump rally when Alan Swinney intentionally shot her with a paintball gun, bruising her breast. During the rally, counter protesters arrived in the scene and unrest ensued.


    Swinney was photographed pointing the paintball gun towards the counter protesters and firing. He also apparently pointed an actual firearm at the counter protesters but did not shoot. According to McLain’s attorney, police ignored Swinney when she told them what he had done.

    Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/trump-supporter-hit-with-250k-lawsuit-after-hes-caught-on-video-shooting-paintballs-at-counter-protesters/#.X0_CsD7ZGNY.twitter

    Maybe Trump will pay his legal fees, elite that Trump is with his fancy college degree and his inherited wealth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Meg needs to post a photo so we can keep abreast of this important issue.

      Delete
  11. “We would assume that most fatal shootings by police officers involve no police misconduct. Our nation is awash in guns, and this widely-noted state of affairs does have its effects.”

    According to https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/, a database that BLM uses. In my state of Oregon, over the last seven years, 125 people out of a population of more than 4,000,000 were killed by police, only 11 were unarmed, and only one of those was black. Yet black leaders here state openly that these numbers reveal a police campaign of genocide against blacks.

    The truth is that the corporate owners of our mass media are dedicated to the goal of erasing crucial data on crime and policing from the public discourse, which they orchestrate. They are conducting a deliberate and hugely successful campaign of hysteria and a war against critical thinking.

    On a personal note, I wish them success. For the sake of the rest of the world, a country as stupid as this one needs to descend into chaos and civil war and hopefully destroy itself so that it can no longer harm others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My home state of Texas shows 2.2x Blacks to Whites killed, yet .9x Latinx to Whites. Perhaps the Blacks need to learn from the Latinx community here to see what they're doing differently. Stronger family values and work ethic?

      Delete
    2. Unable to afford to buy guns. Greater avoidance of cops due to undocumented status. Greater avoidance by cops due to gang activity. Fewer Hispanic people in large cities as opposed to smaller towns where they are known individually by law officers. More Hispanic law officers in Hispanic areas. Lots of potential reasons.

      Delete
    3. @6:14, Harris County, Texas (Houston and environs) is 43% Latinx. Maybe they're just better neighbors.

      Delete
    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    5. @6:17 PM: I have nothing but encouragement and good will to Americans like you who wage a war on reason and encourage destructive behavior. I'm thrilled that our corporate mass media is dedicated to helping you. Good luck!

      Delete
    6. @ mh: Yes it is! Because that's what the facts show. Ignoring the vital facts is a sign of a person who lacks critical thinking skills. Massively higher murder rate and violent crime rate by blacks is a fact. I wish it wasn't true. You can't make facts go away by ignoring them.

      Delete
    7. "I have nothing but encouragement and good will to Americans like you who wage a war on reason and encourage destructive behavior."

      Big deal. Lots of people are fans of business.

      Delete
  12. Fucking right wing morons.
    Go around the world and look at different societies underclasses. Notice how they are predominately racial, religious, or linguistic minorities. Notice how the social pathologies of the underclass tend to be the same? Higher crime rates, lack of income mobility, drug use, domestic violence and alienation.
    The root cause is tribalism and prejudice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good points. It seems that every society's overclass needs an underclass. And most people of all classes have been taught to believe that an underclass of desperately poor people is necessary and natural. This is especially true here in the USA.

      Delete
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