National Guard, police tighten grip on Ferguson, Missouri

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 11 Aug 2015, 08:13

Little John wrote:So....

Some people on here are seriously trying to suggest that over 400 people in the US, this year. elected to "commit suicide by cop"?

**** me......

No they are not. You've just biffed me there LJ!

They are saying that some of them are committing "suicide by cop". I completely agree that the numbers of people shot by police in the US is horrendous and especially that the number of black people shot by police is completely unacceptable.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 11 Aug 2015, 08:16

Thinking about my last reply LJ didn't biff me, he LJ'd me, putting words into my mouth that I didn't say. You should really think about what people write before you make inferences about what you think they are thinking.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 11 Aug 2015, 08:48

Right then. Can we safely assume that the vast majority of those people whop were shot by police in the USA over the last year were not engaging in "suicide by cop"? If we can assume that, then what the bloody hell is such a, frankly, ridiculous term being used in this debate for in the first place except to obfuscate around the central fact of over 400 people being shot by the cops? I mean, come on....it's bloody obvious that term was dreamt up in some Fox newsroom or police reputation-damage- limitation meeting.

It's so f***ed up it's funny.

Indeed, I have just been reading up about the use of this term and, surprise surprise, it was coined by the cops in the USA when dealing with a case of someone who was shot by the cops. So, a country, where f***ing loads of people are shot by cops, just happens to be the same country where, apparently, loads of people elect to "commit suicide by cop".

F--k me......

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 11 Aug 2015, 09:25

The problem here is that rather than concentrating on the underlying question as to why so many people are shot by US cops the debate then becomes whether a very small number of those are "suicide by cop". In fact that question is not the significant question.

I spent some time looking at the question as to deaths in custody in the UK. This was substantially related to questions of mental health and how people who are mentally ill, who can be quite threatening or even violent, were handled.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 11 Aug 2015, 10:22

Which begs the obvious question of what it is, in any given society, that breeds violent forms of mental illness? Could it be, perchance, poverty and insecurity existing in a dog-eat-dog cultural environment that glorifies violence and provides a legal framework whereby such violence is efficiently expressible by the population at large via deadly technologies?

Oooohhh....let me think...that's a hard one....

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 11 Aug 2015, 11:00

Whereas it is fair to say that people's depression etc can be accentuated by their circumstances, mental health is not all circumstance related.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 11 Aug 2015, 11:14

johnhemming2 wrote:Whereas it is fair to say that people's depression etc can be accentuated by their circumstances, mental health is not all circumstance related.

In colloquial terms, there are three types of mental illness; sad, mad and bad.

All of these have a genetic component. The third one, even, may be argued to not even be a mental illness at all. That aside, the nature of the expression of any of these conditions is largely culturally determined. If one does not accept that, then one is compelled, in the absence of trying to argue for large genetic differences between the population of different countries, to explain why some countries have a far higher rate of violent expression of mental illness as compared to other countries

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 11 Aug 2015, 11:15

Little John wrote:So....

Some people on here are seriously trying to suggest that over 400 people in the US, this year. elected to "commit suicide by cop"?

**** me......

No not all ,or even a major fraction of the 400 deaths. I was referring to the one video where the gunman was clearly waiting for the cops to show up after he did something to create a 911 call.

tpals · Post by **tpals** » 11 Aug 2015, 14:28

I have heard a UK armed response policeman use the same 'suicide by cop' phrase. It's not unusual.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 12 Aug 2015, 01:44

vtsnowedin wrote: In local news there was a local woman that had her nine year old child taken away from her by state officials. (No details of why have yet been made public). She responded by taking a deer rifle and killing three of her relatives,(presumably those that reported her to the state) and then went down to the local government office and shot dead the social worker that had processed her child's case. Passers by pined her down and disarmed her and held her until the cops came on scene.
Imagine yourself as one of those passers by?

Time for a bit of update.
News story today said the shooter had once been arrested for having 43 bags of heroine inside her body. Paper didn't say where but it took a visit to the local hospital to recover them. This explains why she was laughing at the cops as they arrested her.
Heroine addiction is a growing problem in Vermont which seems odd as most turned away from it back in the late seventies. Why it has come back is a mystery to me.
This struck close to home as a friend of the family works for the state agency the social worker worked at and my wife and daughter drove past the crime scene on the way to the market while they were still sorting out the bodies.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 12 Aug 2015, 08:14

The correlation between socially dysfunctional levels of drug taking and alienating urban poverty is a mystery to you? Seriously?

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 12 Aug 2015, 08:57

What would you say is the causal relationship?

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 12 Aug 2015, 09:29

Self medication, though it may or may not be defined as such by the drug takers themselves. In other words, poverty, in a society that has massive disparities of wealth and a cultural narrative that essentially blames the poor for being poor, is inevitably going to lead to high levels of mental distress which will express itself as a variety of mental disorders. This will lead to a greater probability of individuals living under such conditions to be quickly pavlonially conditioned to consume any chemical that reduces, if only temporarily and illusorily, the feelings of hopelessness and mental stress that such poverty engenders. Not everyone of course, But a far higher prevalence than in those who are better off. Also, it's not even the fact of the drug taking. It's the dysfunctional levels of it. Indeed, the fact that many people, despite the massive psychological pressures on them in such environments, do not take drugs, is a testament to the adaptability of the human spirit to the most difficult of circumstances. However not all people are that strong and so the weakest will fall through the net soonest. All of which gives the scapegoaters something easy to latch on to, of course.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 12 Aug 2015, 10:46

Little John wrote:The correlation between socially dysfunctional levels of drug taking and alienating urban poverty is a mystery to you? Seriously?

Well alienating urban poverty isn't suspect here. Berlin VT, the site of the first three murders has a population of 2864 or a density of 78 per square mile. My home town has a population of 1250 for 31.2 per square mile.
The largest "city" in the state of Vermont has less then 40,000 people living in it and three towns have zero year round residents and are just a moose pasture.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 12 Aug 2015, 12:03

vtsnowedin wrote:
Little John wrote:The correlation between socially dysfunctional levels of drug taking and alienating urban poverty is a mystery to you? Seriously?
Well alienating urban poverty isn't suspect here. Berlin VT, the site of the first three murders has a population of 2864 or a density of 78 per square mile. My home town has a population of 1250 for 31.2 per square mile.
The largest "city" in the state of Vermont has less then 40,000 people living in it and three towns have zero year round residents and are just a moose pasture.

And are the levels of poverty in both towns the same?