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Originally Posted by JustRalph
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Originally (read 'pre-riots') 3/4 of the officers were acquitted on all charges and the 4th officer was acquitted on one charge and in favor of an acquittal (with maybe a hung jury?) on the other charge.
my attempt at a point was that an acquittal does not imply the absence of 'real' problems. You had the police brutality(regardless of whether the scumbag deserved a good ass kicking), and it was caught on tape and they were STILL going to be acquitted!
The King case was interesting in that (in contrast to Gray's case) it was an act of
commission. It was also a notable case of being before it's time in what we see today with the cell phone cameras being introduced as evidence.
Gray's case was one of 'omission'. We lacked the evidence to 'prove' guilt to any of the officers, although we can see that the system did not work properly.
To the credit of Baltimore, there will now be police worn cameras, there will now be working cameras in the paddy wagon, as well as some other attempts such as a medic now being required to be provided upon request(guess we'll see how much this is abused by suspects...) and 'verification system' that somehow is supposed to ensure that officers are familiar with protocol. Guess we'll see how some of that goes.
So maybe this will put an end the 'rough ride' phenomenon for good? If any police are doing it, it would be on tape, and if someone is lying or self injuring, it would be on tape. Seems like a common sense improvement that could have been made after some of the other 'rough ride' cases became an issue in Baltimore (before FG).
Political topics can be difficult to be rational about. We all are here for the emotional energy. This shit would be too dry and boring to debate for free otherwise. There's the whole polar opposite left/right thing going on. It's a heated rivalry.
