Of authority figures being the judge, jury and executioner for black people? I am so tired of hearing these stories. These people are going to get so good at killing us, they will be pros by the time they come for you.

including one of my nephews. Thankfully he's out now.
Show our children these stories and tell them to stay away because we are hated

If you can perform, no one gives a crap what your skin color is.

Much nicer not to have to deal with folks who can only see everything through a racial lens. Ya know?

Last edited Thu Apr 21, 2016, 08:34 AM - Edit history (1)

Fugg that

They really are way ahead of most other institutions in that regard.

Plus a bunch

And they don't get punished in any way, shape or form. Will anyone be held accountable for this? Hell no. They'll instead be given a slap on the wrist, maybe some sensitivity training and they'll be sent back to the bullpen. This has got to stop!!! Nothing is going to change until we start holding police accountable for their actions.

Mental illness should not give cops carte blanche to take your life.

These for-profit prisons hire the dregs, don't provide any training and then
put them in positions they are not qualified to hold. I've seen these kinds
of articles way too many times now for it to be considered an anomaly.

People die in conditions we wouldn't allow our pets to endure and the public
foots the bill for the lawsuits that follow. The pain inflicted on this man's poor
family must be overwhelming.

It's disgusting. And the wrong sorts are ALWAYS drawn to this work.

The cowardly types always want to be in positions of authority over the helpless.
Who would drop a bottle of water out of the reach of a person and then just leave
them writhing on the floor? And the "medical" sub-contractors are little better.
They almost always decide the person is faking it than provide needed medical
attention. More profit for the jailers. We pay for the wrongful deaths after all,
not them.

that paint the authoritarian leaders in a bad light.

What can one say on a message board that will matter? Outraged is, in the end, a very feeble word to express the feeling this article, and others like it engender.

that are critical of any authority. They don't like protestors, OWS, whistle-blowers, investigative journalists, and apparently complainers, as one might call this thread. I think it's an authoritarian problem.

very few bother to discuss.

I haven't yet done the research(don't really wish to) to see if it's an authoritarian streak or just apathy.

And currently work on a unit that accepts people who are arrested but need psych care. It's hit and miss and depends on the arresting officer if a mentally ill person winds up in jail or hospital. I might give a longer response when I have time. The criminal justice system/ mental health overlap is shockingly dysfunctional.

Why doesn't the community do something about it?

Is the entire city this sick, too?

I do remember learning about the Tulsa Riot, when the whites went upon a rampage over an invented accusation, and even enlisted airplanes and dropped bombs on the segregated section where black people had offices, stores, homes, etc. as they burned it to the ground in pure fury.

They didn't bother to learn about the story's accuracy, and they didn't care. It was merely an opportunity for them to vent their psychotic hatred on another group of people.

As already mentioned in this thread, the article is absolutely painful to read.

God help those who live without powerful connections in Tulsa. It would be a living hell.

Haven't we?

that poor man. I am sick from just reading this, he was tortured until he died.

That's it; a simple declarative sentence. The people in charge tortured Elliott Williams to death. Now, what is the government of Oklahoma going to do about it?

candidate suggested the nation adopt more severe torture techniques. There was little push back from the political or media establishment.

Every.Damn.Day.

It was the prison staff who tortured and mocked him and denied him needed
medical attention until it was too late.

This country is effing messed up. We've effectively criminalized mental illness.
And what passes for criminal justice is pathetic.

They (and by extension and necessity, we) are operating under an Us-versus-Them model, with the tiniest minority holding all the power.

I understand why it works in jail and in prison. But there's no way it should work out on the streets of a free society. We should be up in arms and we're not and it makes me sick and sad.

lacking swastikas on their uniforms?

If you click on the link you'll see that the OP quotes the headline verbatim.

visited on PoC--especially black people--specifically because of their race, which is why we have the BLM movement.

Do you really think the outcome would have been the same regardless of race?

I lived in Tulsa for 9 years and this doesn't surprise me at all. Some things in Oklahoma just never change.

Have you not been paying attention for the last several decades? The police have been getting bolder in their killing of unarmed black men. Google black man killed by police and you might figure out why this DEAD man's race might be important to the article, the writer and the OP.

Care to comment of the subject of the article?

Really?

policies coming into play again....

... that's about all I can say after reading about that poor young veteran. Sounds like no one had any education or training at that jail. Wonder if the Justice Department in DC ever heard about this case? Eric Holder was in office at that time. I live in a red state, but I can tell you, if this had occurred in my state? That jail would have been shut down and everyone who came near that young man in those 5 days would be arrested before questions were asked. It's about the worst shame in the world for a man to have served in the military and come home to be arrested for being out of his mind with PTSD, instead of being sent to the hospital, and then the cops break his neck trying to restrain him, and then they proceeded to torture him until he died.

This makes me question the little bit of faith I have left.

have erased most of my remaining hope.

Poor dad should've immediately contacted the NAACP who have attorneys that could have forced these horrible racists to allow his father to see him.

All of these people should be fired and prosecuted.

Guns, money and lawyers.

Joke?

When I think that this has apparently been going on for CENTURIES, and we have not yet stopped it, I can hardly stand to think about it! THIS HAS TO STOP!

Cruelty has been cultivated by right wing TV and radio for decades now. Limbaugh actually promotes bullying.

Fascism cannot take root where there is tolerance, kindness and fairness.

What we have now is a nation on the brink of 1930's Germany.

These assholes need to be prosecuted.

when they get up in the morning?

And what the fuck -- they decide he's faking paralysis without even doing the simple foot test until the day he died? This is so sick, how can they not be charged with premeditated 1st degree murder? The lot of them...

Or have super human strength

My daughter and I just finished talking about my 12 year old grandson and what he's going to do this summer. He's still a boy. He's going to do 2 weeks of boy scout camp and he's volunteering for a week at cub scout day camp. He's a big kid. He's 5ft 5in and weighs 160lbs. He's black. He's a great kid, excellent student. Never in trouble and very mature but we're afraid he could be doing something completely normal hanging with his buds and get killed for looking like the imaginary menacing black man. He doesn't have Street smarts yet because he's still just a boy and starting to feel out cutting those apeon strings. He's going to do some goofy stupid kid stuff but that's a much riskier mistake when you are a big black kid.
His dad is great but he just got a terrific promotion at work and has to be out of state most of the summer for training or we wouldn't be this worried. I was going to wait to retire until Sept but I told them tonight I would retire in July and stay with them this summer.

The police in this country are rotten to the core. RIP Mr. Williams.

Do they look for people who lack empathy and basic decency to fill these jobs?

I find it disturbing that many people saw this and not one of them questioned or tried to get him some help.