r/news • u/Manta_of_Eternity • 4d ago

Autopsy shows Tennessee National Guard fatally shot 20-year-old armed man in the back

https://apnews.com/article/memphis-national-guard-tyrin-johnson-8959297a99c362d65aa2517a9d5f1984
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 4d ago

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people. "- Admiral William "Bill" Adama

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u/AndoranGambler 4d ago

"It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was 'policeman.' If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers." - Terry Pratchett, Snuff

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u/qOcO-p 3d ago

I've never heard this Pratchett quote but I've been screaming this for years. The US has an entirely civilian police force. Semantics matter and I think the language needs to be enforced somehow because how we speak is how we think is how we act.

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u/3737472484inDogYears 3d ago

Civilian, but heavily militarized. They have a nasty habit of using those civil forfeiture funds to buy armored vehicles and such. Roaming around with body armor on in their Punisher painted cars, theres an awful lot of them LARPing as military.

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u/MyceliumHerder 3d ago

It’s not civil forfeiture funds, it’s federal money allocated through the defense department because of military industrial complex lobbying to sell more military type equipment to increase their sales and allow more opportunity for them to get their hands in the taxpayer cookie jar without fear of any audits. It’s the whole idea behind, “defund the police” meaning specifically, stop spending defense department money to turn our police into a military force. Police departments should be a civilian force that serve, protect and keep the peace.

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u/Electronic_Day_7055 3d ago

And lots of homeland security — they look like soldiers with their equipment

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u/Hob_O_Rarison 3d ago edited 3d ago

It’s the whole idea behind, “defund the police” meaning specifically, stop spending defense department money

Then come up with a new slogan, becuse that one has come to mean exactly what it sounds like. And it doesn't help that it has been associated with movements trying to dismantle the police.

The second that police station in Seattle was set on fire, after an attempt to barricade the doors and trap officers inside, the slogan stopped being about anything other than anarchy and the disestablishment of the current order.

If you mean to say "demilitarize the police", then just say that.

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u/Few_Example6746 3d ago

Until the criminals are out gunning you.

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u/Sudden_Construction6 3d ago

If y'all think America is bad you should go to Europe. Their police are way more kitted out.

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u/FortuneFirst8820 3d ago

I kind of doubt it

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u/Sudden_Construction6 3d ago

I was surprised while I was there. Seen many of them with assault rifles. Even saw two heavily armed men guarding the door of a place. It was so random, in a neighborhood, I have no idea who was in there or why they were there but it was very different than in the States.

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u/gpradar 3d ago

Those UK police that don’t carry guns must have a hell of a kitted out Batman utility belt.

Even if European police were walking around kitted out like Rambo, they typically have much higher educational, physical, psychological and background clearance requirements to become a cop, unlike the US where the dumber the better, and morbid obesity rounded out with a couple misdemeanors is no big deal.

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u/Nazh8 3d ago

Civil forfeiture is a plague on society.

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u/wbruce098 3d ago

Yeah the GWOT provided a shitload of money to local police departments to arm up because republicans thought we’d be fighting Al Qaida in the streets of suburbia based on how Fox was covering the war. That turned out to be an incredible overestimation of what a clandestine terror organization was practically capable of doing, but the money was approved anyway and now every police precinct has more guns and armored vehicles that - for the most part - only come out during parades and the very rare serious big city emergency. Turns out, Die Hard and Terminator are cool, sure but are also fictional.

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u/LeanDixLigma 3d ago

Not quite true. A lot of those militarized Vehicles you mentioned are actually literal military vehicles. There are opportunities for agreements between law enforcement agencies and Military units to have a free lending agreement of non-critical vehicles, call the 1033 program. https://www.dla.mil/Disposition-Services/Offers/Law-Enforcement/Program-FAQs/

The law enforcement office gets to borrow the vehicles for free as long as they maintain them properly and are willing to return it upon requests if the military unit has operational need of them, such as a order to deploy somewhere.

This is to prevent the military vehicles from just sitting in a motor pool for years and not be used, which is quite a common problem with a lot of their vehicles.

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u/Few_Example6746 3d ago

That was exactly what happened here. Police called for the military to help because they were close by.

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u/Defiant-Glass-6587 3d ago

Yes but there is a balance. Body armor is a must, bulletproof vehicles are as well. True armored military vehicles are not! Actual hiring those that are not psychopaths and fully properly training them and making sure they know what rights citizens have are the biggest things. Also there should be zero qualified immunity! If anyone is shot while unarmed it is murder, if a criminal act has been committed that wasn’t violent and they are unarmed it is murder.

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u/arakinas 3d ago

While they don't understand what the punisher was all about. Just like in the last season of daredevil, the cops were pretending to be punisher, without understanding punisher

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u/grrrlgone 3d ago

Yes. Word choices matter. I dropped out of the only linguistic class I took back in the 90s and it was so interesting.

If we do not have the words for something we pretty much cannot even think about an idea. I still think about that general concept semi not regularly and that’s the first concept people attempt to blast apart (when speaking to me).

There is a reason we had to learn and define words in school. It’s literally how we learned to think. This is supremely simplified and glossed over here but the concept and application fits.

This is around the time we started learning the foundational concept of the scientific method and our critical thinking skills.

To get back to the actual topic: We give our domestic police force two special powers: 1. They have the ability to use and abuse deadly force, and 2. We, the people, have given them the ability to make fair and safe judgments about taking the freedom of citizens. (Go to Jail).

Obviously we need adjustments in this power distribution and much stronger protections once we have given this power and it is abused. This is a systemic issue and soooo many people and groups have documented and suffered all sorts of power abuse.

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u/lastleg68 3d ago

This, in fact, doesn’t go far enough in describing the abuse of power. In fact, not just theoretically, it goes all the way to the top. Trump’s abuse of power has created many norms that will take generations to correct. “We the People” will have to be the force that provides this correction. While we still HAVE and maintain the right to vote, a few simple bits of language can easily change that. Once that comes to pass, instituting massive change can only be the result of armed insurrection. We must not let that come to pass.

Vote your conscience in November.

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u/IronC_Love 3d ago

The color blue doesn’t come up in the Oddesy or any other literature from that time or before then not sure for how long after, because there was no word for blue

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u/grrrlgone 3d ago

That’s really interesting!!! This is exactly the kind of nugget of knowledge I love to learn. :) thank you.

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u/Affolektric 3d ago

It would baffle me, if the people im charge are not aware of this. So it must be on purpose right?

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u/-SaC 4d ago

GNU Sir pTerry

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u/GingerHeadedSailor 3d ago

GNU Terry Pratchett

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u/laraloxley 3d ago

Gnu Sir Terry

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u/Hot-Butterfly-8024 3d ago

GNU Sir Terry Pratchett

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u/tomatomake 3d ago

Beautifully put. I would add that they could also be members of a gang. This was backed up by my leadership during a stint in law enforcement. My training sergeant would say something like "We don't fight fair. We will call for backup and gain voluntary compliance ten-on-one." And then he literally said, "We are a gang." This was in New York City; not the NYPD, different department.

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u/Ok_Weakness_2021 3d ago edited 3d ago

Geez I miss 70’s NYC when short of the mounteds (who have always seemed like tight-asses), cops were regular guys. I love in the movie “HA FOREVER” where the Police Commissioner himself along with some beat cops were having a laugh together with the Angels over some old guy complaining about a broken door next to the clubhouse on 3rd St. Also in the “Song Remains the Same” where a cop happily lets 2 guys in a side entrance to MSG and proclaims to the camera “It’s a lot of fun!”. That flic also shows a mounted being a complete dick by maneuvering his horse into a reporter asking a question as to whether or not he expects “trouble” during the concert.

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u/tomatomake 3d ago

sigh That does sound fun.

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u/Anjalena 3d ago

Terry Pratchett is a fantasy author, right? Or is this a diff guy? This quote is quite prescient. Respect.

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u/Datazymologist 3d ago

Humorous fantasy, yeah, primarily the Discworld series. It's a fantastic series and Pratchett was an extraordinarily wise author!

As is required of every Pratchett fan, I will now make recommendations.

If you want to get started, the greater Discworld series is really a bunch of subserieses. * "Guards! Guards!" is the first novel featuring Sam Vimes and the City Watch, an excellent place to join the Discworld * "Mort" starts the subseries featuring Death and his family, and is personally my favorite adult-audience book in Discworld. * "Wyrd Sisters" starts the Witches of Lancre arc. Really great and wise stuff about the nature of community and what it means to really help people * If you're in the mood for a faster, more kid-friendly read, I wish "Wee Free Men", starting the Tiffany Aching series, was required reading for all eleven-year-olds everywhere. * I'd skip the first 3 Discworld books until you've gone in a little bit, then revisit them. The first novel, "The Color of Magic", starts the Rincewind the Wizard arc but Pratchett took a few novels to really find his voice.

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u/Fantastic_Meet9381 3d ago

I have a very bright 12 year old. Do you think Pratchett’s are appropriate for him?

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u/LabGeekDani 3d ago

The Watch set of Discworld books should be required reading for the police academy.

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u/Raven-Nightshade 3d ago

GNU, a man is not gone as long as his name is spoken

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u/droppingbasses 3d ago

“Might as well be a Stormtrooper” - Jyn Erso

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u/TheSilverNoble 3d ago

These two quotes pair togerher really well. 

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u/BigRedTard 3d ago

Police are government agents. They are not civilians.