NBA games postponed today p14 Players decide to resume Playoffs

[DASMACKDOWN]

Disappointing that people want to intimidate society into circumventing due process. "Hopefully" for the NBA the uninformed presumptions of these players will turn out to be correct. Hopefully for society they'll be proven wrong and this will be shown to have been justice through and through. We certainly can't know yet. Sadly, maybe we won't ever know. So obvious we need full time body cams and mics on every LE officer in this nation.

Maybe if Blake would have gotten due process he would still be alive.

Blake is alive and stable but now paralyzed.

[League Circles]

Disappointing that people want to intimidate society into circumventing due process. "Hopefully" for the NBA the uninformed presumptions of these players will turn out to be correct. Hopefully for society they'll be proven wrong and this will be shown to have been justice through and through. We certainly can't know yet. Sadly, maybe we won't ever know. So obvious we need full time body cams and mics on every LE officer in this nation.

Maybe if Blake would have gotten due process he wouldn't be paralyzed.

Maybe he did get due process to the extent he made it possible. I totally understand why emotions are running high regarding this but the truth of the matter is that we don't know what happened. It is certainly plausible that he was justifiably shot. It's a sad reality that sometimes law enforcement officers do in fact have to shoot people who are imminent threats to others. We don't know yet whether or not Jacob Blake was an imminent threat to others because we don't have access to the evidence. To be crystal clear, I'm not in any way trying to guess whether or not the shooting was justified. I know what I don't know. And I don't know the evidence. and I'm pretty certain that none of us on this board and none of the NBA players know the evidence either. I have very long held the strong believe that uninvolved citizens and politicians and the like should not really publicly comment on criminal investigations. It circumvents the judicial process. It's irresponsible IMO. This isn't the next chapter in a story. It is it's own event. So sad we don't have full video and more importantly, audio.

[DASMACKDOWN]

It started a movement.

The Brewers and Reds also wont play Wednesday in baseball.

[the ultimates]

Disappointing that people want to intimidate society into circumventing due process. "Hopefully" for the NBA the uninformed presumptions of these players will turn out to be correct. Hopefully for society they'll be proven wrong and this will be shown to have been justice through and through. We certainly can't know yet. Sadly, maybe we won't ever know. So obvious we need full time body cams and mics on every LE officer in this nation.

Maybe if Blake would have gotten due process he wouldn't be paralyzed.

Maybe he did get due process to the extent he made it possible. I totally understand why emotions are running high regarding this but the truth of the matter is that we don't know what happened. It is certainly plausible that he was justifiably shot. It's a sad reality that sometimes law enforcement officers do in fact have to shoot people who are imminent threats to others. We don't know yet whether or not Jacob Blake was an imminent threat to others because we don't have access to the evidence. To be crystal clear, I'm not in any way trying to guess whether or not the shooting was justified. I know what I don't know. And I don't know the evidence. and I'm pretty certain that none of us on this board and none of the NBA players know the evidence either. I have very long held the strong believe that uninvolved citizens and politicians and the like should not really publicly comment on criminal investigations. It circumvents the judicial process. It's irresponsible IMO. This isn't the next chapter in a story. It is it's own event. So sad we don't have full video and more importantly, audio.

This is the only other thing about this I'm going to say to you. Did the internal investigations and due process bring justice for Sandra Bland? Did internal investigations and due process bring justice for Laquan Mcdonald? Did the internal investigations and due process bring justice for Rodney King when cops were on tape clearly beating him? When the system has been shown to be time and time again corrupt what does do process actually do, what does it actually mean other than hollow sounding words.

[drosestruts]

This isn't ending with basketball, baseball games are now being postponed due to players refusing to play.

Change has been provoked throughout time from all sorts different avenues, sometimes from within politics and often time, outside of it.

Some in this thread ask "what can this do?" and I'm not sure if they're sincere or trolling, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt for now.

To start, yes there's little LeBron (or any player) himself can do, but their actions can set off a chain reaction. By sitting out games, Billionaire owners, advertisers, and television networks are losing out on millions and millions of dollars. The people who own these teams, companies, and networks are often very involved politically, sometimes passively by donating significant money to campaigns or causes, and other times much more directly (think of a part owner of the Cubs being a Governor in Nebraska, or another part owner being the champaign finance chair for the RNC). So while the Bucks players might not be able to do much, Wes Edens, Mark Lasry, Ted Turner, etc. are all much more motivated to move to action on the issues important to these players.

In the specific example of the Kenosha police department, I think it's clear over the past week that the department is rotten to the core. Blake should have never been shot, that's bad policing. Since then the department has openly courted and been friendly with armed right-wing militia groups that have come to Kenosha from out of state. Last night, one of these militia members murdered two people and seriously injured another, and the police did nothing. Today the chief of police in a press conference said the murders wouldn't have happened if people obeyed curfew, which is a lot like telling a woman she was raped because of what she wore.

So what can this do? You've already seen other NBA players follow suit and refuse to play in their games. Now MLB games are being cancelled as players in that league refuse to play. This is the beginning of a new chapter in the movement where labor parties are uniting and demanding more be done about issues in our society. Maybe it spreads to postal worker unions refusing to deliver mail, or transportation unions not driving busses and trains, the iron workers union could halt all construction projects in metro areas.

And at the end of the day, all they're asking for is to stop being murdered by police. Seems like a pretty simple ask.

[DASMACKDOWN]

Wow Kenny Smith with unity

Read on Twitter

[FecesOfDeath]

Virtue signaling for a felon with a long rap sheet and an open warrant.

The police should've kindly let Mr. Blake reach into his car and retrieve what was obviously going to be his registration documents, while that knife in his hand was clearly just a letter opener.

[FecesOfDeath]

I've yet to watch a present-day professional sports game since this pandemic. I thank these teams for reinforcing my commitment to not watching them.

[League Circles]

Maybe if Blake would have gotten due process he wouldn't be paralyzed.

Maybe he did get due process to the extent he made it possible. I totally understand why emotions are running high regarding this but the truth of the matter is that we don't know what happened. It is certainly plausible that he was justifiably shot. It's a sad reality that sometimes law enforcement officers do in fact have to shoot people who are imminent threats to others. We don't know yet whether or not Jacob Blake was an imminent threat to others because we don't have access to the evidence. To be crystal clear, I'm not in any way trying to guess whether or not the shooting was justified. I know what I don't know. And I don't know the evidence. and I'm pretty certain that none of us on this board and none of the NBA players know the evidence either. I have very long held the strong believe that uninvolved citizens and politicians and the like should not really publicly comment on criminal investigations. It circumvents the judicial process. It's irresponsible IMO. This isn't the next chapter in a story. It is it's own event. So sad we don't have full video and more importantly, audio.

This is the only other thing about this I'm going to say to you. Did the internal investigations and due process bring justice for Sandra Bland? Did internal investigations and due process bring justice for Laquan Mcdonald? Did the internal investigations and due process bring justice for Rodney King when cops were on tape clearly beating him? When the system has been shown to be time and time again corrupt what does do process actually do, what does it actually mean other than hollow sounding words.

A. This isn't an internal investigation. apparently Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to establish a law where shootings by officers are required to be investigated by other law enforcement agencies. So in this case as far as I understand it was Kenosha police but the crime scene was immediately turned over to the county sheriff and state department of justice to investigate or something along those lines.

B. I don't know anything about the intricacies of the investigations or cases you mentioned. I wish I did but we are all limited in our knowledge.

C. A quick google search will show you that white cops are also convicted of crimes against black victims, such as Aaron Cody Smith or Amber Guyger.

D. There is no (coherent) "system". Just countless individuals doing good and bad things linked together by their interactions and associations.

E. I am not predicting whether or not the investigation will reach the truth. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. I very much share deep concerns about the integrity of police investigations and I have suggested many concrete reforms to help deal with that that I won't go into in detail here.

F. Sometimes people need to die because of their actions and those people are not always easy to identify based on very incomplete evidence.

I'm not suggesting that we wait for the results of the investigation and then just take them at face value regardless. I'm saying we should wait and see what they say and what they reveal. Maybe they will convince everyone of us that these cops committed a capital crime against Jacob Blake. Maybe they will convince us that the shooting was 100% warranted, such as if it is established that he said something like "I'm gonna kill you all right now" (immediately following the physical altercation he had just had with them moments earlier on the other side of the car where are they unsuccessfully tried to taze him and while he was refusing their orders to stop moving at gunpoint).

I think no matter how much we improve law enforcement integrity and ethics there will still be instances where they grossly violate public trust and commit crimes against innocent citizens. I think that's very sad but I think that's absolutely integral to human nature. I don't think we can protest our way to perfect policing. Not that I think we have anything approaching perfect policing in this country. I just think it's somewhat concerning that that appears to be the goal of many understandably upset protesters.

I encourage people to continue protesting for important police reform to combat racial and human injustice. But not, at least for a few days, specifically for Jacob Blake.

[League Circles]

Virtue signaling for a felon with a long rap sheet and an open warrant.

The police should've kindly let Mr. Blake reach into his car and retrieve what was obviously going to be his registration documents, while that knife in his hand was clearly just a letter opener.

I agree that the virtue signaling for this man is rather inappropriate and misplaced but there are a couple of important corrections to your statement here that I'd like to bring attention to.

he actually does not have a criminal record whatsoever at least in the state of Wisconsin. He did have outstanding felony sexual assault and domestic abuse warrants but those allegations are of course not proven. They are certainly more notable than things that the press is focusing on such as what his grandfather did for a living and whether or not his kids were in the car and other such stuff but it is by no means crucial information. He very well could be a total dirtbag who is guilty of the crimes that he is being prosecuted for a while still having been completely unjustifiably shot by these police.

the video seems clear that he had something in his hand. It does not seem clear in any way that it was a knife and there are no verified reports on what it was as far as I can gather.

[musiqsoulchild]

Well it's not I planned to watch them. But politics strikes again in sport!

No.

Racial and systemic inequalities are striking your Sport.

They are in every aspect of life. Sport being one of them.

[Shill]

Well it's not I planned to watch them. But politics strikes again in sport!

This isn’t “politics.”

Yes, it is.

[kulaz3000]

I'm sick and tired of hearing the rap sheets of the people cops shoot dead, as some sort of justification after the fact.

Focus on why the cops feel the need to shoot to kill these people in that moment, because their history after the fact really shouldn't matter. Because if that's the case, we might as well allow the police to purge the entire country of any people with a criminal record and kill them at their own homes.

[musiqsoulchild]

Virtue signaling for a felon with a long rap sheet and an open warrant.

The police should've kindly let Mr. Blake reach into his car and retrieve what was obviously going to be his registration documents, while that knife in his hand was clearly just a letter opener.

You get to post crap like this. Do you know why?

Because the Moderators here apply the "due process of RealGM Bulls boards" impartially and to the best of their abilities.

How would you feel if you got targeted by the moderators every time you posted something contrarian? If we had Mods who would not allow your kind of posts?

That's what happening with Cops ( Mods of the real world) and people of color.

The onus of that doesnt fall on the posters ( real people). It falls on Cops ( Mods) behaving responsibly.

If that example doesnt sink in, think about the giant tantrum that Trump threw when Twitter suspended his account ( Due Process of Twitters rules of posting).

Everyone deserves due process. Especially criminals.

[League Circles]

I'm sick and tired of hearing the rap sheets of the people cops shoot dead, as some sort of justification after the fact.

Focus on why the cops feel the need to shoot to kill these people in that moment, because their history after the fact really shouldn't matter. Because if that's the case, we might as well allow the police to purge the entire country of any people with a criminal record and kill them at their own homes.

Absolutely agreed. Though worth noting, there is a lack of the bolded right now.

[Chicago-Bull-E]

I think it’s a great and powerful move by the Bucks. Strangely, I think the NBA cancelling games kind of lessens the message. I wish they didn’t.

Kenny Smith walking off set was a great message too, although hopefully he let Chuck and Shaq know he was going to beforehand.

I’m a person that thinks 99% of things are gray in life, and always try and see everyone’s perspective, and in today’s American society, there really isn’t room for that in public discourse. I have a very, very low opinion of police in this country and also have difficulty empathizing with criminals.

I’m not going to respond to anyone that quotes me, but I guess as more of saying there are people out there that feel this way, FWIW, and I think that’s ok.

[Shill]

That's what happening with Cops ( Mods of the real world) and people of color.

Strongly disagree.

The facts that have been released thus far about the Blake incident don't fit an injustice narrative.

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

Well it's not I planned to watch them. But politics strikes again in sport!

This isn’t “politics.”

Yes, it is.

The players walked off for human rights. Politics will enter into the equation, but that’s not what this is “about” per se.

[kulaz3000]

The reason why such boycotts are important is so that the attention can be purely focused on such injustices. Peoples attention spans are so short these days, that people will move on too quickly, and just the simply fact that news outlets are reporting that the NBA has postponed games BECAUSE of this shooting, is a great way to redirect some of the attention which would have gone to the NBA back to what's important right now, or would SHOULD be more important for people.

[musiqsoulchild]

That's what happening with Cops ( Mods of the real world) and people of color.

Strongly disagree.

The facts that have been released thus far about the Blake incident don't fit an injustice narrative.

Are you reading what I wrote?

I am talking about due process.

Have you thought about the consequences of a bullet ricocheting inside a closed car with 2 kids in the back?

None of this is standard procedure. Cops are not plantation foremen. I know that's what they used to be.

They are not in 2020.