Victor Perez, 17, who also had cerebral palsy, had been in a coma since the April 5 shooting, and tests Friday showed that he had no brain activity, his aunt, Ana Vazquez, told The Associated Press. He had undergone several surgeries, with doctors removing nine bullets and amputating his leg.
The shooting outraged Perez’s family and Pocatello residents, and about 200 people attended a vigil Saturday morning outside the Pocatello hospital where he was treated. Another crowd of protesters gathered outside the Pocatello City Hall building, which also houses the police department, on Saturday afternoon. Police snipers were stationed on a nearby rooftop during the protest, though no violence was reported. Many of the protesters held signs with phrases like, “Do better, PPD” and “Justice for Victor,” and passing cars honked in acknowledgment.
but that’s what you just did in your defense of RCMP?
If you’re going to argue in bad faith, why should I answer that?
tl;dr: Fuck off with that “you’re wrong and you’re not allowed to stop being wrong by acknowledging flaws in your own argument” bullshit.
If an RCMP officer abuses someone, that officer loses my trust. If the entire RCMP is doing so regularly, and getting away with it, and none of them care, the organization loses my trust.
I am not blind to it. I understand why it’s been happening; people in Eastern Canada have control over our government, and especially wealthy shitbags whose lineage - while not bad in itself - links them to British aristocracy and thus makes them usually racist. They put cops here on reservations specifically to oppress and it’s fucking awful.
That doesn’t mean the cops I’ve encountered would shoot a native kid or an autistic kid or any kid. That doesn’t mean the cops who have had to put up with me and the psychiatric malpractice that made me legitimately dangerous to myself and others are corrupt for taking me to a hospital instead of jail, or for tasering me when I had intent to stab myself instead of shooting me.
This shooting was not an accident. American police have always had corruption issues, under Trump it’s now off its’ leash.
I get it, native kids being in danger is NOT acceptable. In Ontario, the problem is so bad that McGill University literally buried dead “students” there. That was in the 90s, disturbingly recent.
If that happened where I live today, in the part of Canada I live in, it would be reported to the police obviously, but the important part is that they wouldn’t investigate themselves. External review of corruption is mandatory here.
Due to the aforementioned asshats in Ottawa, corruption among Reservation police is not always because of RCMP corruption, but the same reason as in the US: They have a local police force made up of scumbags seeking power. City and reservation police departments are not part of the RCMP, and are apparently allowed to investigate themselves which is obviously just so they can continue being corrupt.
I know the FBI is currently ruined by Adolf Twittler, but did you trust the FBI more than local police? The FBI are federal police. So is the RCMP. Not saying that’s necessarily why they seem good, only that local police need external review just as much as the FBI and RCMP do. The RCMP has it, and iirc so does the FBI. Mandating external review is hard to do without federal backing, and here we were lucky that the federal government itself (AFAIK) is not what investigates RCMP corruption. Ideally, it needs to be an external nonprofit organization.
This isn’t denial. It’s accepting new input. I don’t disbelieve your argument. I argue that discrimination by job doesn’t help unless you are in physical danger from corrupt police, which applies in the US because there was concerted effort to rely on “self-policing”.
Natives shouldn’t have to fear police. I hope that’s what you want to hear, because I am in no position to fix that. Otherwise, recognize at the very least that our population is very diverse: We have more Asian immigrants (and descendants) now than any other race in Canada, we have descendents of African-Americans, we have Natives like the Salish, Inuit and Iroquois, we have Europeans, we have people from Latin America. That alone is not what I’m focusing on, because diversity itself means nothing.
What I’m trying to say is, I don’t fear a cop. If I put myself between a 10 year old boy or girl from native heritage (or any other) and an arrogant cop and get shot, that would bring the full force of an investigation into it. If it wouldn’t happen for the kid alone, a grown man with passably white skin dying to protect a stranger’s child will make it happen. I think this would hold true for a teenager as well, and if it doesn’t, I die not to be a martyr for my country, but to be a martyr for fixing my country.
That is something I feel is much more likely here than the US currently. We have one problem with our cops, and we don’t approve but more importantly we are willing (and able, not saying it’s easy) to protect each other. This isn’t an attack on you, it’s a criticism of what has led your country to its’ current problems…
A lot of police policy in the US was created to oppress everyone who wasn’t white at any cost, including the legal structure. That’s the problem. Not just Jim Crow Sunset laws, the entire “self-policing” lie.
Your government has given badges and authority to a bunch of thugs, across their empire. Our government is not perfect, it has racist assholes who seem to think making millions per year is more important than respecting who we got this land from.
I can’t deny that because I knew before you posted, I chose to exclude it to argue in good faith, because I’m sick of partisan bullshit. I choose to now acknowledge it in good faith. Do not continue discussing this unless you will do so in good faith.
Even “backpedaling” acknowledges a flaw in existing knowledge. I won’t attack you if you do, but you have argued against me for it and that is a bad faith argument.