That passed through my mind, he had a prior drug conviction so it may have been hard for him to find work, but I can't imagine he was actually trying to fight the system by putting up with it. I wonder if every time it happened he was like "OK, that's the last time that'll ever happen!"
It's outrageous. He was questioned 258 times. His own boss had to install 15 cameras to use in Sampson's defense that he was never doing anything other than his job while inside the store
That is seriously sad. Can't a man just do his work in peace? Does he have a uniform? I know this shouldn't be a problem in the first place but maybe if he had a shirt or an apron from the store he would get questioned less.
Actually- at one point he moved in to the shop- his managers idea. Surely if a man lives in a place, has it as his legal address listed on his identification- that would be enough to prove he had the right to be somewhere and wasn’t trespassing? It seems not. Also interestingly- it was often the same police officers who stopped him. Police meet a lot of people in a day- but they tend to remember the ones they see a lot of- in the same place, on their regular patrols. One might also think that unless they were specifically targeting a man- they’d know long before the 200th stop he wasn’t trespassing. Of course- the city seems to think a jury would think so. They settled a case on the matter, and the police chief seems to think so as he resigned after the affair went public.
That's straight up targeted abuse. Whether or not they had "good intent", that's racist and abuse of power. It's awful things like this still happen today but I'm honestly not surprised as it's a ridiculous consistency in many countries histories. Abuse and control of minorities of colour.
258 stops, over 100 searches- on private property- after the store owner had removed himself from the voluntary “zero tolerance” policy in the municipality which allowed officers to conduct themselves this way to begin. Samson’s boss even had him move in to the store and change his legal residence to the location so he could show ID that proved he had the right to be there- and it didn’t work. Samson was also harassed by officers while away from the store- like the traffic stop and ticket he was given by a pair of officers who often harassed him, this one for having a bulb out- video rod the incident showed on review he had no bulbs out- including the one he was ticketed for.
Samson plead guilty to the charges because he couldn’t afford bail and an innocent plea would have him jailed until his court date- but Samson and his boss made appeals to the local police and judges to no avail. When his boss installed TD cameras and showed the proof of harassment, excessive force, and the targeting of minorities for said behavior specifically- and went to the media.... the chief of police eventually resigned, no other officers including those shown and proven to have harassed Samson were disciplined, and Samson had to sue the city. The city settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
So please feel free to tell me again in this, or any other thread- about how in 2019 racism is no longer a major factor in American or in criminal justice- because the clear pattern established by this and other cases on the program in question- backed by video evidence- was one where specifically black and other minorities were treated different and targeted against clear and obvious proof they had done nothing wrong.
You may be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn’t say THIS is racist- although as funk says I’m sure a few are out there. But all too often in the world and on this very site here I see people reply on posts concerning racism in current events that in our “modern” “enlightened” society such things are all but a relic of the past. They’ll wave their hand and brush away any argument about racial bias in 2019 and say “things are even now...” but.... I don’t often if ever hear of this sort of thing happening to a person BECAUSE they are white. They happen to be white? Sure- but where their race was a primary or even secondary motivating factor for something like police harassment? Unlikely.
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· 5 years ago
@funkmasterrex touche, I'll give you that one.
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There's a great ongoing study called the perception gap. The goal is to find out what Republicans think Democrats think and viceversa. You can take a quiz that shows you how right you are about the other party's views. I was surprised to find that a *vast* majority of Republicans believe that racism is a current significant problem.
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Apparently, those who think we've moved past racism are a loud minority. A very small, very loud minority.
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There's a great ongoing study called the perception gap. The goal is to find out what Republicans think Democrats think and viceversa. You can take a quiz that shows you how right you are about the other party's views. I was surprised to find that a *vast* majority of Republicans believe that racism is a current significant problem.
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Apparently, those who think we've moved past racism are a loud minority. A very small, very loud minority.
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Neighbor with Alzheimer's: (-__-)