Soundss like they decided the act that had the intent to qualify as murder didn't have that outcome, since he was already fatally wounded anyway. It's a technicality, all right.

I've always found it odd that outcome is taken into account for anything other than restitution anyway.

It probably has a lot do do with population numbers and density.

The population is pretty dense in most of Europe, though. I don't think it's that. I have notions about what the difference is, but they're only notions.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

I would be interested in your notions, if you are willing to share.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

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In gratitude forever … .

I'll have to give it more thought. I do think part of it comes from the fact that historically, Europe has been more racially homogeneous—"the other" was not easily identifiable, though they tried (Jews, the Romani, the religious wars around the Reformation).

And, of course, Europe didn't import a large population of Africans as slaves, who were eventually freed but had to live side by side with but still under the economic control of those who'd owned them. Thus creating a population of angry blacks and a population of whites who felt the need to maintain control over them by any means, including terror.

But criminal police violence (note that I said "criminal") can't always be attributed to endemic racism. There's something else going on. A power thing—a fear of losing respect, or control? A need by some police officers to demonstrate that they still have it—that they should be able to demand instant, unquestioning obedience from civilians, and must and will punish any failure to offer it with violence to avert social chaos?

That's all vague and partial, but it's not a snap judgment.

Edited to clarify several points

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

I'm not a criminal lawyer, but I agree. If the jury came to that conclusion, then they screwed up.

As a friend of mine once pointed out Prim, the Irish have a really high tolerance for misery! Its in our genes.

But that doesn't explain the rest of Europe. Or, for that matter, Asia, where population density is far worse than the US. Honestly, I can't understand how people have difficulty accepting the obvious explanation at face value. America has more guns and less gun control than anywhere else. Hence, more gun crime.

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The Vinyamars on Stage! This time at Bag End

There is certainly a feedback loop with police violence, in that violence directed at police leads to more police violence, just as police violence leads to more violence directed at police. Historically the police in my state of Victoria had a reputation for be too willing to shoot people - they used lethal force about twice as frequently as police in other states. But conversely, during this time they were also twice as likely to be shot in the line of duty as their interstate counterparts. Which was the cause and which was the effect? I don't know. I don't believe that either of these things is still the case today.

And, of course, there are inevitably problems where the police are demographically different to the population that they are policing, even significant historical factors aside. IIRC, one of the issues with the LAPD around the time of the Rodney King riots was that the average LAPD officer was white and lived in the suburbs dealing with a heavily black and Hispanic population in the downtown area. Had the situation been reversed and a mostly black and Hispanic police force was policing a very white area I suspect there would have been similar problems.

The fact that it's not is a significant piece of data.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Obviously there is no area where this could happen, but I still think the point stands (as it does in other countries where members of one racial, ethnic or cultural group tend to be policing those of another).

Const. James Forcillo was sentenced to 6 years today. His lawyer said the process of appeal is already underway, but in the interview I heard, didn't say on what grounds they would appeal.

The minimum sentence for attempted murder is 5 years. As I said earlier, changing the charge to attempted murder makes no sense to me.

You can read the CBC article here

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Remember this case? To refresh, a Toronto cop killed a teenager, and got convicted of attempted murder, rather than murder or manslaughter, a verdict that made no sense to me. The appeal begins today:

CBC Article



A lot of us in Canada will be following this case closely.

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