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The pro-police people getting wound up about this are mischaracterizing the whole thing, It's not about being anti-police. Most people have no problems with the police when they are properly doing doing their jobs. It's not about defending the guy that got shot. I noticed that no one is questioning why tactical plain clothes police were making a traffic stop. Isn't that normally done by uniformed police in marked vehicles? Was a traffic stop the real reason? 96 shots? Yes, the guy should not have shot at them. But I wonder how many people reading this live in a neighborhood where stopping your car for the wrong people could get you killed? I want the protesters to look at something else. The police are always good guys when going after others. What if it were you? I am a senior citizen from the south side of Chicago. I can't count the number of times I have heard people complain about police pulling them over rather than going after people for serious crimes. 96 shots? What if some of those bullets had kept going and killed innocent people merely going about their daily business? What I am saying is that there is a middle ground here. I am all for the police when they are protecting me and taking dangerous people off the street in a legal manner. When they don't do it the right way, that is something else.

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I wish to add something. I just finished reading a story in today's Sun Times about a family suing the police department over their family member being struck and killed by a drunk cop. The cop shoukd not have been driving. Supervisors were not properly notified and she was not tested for alcohol level at the scene. She was not arrested and is still on the payroll. It is stuff like this that gets people sometimes upset at cops. They don't need to be covering up for fellow cops that commit serious wrongs.

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I wonder if Mr. Reed even knew they were cops! - Plain clothes = looking like regular people. If I were Mr. Reed I might have assumed a carjacking instead of a police stop. The seat belt violation is pure CYA. The time stamps on the video make that excuse impossible to believe.

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Good question. Unmarked car. Were flashers on? The seatbelt thing has pretty much been debunked. That's why I ask why they really made the stop.

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Apr 16·edited Apr 16

The idea of schools teaching how to conduct oneself when detained by police is intriguing. It could be very good and save lives, but I a afraid it would be another circus of a "debate". Teaching people to know their rights and how to enforce them, would certainly be seen as teaching them how not to get caught for crimes they have done. Imagine the reaction from MADD if schools told kids how to avoid taking a roadside breathalizer test when a cop tells them to do it?

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I have an autistic adult son. He most certainly learned in school how to react to police - stay calm, cooperate, etc. Autistic people doing nothing wrong have a sad history of being harmed by police who do not understand how autistic people may communicate and react differently than non-autistic people. My son "doesn't look autistic" (a stupid phrase) to people who don't know him and his seemingly odd reactions could get him killed if he didn't have training in how to react. We also go over it at home. I can only imagine the increased fear a parent of an autistic child of color must have. RIP Elijah McClain.

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I think education is needed, for every officer before they don the badge. I also believe this education should include the screening of potential personality defects leading to aggression.

I don't see the value of suggesting people must fear the police; it's counterproductive to achieving a relationship between law enforcement and the public.

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Maybe not fear the police, but understanding them is a better way to put it.

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What an appalling comment on a sick society it is that one must consider schools teaching about such things. What is this, East Germany awash with guns and teaching kids about the Stasi?

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Getting stopped while driving by police is something many if not most of us experience at least once. There is value to understand how best to react. For example if an officer asks "do you know how fast you were going?" How do you answer? It depends. If you have 20 keys of heroine in your trunk then you should say "officer I know I was going 10 mph above the speed limit. I was in a hurry because I was impatient" . then he will write you a ticket and you can be on your way.

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Interesting take. I had the same conclusion for opposite reasons. I fear that students would be taught to obey the police blindly and avoid all confrontation, even at the expense of their civil rights.

A mine-field either way.

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Good point. It is possible both problems would occur. Different school districts and different teachers would do it differently. I heard on This American Life how history of interaction with local native Americans was taught to elementary school students. The narrative varied substantially between schools.

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It's so obvious the cops had a tip about Reed possessing a gun illegally, possibly they had a tip he had committed a crime with it & wanted to take him off the street & get him into jail.

But what I don't get is the seat belt lie, since they could've used the fact he had extra dark tinted windows in the front seats which are illegal in Illinois. Why not say that for the reason to make the stop? More proof we hire some really stupid people to be cops!

I can tell you, as a pedestrian & bike rider, I hate those extra dark windows, as seeing a driver's face when crossing the street is necessary for my own safety. I wish the cops would pull everyone with them over & ticket them.

And I think they didn't fire 96 times, just 79 times, which is still too many, as a couple of the cops actually managed to switch out their expended magazines for new full ones, the other 17 shots were from Reed, as that's how many expended shells they found inside his car. I thought I read that one of the cops shot him when he was already dead on the ground outside the car. That was definitely overkill!

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The "overkill" moment comes when the guy crumples after emerging from the car and the cop takes a short beat but then keeps shooting at him (or, at least, in his direction) several more times. It was at a considerable distance. It wasn't like he was standing over him or something.

When you watch the videos, that was the most disturbing moment. The overall impression is one of a chaotic scramble where the cops run away from the car to take cover and then shoot in the direction of the car at some distance. When you hear, 96 (or 79) shots fired, you don't envision that scenario.

I agree with you about the seatbelt. If the police want to pull you over, they can surely find a legal, non-made-up reason. Hardly anyone is violation-free for any length of time on the road.

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When driving (and cycling), I HATE how many cars have REALLY dark-tinted windows, and I agree with your comments. However, as a Caucasian getting up in years who has never experienced racial profiling by police, I also appreciate the perspective of people of color who have justifiable arguments in favor of tinted windows as they have experienced racial profiling by police in the past, and tinted windows help prevent some of these occurrences.

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Hadn't heard Mr. Reed got off 17 shots. If true, he fired more than all but one of the police officers...

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Is Elon Musk aware that if one wants to read "X" on a desktop computer, one must go to twitter.com? So long as that's still the address, Imma call it Twitter too

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Apr 16·edited Apr 16

If you type "x.com" into the google search engine, it directs you to twitter.com. Musk himself must have approved this site traffic direction, adding credence to your position.

Why Musk decided to trash the billions of dollars of value in goodwill that the Twitter brand had built up prior to his purchase of Twitter is beyond me . . . .

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I also have no idea what he thinks a 'tweet' should be called now. Xeet (with the sh sound)? Nobody posted a Twitter and nobody will post an X.

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Time for a fun story. The year is 1968, earlier that year my family moved from Massachusetts to Wheaton, Illinois. We are moving up to middle class to a new housing development It is May and I am finishing up my studies to graduate from Wheaton Central High School (and about to be drafted).

Anyway it is a nice May evening and I am coming home at 8:30 pm from the Wheaton Public Library in my Dad’s Ford Country Squire Station Wagon. I am 5 foot 5 inches, whiter than white, wearing a Massachusetts letter jacket (track) and carrying library books. I am heading to the side door of my home.

Suddenly a Wheaton Police car with lights flashing (no siren) comes flying across our newly seeded lawn. A single officer jumps out of the car puts his search beam on me, pulls out his shot gun, aims at me and yells freeze. So I freeze. He then approaches me with the gun pointed at my face…until he gets real close. He slaps the books out of my hand and tells me to put my hands up, then put my upper torso on the hood of the car and to spread my legs and back up. As I am doing this, he puts the shot gun to the back of my head,

I say to him “Officer, I think you are making a mistake” in a low matter of fact voice. He screams “Shut up punk” and pushes the barrel of the gun against my head. He then frisks me, taking out my car keys, my wallet and placing it on the hood of the car.

By this time the lights from the police car has attracted my Dad . He opens the side door and asks the policeman what is wrong. “I caught this punk trying to rob your house” he says in reply.

My Dad goes “That’s my son.”.

The Policeman immediately pulls the shotgun off my head, sprints back to his car, puts the searchlight in my Dad’s face and then takes off from our front yard (further damaging our new lawn) and disappears into the night. Neither of us got a good look at him, so no identification was possible.

My Dad asks me what was that all about. I told him I had no idea, it was like he was staked out waiting for me. I then thanked my Dad for identifying me and he laughed.

I had no prior criminal record, I was a member of the National Honor Society and

had no prior contact with any Wheaton Police since coming to Illinois.

One last note, none of the books looked like guns and they were checked out legally from the library…whoa…glad I am not Black.

I guess the Police at times can see the world from a whole different perspective. I trusted the Police at that time, it did not occur to me to run, I wonder if he would have blasted me if I tried to escape.

We’ll never know…..

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Leaving the "we knew he had a gun" death aside ( a massive mistake that must be investigated), is it simple minded to ask why, in cases where a minor infraction (no tail light, not wearing a seat belt, those cursed tinted windows, etc.) is spotted, the police do not simply take a picture of the license plate and follow up not in traffic and not after the heat of a chase.

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This tragedy reminds me of Sandra Bland's death in a jail cell in Texas. Pulled over for "failing to use a turn signal" while driving to a faculty position in Texas. Dead because she didn't treat the officers with sufficient humility and was jailed for it. Her video of the traffic stop shows the officer wildly over-reacting and threatening to 'light her up' with his weapon.

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Michael, few years ago I got a traffic ticket in the mail. I was charged with rolling through a right hand turn. I did not come to a complete stop before turning right. The ticket gave me a website to view my violation. Yup, it was the old red light camera showing my “roll”.

I could plead guilty on the ticket and paid the fine.

Seems like the police could easily follow your suggestion.

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I don’t think anyone, including the police, thinks this was about trying to give a driver a ticket. The violation was a pretext for pulling over a suspicious, possibly known, guy. That’s the motivation that needs to be investigated. Better ways of writing tickets has nothing to do with this incident.

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Was not referring to the Dexter Reed case. Just agreeing with Michael Gorman on procedures involving minor traffic violations.

Agree that the Reed case involved a fictitious traffic violation.

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Apr 16·edited Apr 16

On one of the Sunday morning news programs, Gov. Chris Sununu (who I generally think is a jerk) said something possibly insightful, that a lot of the Republican electorate doesn’t care who’s at the top of the ticket, they just want a change of administration, and Trump is just some of the baggage they have to put up with to achieve that. While I don’t claim this is widely true, it may be true enough to make a difference.

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Happy Tuesday! First, fuck the right-wing. They are worthless individuals with no redeeming qualities who cannot begin to comprehend the concept of rights, only privilege at their discretion. They are incapable of living in our inclusive, liberal society without trying to destroy it. They are authoritarians and precisely the ilk that we need to ensure never get a badge or put in any position of authority. It is their mentality that created this situation.

This mentality could never cotton to the idea that government's central role is to ensure equal treatment under the law, equal opportunity, protection of individual rights and participation in and consent to governance. These were the people who fought for slavery, implemented Jim Crow and then Separate But Equal, fought for segregation and thus set the stage for generations of unequal opportunity that created the environment for crime. They militarized police forces and granted them ever greater authority to use deadly force and defended abuse as necessary to fight crime.

I suggest that everyone read Radley Balko's book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces" to gain an understanding of how we got here. The right are scared, petty people who have no place in our inclusive, liberal society. The only answer is to marginalize them.

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“… fuck the right wing… in our inclusive, liberal society…”

🤔😂

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LOL! Yep, our inclusive, liberal society has no room for the right-wing. They have never fit in, ever. They have always been the problem. Deal with it.

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Get over it already.

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😂😂

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Good, you're over it!

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Spoken like a true insulated Liberal who know all and can't deal with anyone who disagrees with him. You've got it all figured out ;)

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LOL! I'm not insulted, but I do have it figured out. Right-wingers, conservatives, have no place in an inclusive, liberal society because they a) don't believe in rights, only privilege at their discretion, (b) don't believe in equal opportunity, because they feel that their birth and status grants them privilege, (c) don' don't believe in greater democracy, that which includes everyone, because they believe that only god's elect, for those religious, or the industrious, for those secular, are the only ones capable of good decisions and (d) don't believe in equal treatment under the law because the elect aren't to be controlled and they, the true-believers, don't require it, only those that don't act as they "should" are to be controlled.

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"Jake’s description of how the right characterizes the far left is fairly apt though the characterization itself is wildly misleading."

I'd argue it's not quite as misleading as it used to be, but, yes, very true, especially as to actual state- or national-level Democratic politicians.

The thing is, even if there's not even a kernel of truth to it, the fact remains that lots of people see Democrats in that light, and so Democrats need to distance themselves forcefully from these perceptions. The "brand," as people like to say, is in the toilet. This is an emergency!

This article, arguing that Biden needs to worry about the center more than the left seems right to me.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/while-biden-worries-about-the-left-the-voters-he-needs-are-in-the-center-d9130c8b?mod=hp_lead_pos5

What the article points out is that Biden is actually governing as the sort of center-left type people like. But people don't see him as governing that way. They don't know that he's doing just what they want. This is partly because the administration itself frames its record in more progressive terms that don't align with what most people want to hear. Very irritating! Example:

"One case in point is energy policy. Under Biden, American energy production has reached historic highs—a popular accomplishment that voters overwhelmingly support. But you would never know it from listening to him. The achievement went unmentioned in the president’s recent State of the Union address and his recent campaign speeches, where he has preferred to talk about climate investments and 'environmental justice.' Perhaps as a result, most Americans disapprove of his handling of energy, and many blame him for high gas prices."

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Great VTotWs this go-round EZ! I had a hard time choosing between Teacher Shortage Emergency and Banjo Attack - I selected the latter because I snorted out loud when reading it. Bear Attack Ice Cream solace was also excellent (and is leading, currently).

I agree with your take on the necessary thorough review of the Reed case. I remember how much heat you took from your own side in the position you staked out in the Adam Toledo case.

I think Jake H's approach is a good one regarding Dem messaging.

If your readers haven't read it yet - they should seek out Paul Waldman's co-authored piece in the New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/180570/trump-rural-white-resentment-honest-assessment. The Mainstream Media simply does not want to call a spade a spade. (Waldman used to write for WaPo as part of Greg Sargent's "Plum Line" column.)

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With children being shot and killed on a regular basis, I have no sympathy for Dexter Reed and his ilk.

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That scene was a shit show from the onset, but the question I cannot get out of my head is, why did he not comply?

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I disagree with JakeH that President Biden should create lots of Sister Souljah moments. Say what you will, but many of the positions that some people consider to be “woke” are good positions that look towards the future as opposed to what JakeH suggests the Dems should choose as the first three elements in their platform: “God, country, and freedom.” Policies to reduce climate change, policies to insure that minorities and women are represented in important positions in government and business (DEI), policies to assist immigrants displaced by climate change and/or dictatorial governments—those are all policies that are forward-looking, that look forward to a world interconnected by the internet, trade, and peaceful cooperation. Demonizing those policies to appeal to the “God, country, and freedom” folks is really paying homage to a backward looking view, to the views of people who are afraid of change.

When I see Republicans chanting “USA, USA, USA” as we saw Trump supporters chanting outside the Manhattan courthouse where Trump was on trial, they seem so childlike to me. “God, country, and freedom.” You know, we are the only country ever to use nuclear weapons against a civilian population. Maybe we shouldn’t be shouting “USA, USA, USA” so much; maybe we shouldn’t be promoting that sort of unthinking childlike patriotism; maybe we should be considering how to work together with people from other nations, who also love their countries, to create a world where cooperation rather than combat is revered.

Sister Souljah moments. No thanks. I, for one, have no desire to genuflect and pay homage to the “God, country, and freedom” crowd.

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Thanks for your thoughts. My point isn't to "pay homage to the 'God, country, and freedom' crowd" but rather to reclaim those things from that crowd. We play into their narrative by giving them up. We concede that they really do stand for those things and that we don't. That strikes me as foolish. Our president is in fact a devout Catholic. His opponent, I think it's fair to say, has never had a spiritual thought in his life. The late Beau Biden (too late to say "late"?) served in the military. Joe Biden has spent his whole life in worthy public service. The draft-dodger claim might not work against Trump because I see, after looking into it, that you can tell a similar story about Biden himself, but no matter -- Trump has a disgraceful record of denigrating military service, denigrating those who have sacrificed, denigrating the country, denigrating the Constitution, and denigrating the country's worthy principles. But he humps a flag pole whenever he can. Well, that's not my idea of patriotism. I hear you saying that it is in fact yours, which is a symptom of the problem I'm trying to solve by including those words on my list.

Such appeals wouldn't have much effect on me personally. I'm an atheist. What's more, I think that if our Cold War-era official motto "In God We Trust" doesn't violate the First Amendment's prohibition against government establishment of religion, nothing does. But I blame the Supreme Court for that. I likewise have little time for mindless "love it or leave it" flag-waving, as you say. I do like freedom, and I see the other side as a much bigger threat to it.

The point is, you don't have to mouth mindless versions of these ideas to signal your sincere sympathy for at least a version of them, indeed a much deeper more redeeming version of them. Clinton gave voice to them. Obama did too, very powerfully. Both were two-termers with baggage, not least of which was an intellectual bent. These ideas resonate with lots of people, including many we claim as having a natural home in our coalition. They resonate strongly with immigrants, who, having chosen to come here, view America as a land of opportunity. (Immigrants tend to be more patriotic on average than natives.) They resonate with African-Americans and Hispanics more broadly, who tend to be far more socially conservative on average than, say, grad students. I didn't worry much about that until we started losing them, but we're losing them!

I don't have nearly as negative a view of America, its place in world history, or its place in the world today as you do. I think that if we withdraw from our preeminent position in global affairs -- a desire shared by both progressives and Trump and some of his most odious allies -- it will not have the effect of saving the world from American sin nor of insulating us from foreign turmoil, an ever more naive dream in a world becoming more interconnected every day, but rather, amid resurgent actual fascism and totalitarianism, leave the world at the mercy of ultranationalistic wolves with giant chips on their shoulders, a movie we've seen before. But we don't have to all agree on all that to know whom to vote for in November.

I'm talking about messaging, about what sells, and when you talk a lot about climate change in progressive terms, people hear "sacrifice." They don't trust environmentalists on the economy. (And they shouldn't, truth be told.) Meanwhile, we all know whom a Biden would appoint to lead the EPA what judges he would nominate to enforce EPA rules vs. who Tump would appoint. We've got the substance nailed down; it's just a matter of how to sell it.

Along those lines, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein introduced me to the idea of "incompletely theorized agreements." His view is that it's more important in civic discourse to arrive at the right policy than to agree on the ultimate reasons for that policy. There are few better illustrations of that idea than climate policy. Policies we would both agree are good can be justified on many grounds -- on tree-hugger grounds, on hippie-dippie spiritual grounds, on conservative Christian grounds, on save the planet grounds, on DEI grounds, on save the international poor grounds, on hard-nosed economic grounds, on national security grounds, on "great power" competition grounds, on grounds of industrial policy, on "energy independence" grounds, on cutting edge tech grounds, you name it. To advance the ball, the good guys should appeal -- in a forceful way, in a way that can change the narrative and dislodge very powerful habits of mind among voters -- to the grounds that resonate with the widest audience. That probably means steering well clear of the progressive Thunberg / wages of late capitalism / all economies should shrink by a lot / apocalypse-is-nigh approach. Very off-putting.

I won't rehearse my many misgivings about DEI as practiced. Suffice it to say, I think that when it comes to racism or any minority group disadvantage, an old-school Civil Rights-style focus on unfairness is the far more persuasive sort of appeal. I think there are more than enough real-world crazy manifestations of the progressive approach to demand clarifying Sister Souljah moments in this area.

So, I'm not talking about capitulation nor even "triangulation." I'm talking about a wider appeal, one that is both sincere and that resonates with the voters we need to persuade. I'm convinced it's not so impossible. Indeed, any other approach seems like political malpractice. If so much depends on our side winning in the fall, it seems that we had better get serious about winning!

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Another view on the idea of a Sister Souljah moment.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/29/joe-biden-sister-souljah-moment-523448

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By focusing like a laser on the one actual Sister Souljah moment in isolation, the author is able to discount or muddle the magnitude of its effect. I didn't find that surprising. It was one event out of lots, and not a huge one at that. I think this misses the forest for the trees, though. Clinton ran and won as a slightly left centrist who quite prominently disclaimed unpopular progressive (then called "liberal") views and quite visibly embraced some popular conservative views. (Tony Blair revitalized Labor in the UK in exactly the same way, after a similar period of wandering in the wilderness.) The actual Sister Souljah moment was but one instance of that New Democrat strategy. I think we could use a heavy dose of that thinking now. It's not as though Sister Souljah had a point about killing white people and how there are no good white people, and so on. When you do a Sister Souljah moment, by definition, you're distancing yourself not from a widely held sane view but rather from crazy shit.

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I just finished listening to last week's Mincing Rascals Podcast. I can't believe Marj Halperin suggest the police planted the gun found in Justin Reed's car! She adds no value to the podcast and doesn't realize there's more than one side to a story -- even you, Eric, occasionally demonstrate this ;) BTW, this week's visual tweets were the best ever -- I couldn't make up mind!

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Did she really say that? Did they plant it ahead of time then chase him after he found the planted gun at the risk that one of the officers would get shot? Which did happen? Because you know that police officers are always willing to take a bullet in order to make an arrest. If she said it I hope some other panel member rebuked her.

One of the writers above asked why tactical officers were making a stop. Leaving aside for a moment the circumstances of this particular stop, I can tell that person from personal experience that tactical officers are on plainclothes patrol looking for and responding to more serious offenses. ANY police officer can write a ticket to a traffic offender. And any officer can make a justified stop on an individual or vehicle. Note that I said justified. And whether or not this stop was justified will be uncovered, as it should be.

So many of the incidents where police shot someone or someone shot an officer would have been lessened in seriousness if the person would just comply with commands. This case, Adam Toledo, Officer French and her partner, the list goes on. “Put your hands on the wheel”, “stop and drop the gun”, when you see the blue lights just pull over.

One other thing: someone above said maybe Mr. Reed didn’t know that they were the police. Come on…a number of people jumping out of a car which everyone knows is a police car as it had flashing lights and the officers were wearing vests and holsters and equipment bulging out of their vests, and oh yeah wearing quite visible cameras, he didn’t know that they were the police? The very idea is beyond belief.

Again, I believe that this incident will get sorted one way or the other. As it should be.

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No one called her out for that comment. Following in the podcast John, Eric and Cate stated they believed he had a gun.

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I am a Dad to three daughters (35,38 and 41 now) and they grabbed onto and went through many “fashion” trends. Piercings. Multi color hair. A short try at gothish for one. Baggy jeans, too short skirts (go upstairs and put on some clothes please.) With almost all of it I took my wife’s advice which was “don’t worry, it will pass”, and it always did. But the one single fashion trend that I do not understand is the ripped pants. Where did it come from? What does it mean? Do you get a discount because part of the material is missing. It’s a mystery to me.

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