MSP Trooper gets 5-15 years in prison for Taser death of Detroit teen

[gpp1004]

We can infinite regress on this all day long. He died probably because of blunt force trauma or internal bleeding or something like that. Because he crashed. Because an officer tazed him. Because he fled. Because LE was attempting to pull him over. Because he was doing something illegal. Blah blah blah.

If someone is sympathetic to LE, then they'll probably place more blame on the kid. If not, they'll think the cop biffed up. Personally, I don't have a lot of respect for LE, so the idea of Bessner rotting in jail seems justified. Hopefully he'll never be a cop again. He's demonstrated over and over again that he's unfit. That being said, the kid was acting like a little shit. If I saw a teenager riding an atv at 40 mph down my street I'd be the first to call the cops. But we don't get to pass judgment on him - he's dead.

Honk said: "It's today's blatant disregard for the law entitlement that bothers me the most." From what I've read on this forum, he and I are pretty far from agreement on most things. But I get this. However, [[some) LE are very much to blame for today's disregard. Black folks and white folks often times get treated very differently. Because of this, it goes beyond disregard of LE - hell a lot of black people are terrified of cops. We have a problem in this country regarding the relationship between minorities and law enforcement. So I agree with you: today's blatant disregard for the law does bother me. What bothers me more is law enforcement beating the shit out of [[or shooting, or roughing up...) for being black and having a broken tail light [[or wearing a hoodie, or just walking down the sidewalk minding his own business). This problem goes both ways.