If you were strangled on the subway how long would it be until they arrest your killer? Or would they arrest him at all? give him a medal?

Maybe you have no criminal record, maybe you have been paying rent. Maybe you are a pillar of your community and help at the local community garden. But maybe you aren’t white, aren’t Christian, or have “radical antifa” ties online. Maybe you live in a “bad” neighborhood (or like me in a good neighborhood that outsiders assume to be bad)

I find it prudent to weigh such thoughts before I get on the subway. Would it matter that I’m a teacher? that I like to study ants? The focus could as easily be how I had depression once.

Deborah Danner was 66 years old when NYPD shot her in her home. She lived in my neighborhood, studied Computer Science, had schizophrenia— but also an awareness of her disease she wrote essays about it. A bright interesting person. Gone forever. Her death excused. Her killer acquitted.

I reject the comforting fiction that this could not happen to me, or to you.

That is part of what allows it to persist, to escalate.

This most recent murder is an escalation. No excuse of the killer being a cop. Just “a marine” who cares if he was a marine? Why is that little nugget always repeated as if it has any meaning?

Brownshirts self appointed violence spigots. Are we to treat every ex-cop and “military man” as exceptions to the rule of law? It is disgusting that the police hesitated

@futurebird Marine (it's usually Marine or maybe Seal, not plain old navy or army or air force) seems to be, like Police Officer, one of those Badass Patriot Who's Better Than You categories of people that fascist LARPers look up to and aspire to be.
@futurebird
Being trained to kill is an exacerbating not a mitigating circumstance in a murder.
@futurebird Fascists eventually come for us all. It’s little comfort that they aren’t coming for me today.
Until we’re all equal--no one is safe. @futurebird
@futurebird Thank you for saying this. I feel the same way. The reasoning is always reverse engineered to produce a predictable result.
@futurebird So sad ... thank you for sharing this ...
@futurebird You say that you like to study ants…my 7yo grandson just read a book on ants by a Harvard prof and now has set his sites on attending there. He’s a serious child so I’m just curious whether you could suggest a competitive alternative.
@N2Priest @futurebird I don't think that's a question that needs to be approached until the time comes- there are a ton of great universities with ant scientists, but in a decade it's going to be a somewhat different set, and when it becomes important career-wise is graduate school, rather than undergrad.
@futurebird The cops kill so many folks with mental illness, especially schizophrenia. It's absolutely abhorrent that it happens, and the fact that they get away with it fills me with impotent rage.

@futurebird

That is terrible! What a tragic event, an end to a person who was so brave and courageous.

May I extend my deepest sympathies for this loss and also offer my outrage at the injustice of it.

@futurebird I’m a white woman in the ‘burbs, so probably quickly. At least until the police found out I want to defund them.
@futurebird I've heard that some people consider my neighbourhood to be 'rough', what ever that means to them. Honestly it is the sweetest place I've ever lived. I wouldn't call anywhere I've lived 'rough' either, so its not like it is just a 'least worst of' scenario.
@futurebird I'm a trans woman, it'd probably be my fault.

Generally I would try to avoid getting strangled because it makes us all look like a problem for society.

I mean with causing all those law abiding cis straight rich white men to go around having transpanics and accidentally committing a righteous murder. It's not a good look for us.

@futurebird I find it more damning that he was a marine. Its like a boxer hitting and killing someone. His hands are weapons. So is a marine.

So he should be held to even higher standards in this because he should have known what the hold could do moreso than some john doe on the street.

@csnetprogrammer @mybarkingdogs @futurebird #NYC person in agreement here. He should be behind bars. Mayor Adams’ lack of empathy and lack of response is a classist disgrace.
@goodthinking @csnetprogrammer @futurebird I don't even know why Adams doesn't just switch parties. He reminds me a lot of Jailiani and in all the bad ways.
@goodthinking @csnetprogrammer @futurebird (not like there were any good things with The Perv short of managing to strike all the right platitudes on day-of 9-11, but Adams seems to be completely replicating the "crimewave" garbage, the hate, the "never found a GOP talking point he doesn't like" and it's just ugh even to me as an outsider.)
@mybarkingdogs @csnetprogrammer @futurebird Yup. “Cop” should be in the DSM-5.

@goodthinking @csnetprogrammer @futurebird PFFT absolutely agreed, especially seeing as the social functioning destruction, the warped mindset, etc are all far more harmful to others and themselves than anything most of us with diagnosed and severe issues have.

Whether it's the mindset that makes people want to be cops, or the traumatization and far-right hate radicalization that being a cop is... yeah