Player Discussion: Blake Wheeler on Situation in Minnesota - Read Mod note in OP

[BatVader]

Agreed 100%.

I appreciate any celebrity / sports figure speaking out against systemic problems like racism and abuse of authority, but the weight behind it would be 100 times more if it were police departments around America doing it instead. The New Jersey police chief who marched with protesters IMO sent a powerful message to cops everywhere who may be afraid to speak out against their peers. I sincerely hope that act leads to some sort of change within the policing system in America.

The problem is that every time something like this happens, there are those police or politicians or whoever, who stand with or speak with the protestors, but once the issue has died down, their words lead to nothing,
They need to follow through with action when the cameras aren’t pointed at them and hundreds/thousands of voices aren’t yelling at them in unison.
They need to be held accountable for the promises they say.

 

[AlphaLackey]

It blows my mind how for some people the prevailing thing they feel necessary to comment on is some looting of multi-million $ corporations. We get it, you’re worried your new iPhone or designer handbags will become more expensive as those companies squeeze more profits next season.

Care about what really matters - flesh not consumer goods. Stores can be rebuilt, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery cannot.

And sometimes, that "brick and mortar" is, you know, a housing project that's going to help hundreds in your community. Which an NBA star will applaud the burning of, and continue to applaud the anarchy up until the instant it reaches his backyard.

And sometimes, stores cannot be rebuilt. Some of those stores were small mom-and-pop shops in the community, already hanging on by a hair due to COVID. "Sure, their insurance will cover it". Okay, now continue to be closed for months while you rebuild and watch your minuscule margins now get destroyed by a tripled insurance premium.

So yes, if someone's *place to live* is destroyed, or their *entire life dream* is destroyed, or their *entire livelihood* is destroyed, or their *entire ability to provide for their family* is destroyed, I'm not going to let some vague appeal to relative privation stop me from holding the trivially simple position that:

A. more than one thing can be wrong at once, and
B. saying two things are both wrong is not saying those two things are equally wrong.

 

[AlphaLackey]

tl;dr: "The Purge" was a dystopian movie series, not a suggestion to implement after sufficiently damning events happen.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

I'm not talking politics, but I think Blake Wheeler would make an amazing political candidate when he retires. Not all hockey players do, but Wheeler I'm confident would do very well.

 

[sipowicz]

It blows my mind how for some people the prevailing thing they feel necessary to comment on is some looting of multi-million $ corporations. We get it, you’re worried your new iPhone or designer handbags will become more expensive as those companies squeeze more profits next season.

Care about what really matters - flesh not consumer goods. Stores can be rebuilt, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery cannot.

Shit needs to change.

So with that argument I should just take my black friend to Costco and load up with whatever we want and just walk out not paying.

If there is no rule of law what exactly do you have?

 

[SM]

I think you guys are going off the deep end here. My gripe is wasting time and energy focusing on the non-primary issue. If the only time you pipe up is because of the negative effects of a civil rights movement, maybe you don’t really care to contribute to the change?

Keeping this remotely hockey-centric, I think Toews said it best. He nor I have the answers, but if peaceful protest worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess in 2020.

 

[Eyeseeing]

That cop should be put away for life no ands , ifs or buts.
His partners charged as accessories to murder.
Cold blooded murder cannot and must not be tolerated by anyone.
The awful thing on social media is the over generalization of :
All cops being bad not true.
All white people being racist not true.
Racism is most definitely a two way street.
There’s this rush to judgement to paint every one with the same brush.
I applaud the leaders on all sides of the issue calling for restraint.
Justice needs to be served and sweeping changes on how to prevent these incidents from happening over and over and over again.

 

[10Ducky10]

That cop should be put away for life no ands , ifs or buts.
His partners charged as accessories to murder.
Cold blooded murder cannot and must not be tolerated by anyone.
The awful thing on social media is the over generalization of :
All cops being bad not true.
All white people being racist not true.
Racism is most definitely a two way street.
There’s this rush to judgement to paint every one with the same brush.
I applaud the leaders on all sides of the issue calling for restraint.
Justice needs to be served and sweeping changes on how to prevent these incidents from happening over and over and over again.

Yet, he was only charged with third degree murder...

 

[Eyeseeing]

Yet, he was only charged with third degree murder...

A travesty for sure

 

[John Agar]

Those 'good cops' need to step in when the bad cops are behaving badly. If the other 3 cops present when Floyd was murdered had done their jobs, he would probably be alive today. The viral video would have shown 3 good cops preventing a bad cop from murdering Floyd. There would have been no protests, no riots, no looting, no arson.

I understand supporting law and order. I understand supporting our police. I do not understand blindly supporting anyone or anything, especially when they are dishonouring their entire profession, disgracing themselves and committing crimes of hatred. The good that they do does not earn them carte-blanche to do whatever they like.

You are very right Mort'...

But I will frame it knowing a number of RCMP... a circle of friends that are Winnipeg Police...

They called what was on video... murder...

If you have worked at night clubs... I was taught by the professional bouncers & the Police that orientated us...

I will not get into the specifics... but under no circumstances put overt pressure on neck of a cuffed/tie wrapped person awaiting the Police...

It was horrifying and heartbreaking as I watched it for the first time... the 2nd... the 3rd... and then I had to change the channels as Media fixated on it...

I was ill and cried...

I will state it and I am sure you meant to... but omitted it out of emotion...

Most of our Police are excellent citizens first and forthright officials as well... and I mean 99% of them...

Thanks for your impassioned diatribe...

Understandable... and righteous...

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

You are very right Mort'...

But I will frame it knowing a number of RCMP... a circle of friends that are Winnipeg Police...

They called what was on video... murder...

If you have worked at night clubs... I was taught by the professional bouncers & the Police that orientated us...

I will not get into the specifics... but under no circumstances put overt pressure on neck of a cuffed/tie wrapped person awaiting the Police...

It was horrifying and heartbreaking as I watched it for the first time... the 2nd... the 3rd... and then I had to change the channels as Media fixated on it...

I was ill and cried...

I will state it and I am sure you meant to... but omitted it out of emotion...

Most of our Police are excellent citizens first and forthright officials as well... and I mean 99% of them...

Thanks for your impassioned diatribe...

Understandable... and righteous...

I know there are lots of good people on the police forces. But these things keep happening. Something needs to change.

 

[Psych0dad]

Majority are good. Obviously a profession that gives you certain rights over others is also going to draw those who are in it for feeling superior to others. Authoritarians. Those individuals are the problem, and much more needs to be done to weed them out. In USA, an IQ deemed "too high", is a showstopper for police hopefuls, they should be able to also stop the dangerous ones if they are keeping out smart ones.

This guy had shot 2 people already before this, in 2006 and 2008. Hard to pretend there was nothing they could have done to prevent it. And the attempts to shield the officers, and attempt to blame health conditions through initial autopsy report kinda suggests they haven't learned anything from it. "Who you gonna believe, autopsy report or your lying eyes" doesn't feel like lessons learned.

They just try to whitewash it and deny the problem exists. Probably because they know just how widespread it is.

 

[ps241]

I know there are lots of good people on the police forces. But these things keep happening. Something needs to change.

I think I am still optimistic by nature but some issues seem bigger than others. Mort you and I have more years under our belt than most on this site. Do you think we will see an end to racial injustice in our life time? This is not rhetorical I am wondering what your take is? When I was a kid I assumed this stuff would sort itself out in my lifetime.

I remember before I fired “following politics” from my life I use to watch the round table on NBC. They had an expert on international relations as a guest and they were digging in for the millionth time on the Middle East crisis. When the interviewer pressed him on what a solution for the problem might look like he referenced how long the conflict had been in place and said:

“sometimes there are no solutions to problems, the only option is to manage them”

At the time I felt he was being cynical but decades later looking back maybe I was being naive?

 

[Tommigun]

Can someone explain to me how this thing works as I don’t live in the Americas;

Ive been digging into stats and figured out that blacks are around 2.7x as probable to be shot by police than whites.

That’s a staggering number, but then I dug into crime numbers to correlate the above numbers, and calculated that blacks are 2.7x as many times involved in violent crime than whites.

So in my book that’s a wash then. More encounters with the police means more deaths for sure, so I don’t see what the fuzz is about?

 

[NotCommitted]

I can understand a scared, incompetent cop being trigger happy - it shouldn't happen, and it happening to the degree it is in the US is a sign of deeper problems, but still, I can understand how it might go down. I can even understand one bad apple strangling a guy to death, it shouldn't happen and it's disturbing but you know how that goes. However what completely blows my mind is 3 other cops standing by watching it happen. WTF? I can in no way even begin to put into words the emotions that stirred up in me. I can't stand injustice and if I had been anywhere near where this went down, I'm not sure I would've been able to stay even relatively composed. I hope I would have, but for all I know I could've been setting fires on public buildings. Maybe not a wise thing to do, but I can understand it about a 100 times better than what happened with that murdered man and those 4 cops. They had 4-to-1 man advantage, they had the guy restrained, they were in no kind of serious danger, what goes down is 1 cop slowly strangling a man to death while 3 other cops stand by and watch it happen. The guy goes lifeless and he keeps strangling him for about 2 more minutes.

A group of police killing a helpless, already restrained individual is the kind of thing you would expect to go down in a war area or in a country in a state of chaos. If you turn that other way around, it's only natural that war and chaos follow. I just hope all the anger and rage gets directed as positively as possible. There needs to be destruction, but hopefully it's a destruction of a past that should be let go and burned away, so that something better can rise from the ashes.

 

[MrBoJangelz71]

I will never pretend to understand the stress a police officer feels when encountering a situation with a lot of unknowns to it. The fear of the unknown, that fear of actual life or death situations would be a very difficult emotion to control in the moment when a split second decision must be made. Wife a kids at home, your read this situation incorrectly and their worlds change instantly.

Problem with most of these fatalities is there is no split decision to be made. There was no instant reaction required, no unknown variables, no fear of death. These are situations that have a large amount of control to them where certain officers choose to take measures far beyond what the situation requires.

Premeditated is murder 1, not 3. That officer is a murder, caught red handed on camera taking the last breaths from a completely helpless man. You want to right this wrong, charge him correctly.

 

[Jets 31]

I will never pretend to understand the stress a police officer feels when encountering a situation with a lot of unknowns to it. The fear of the unknown, that fear of actual life or death situations would be a very difficult emotion to control in the moment when a split second decision must be made. Wife a kids at home, your read this situation incorrectly and their worlds change instantly.

Problem with most of these fatalities is there is no split decision to be made. There was no instant reaction required, no unknown variables, no fear of death. These are situations that have a large amount of control to them where certain officers choose to take measures far beyond what the situation requires.

Premeditated is murder 1, not 3. That officer is a murder, caught red handed on camera taking the last breaths from a completely helpless man. You want to right this wrong, charge him correctly.

He should get 1st degree absolutely and the other 3 should get 3rd's . If the other 3 get nothing it will make this terrible situation worse, if that's even possible.

 

[Jets 31]

I can understand a scared, incompetent cop being trigger happy - it shouldn't happen, and it happening to the degree it is in the US is a sign of deeper problems, but still, I can understand how it might go down. I can even understand one bad apple strangling a guy to death, it shouldn't happen and it's disturbing but you know how that goes. However what completely blows my mind is 3 other cops standing by watching it happen. WTF? I can in no way even begin to put into words the emotions that stirred up in me. I can't stand injustice and if I had been anywhere near where this went down, I'm not sure I would've been able to stay even relatively composed. I hope I would have, but for all I know I could've been setting fires on public buildings. Maybe not a wise thing to do, but I can understand it about a 100 times better than what happened with that murdered man and those 4 cops. They had 4-to-1 man advantage, they had the guy restrained, they were in no kind of serious danger, what goes down is 1 cop slowly strangling a man to death while 3 other cops stand by and watch it happen. The guy goes lifeless and he keeps strangling him for about 2 more minutes.

A group of police killing a helpless, already restrained individual is the kind of thing you would expect to go down in a war area or in a country in a state of chaos. If you turn that other way around, it's only natural that war and chaos follow. I just hope all the anger and rage gets directed as positively as possible. There needs to be destruction, but hopefully it's a destruction of a past that should be let go and burned away, so that something better can rise from the ashes.

It has to start at the top with the president but he's too busy tear gassing people so he can stand in front of a church holding a bible .

 

[KCjetsfan]

I will never pretend to understand the stress a police officer feels when encountering a situation with a lot of unknowns to it. The fear of the unknown, that fear of actual life or death situations would be a very difficult emotion to control in the moment when a split second decision must be made. Wife a kids at home, your read this situation incorrectly and their worlds change instantly.

Problem with most of these fatalities is there is no split decision to be made. There was no instant reaction required, no unknown variables, no fear of death. These are situations that have a large amount of control to them where certain officers choose to take measures far beyond what the situation requires.

Premeditated is murder 1, not 3. That officer is a murder, caught red handed on camera taking the last breaths from a completely helpless man. You want to right this wrong, charge him correctly.

i've read theories that they often go with lower charges on police murders so they at least get something (whereas murder 1 is harder to prove). I agree w/ your comment, but i can't imagine what would happen if he were to get off on murder 1, so at least some jail time may be likelier this way (although I'll believe it when I see it).

 

[Whileee]

Kudos to Trouba for this...

 

[Duke749]

It has to start at the top with the president but he's too busy tear gassing people so he can stand in front of a church holding a bible .

Well when people start assaulting others and destroying property are we supposed to just let that happen? There’s a group of people that just want to see America burn.

 

[KCjetsfan]

Well when people start assaulting others and destroying property are we supposed to just let that happen? There’s a group of people that just want to see America burn.

By every account, the tear gassing in DC last night was to completely peaceful protesters, and prior to curfew.

 

[Whileee]

Well when people start assaulting others and destroying property are we supposed to just let that happen? There’s a group of people that just want to see America burn.

When extremists marched holding a flag that symbolizes the enslavement of other humans based on the colour of their skin, chanting racist Nazi slogans, Trump encouraged them. He is the president. He's been trying to ignite a racial conflagration for years, and now he and many of his supporters are getting exactly what they have hoped for.

 

[NotCommitted]

Well when people start assaulting others and destroying property are we supposed to just let that happen? There’s a group of people that just want to see America burn.

Of course not, but as it is the police etc. have just been making it worse by adding fuel to the fires, including shooting rubber bullets and gassing media crews and using excessive force against peaceful protesters. That's very disturbing behaviour in a supposedly 'open' society. Also as long as a very large proportion of the population is angry, there's a situation to abuse for the people who want to. A lot of the people doing all the looting etc. currently are 'normal' people, who are acting out and getting caught in chaos. There's always trouble makers, but they can't make significant trouble unless a large enough portion of the normally peaceful people join them.

The little positive news lately have not been because of use of power and showing people their place, but because of actually listening to people and being level with them. I mean you can't first kill a pleading helpless man with excessive and brutal force and then deal with the ensuing riots with excessive force, or you can but I don't think that's the kind of country anyone wants to live in.

 

[Jetfaninflorida]

Remember the vitriol about peaceful protests by NFL players who were kneeling? I'm not sure the answer but there's a significant portion of society who will not accept protests by 'others' in any form.

Bolded. A common trope here is 'now is not the right time to <fill in here the rights of other people that you want to unilaterally suspend>'.

Another is 'that is not the right way to <fill in here the rights of other people that you want to unilaterally suspend>'.

And I am not talking about looting and rioting - that is obviously wrong and needs to be punished. But any form of protest that someone doesn't like is put down in this way. Colin Kaepernick example.

A relatively small group of peaceful demonstrators were about 1/2 mile away from our community last night. We are in the suburbs. As soon as the people around here heard that there would be demonstrators, many people in this area were calling for them to be arrested, gassed, round them up, break them up, throw the thugs in jail. They hadn't even arrived yet. They hadn't even done anything yet. They turned out to be very peaceful protesters.

You see, the area around here is predominantly white, upscale conservative and I fall into that camp. But most of them don't actually understand what being conservative is beyond low taxes, tough immigration, and guns. What I don't understand is how my conservative friends here quickly want to suspend other people's freedoms when they don't agree with their cause. I reminded them than we had just passed memorial day, and asked them if they don't see the irony of their positions of breaking up and arresting the people before they even started. They had a hard time understanding why I would say that, because they 'might' start a riot like Minnesota, justifying their position because 'it's in our back yard'. And I tell you what, when you point out blatant hypocrisies to people, they get really riled up.

So to your bolded, you are right.