Ok, thanks. Still trying to get all the details on the tragedy. The video is difficult to watch, knowing the outcome... the feeling of no escape, sanity or mercy.

This incident, the George Floyd murder, and others clearly show that police can go too far without even using their guns. I’d think that every police department would be looking to avoid such injustices in the future. Maybe national standards for police, instead of local disparities and accidents waiting to happen like the Memphis Scorpion unit. Police need to change their tactics from “fight fire with more fire” to “neutralize the fire with water”. If the police departments don’t want to be “defunded”, they must change and evolve... quickly.

More cameras would help. Without the videos, the police in this incident could have claimed and gotten any with nearly anything. Like they have thousands of times before. Transparency... whether the police or anyone else like it or not. And rigorous drug testing for police, especially for substances that would make them more aggressive, like steroids and uppers / meth.

Speaking of steroids, I have an unsubstantiated theory that many police officers are former football players (high school or college). Perhaps they still have that warlike, violent, homophobic, misogynistic attitude of “smash them before they can do anything to you”. And it’s possible that they are suffering from the lingering effects of concussions, which can increase violent behavior. Just a guess... (and that’s not even getting deep into the American culture of increasingly extreme violence. Just look at a UFC “sporting event” to see the situation in a bloody nutshell).

I simply don't understand what I'm seeing. Even without justification I can sometimes understand where people's behaviour comes from - I can follow what may have gotten them to act as they did even if I disagree that they should have. Here I can't even begin to understand what they were thinking.

I see two things happening that would illicit some negative reaction from the cops. Nichols runs away and he doesn't seem to want to bend his arm behind his back. Running away is resolved by chasing him but instead of forcing his arms behind his back - for which they're trained (https://www.policemag.com/366760/handcuffing-suspects-3-techniques?photo=425438) they proceed to beat him to death while he poses no threat. They're fucking scum.

A popular theory is they were looking for a drug dealer and mistook Nichols for that person. Otherwise, you're right that cops don't usually randomly stop people, turn off their body cams and kill them for no reason.

If these cops had been white, that's what people would have said, that it was just racism. The fact that they're all black highlights the dire need we have for police reform and the weight of the federal government to make it happen. House Democrats are going to try again to do something about it, we'll see if Republicans block it, again