RIP Riley and Arfee.

Humans are adaptable and Americans have adapted to their police state like so many other cultures - it's just more ironic when it happens in the Land of the Free.

It's hard to comment on a piece that describes how our culture has become so resigned to police murdering citizens, yet police killing a dog awakens normal outrage. This is an important story.

disturbed is the death penalty?

How come the cops in other civilized nations can handle situations like this, which they do, so much more courageously and competently?

A recent statistic on our 'civilian police' as compared to the UK police eg, showed that our police killed more US Citizens in the month of March than theirs since the 1900.

Is there something wrong with their police or with ours?

Rec

Fools coming to America think they're coming to riches and freedom. With the corruption growing stronger each and everyday, and the cops murdering people with impunity across this country, we are not free.

Our relationships with our pets is like having children and so many people can immediately identify with Arfee's owner and share his distress. We do everything we can to protect our furkids and then someone comes along and blows them away. This kind of event taps the fear of anyone with parental feelings of protectiveness and responsibility for a vulnerable loving creature. It's an intensely personal sense of tragedy.

We don't have that kind of emotional relationship with adults suffering from mental illness and/or substance abuse problems. Quite the contrary, our country as a whole recoils from people with mental illness, and substance abusers are seen as a threat to our personal safety and as a scourge in our communities.

This doesn't justify the different reactions and the indifference to the loss of human life at the police, but it's quite predictable.

protectiveness toward innocent creatures. Grown humans CAN be innocent in the sense that they are not guilty in a legal way of doing anything, but they are never assumed to be "innocent" in the sense that children and animals are, and our ire is often much stronger toward those who would wantonly hurt the innocent. Many people's experiences with other grown humans have hardened them toward feeling kindly toward any random human, and police can get away with much more brutality because of that.

I could never figure out how people can value the life of a dog or a cat more than a human child. I do not see this about indifference to police brutality, but rather indifference to our fellow man.

The fact that she was Native American with substance abuse history probably had a lot to do with it.

than a knife wielding, intoxicated person high on meth. Sorry.

I feel worse for innocent animals being brutalized than I do for humans, often.

Drinking and doing meth while pregnant makes me feel bad for her fetus, as well, may s/he rest in peace.

about, you are correct. There is simply little value placed here on human life.

This probably was always the case with Imperial nations. It's necessary to diminish the worth of human life in order to be able to dispose of it when it is 'in our interests to do so'.

'Treat the Iraqis like Dogs' ~ General Miller to his troops when going on his patriotic mission to 'turn Iraq into a Democracy'

Too bad we didn't do that.

A whole lot more innocent Iraqi men, women and children would be alive today.

Otherwise she probably wouldn't be drinking and doing meth while pregnant. A person who is devalued from the start is going to be more likely to create that kind of life for herself, and lack regard for her fetus. I think it's gross to have that kind of disregard for your baby-to-be. She should have had an abortion, in my opinion.

I realize she had most likely had the odds stacked against her from birth, but I don't admire this person's behavior. Not saying she deserved to be killed, of course, but why am I required to feel worse about her killing than the dog's?

that most democratic nation! Saudi Arabia also. Among other 'admirable' democracies. Though I don't think it is okay to mow them down on the street. I could be wrong of course.

Let me ask you something, do you think we should include drug addiction in death penalty cases?

And, have you ever known and/or loved someone who was afflicted with this disease?

They (often) eat dogs in China.

I see a lot of strawmen in your reply to me.

there is some kind of farce of a process. I am responding to your comment in which you totally condemned a pregnant mother of three who clearly was suffering from the disease of addiction, a minority, powerless in this society, and approved of her killing by cop.

Where are the strawmen?

We can shoot those though right?

The whole point of the OP seems to be a definition about how an uninvolved person SHOULD FEEL.

The reality is, both the dog and the woman are dead, and how you or I FEEL about it makes very little difference. If I furrow my brow and shake my head disgustedly, what does that do? It's just a pointless gesture to others that I display the appropriate FEELINGS.

beyond those pointed out by other commenters is that Idaho is acting different than most states. Most places, the dog's owner's wouldn't have gotten an apology or money either.

Last edited Sat Apr 4, 2015, 02:39 PM - Edit history (1)

It's because the dog wasn't drunk/high, waving a knife, and capable of understanding verbal commands to stop brandishing deadly weapons.

An opinion formed before any hint of the person's ethnicity was mentioned, and not changed by it, any more than the opinion would have changed if the dog had been a schnauzer or poodle.

I certainly am concerned about the loss of human life by police actions. I am also unapologetically concerned at different levels dependent on what kind of human in what kind of situation. A 12 yr old kid in a park who was shot within a couple of seconds with no attempt made to ascertain his (nonexistent) threat level? Outrageous murder pure and simple. A knife-wielding unco-operative adult out of their gourd on mind-altering substances who had several chances to drop the knife? Maybe they might have tried tasers first, but not going to do too much second guessing. A criminal kid given a second chance at life who fled an armed assault and wrapped his car around a stationary object fleeing police? My only concern there is for his actual and potential victims, and the better human who missed the chance of his wasted organ donation.

I have no idea how or why people seemingly cannot react differently to different deaths, or why it is acceptable that they cannot.

You are supposed to furrow your brow, shake your head, and make an appropriately outraged comment. A bit less for the dog, a bit more for the meth addled, pregnant, knife wielding drunk woman. Apparently.

That is the whole point of this OP.

mental problems by the 'civilian' police in this country.

Do you believe in our judicial system where people have the right to be charged with a crime, to a defense once charged, before the Death Penalty is issued?

Consider that the 'appropriately outraged comment', emphasis on 'appropriately' in any civilized society.

justified in administering the death penalty on the street to a pregnant, clearly disturbed, pregnant mother of three.

Are they so cowardly and afraid that this is all they can think to do?

I, eg, have dealt with a violent mentally ill family member where my own life was definitely in danger, he was almost twice my size and strength and yet, managed to deal with it without the need to murder the person.

Or is it just that we are a society that is traumatized by fear of those who are 'different', bigotry etc, that we have come to the point where killing those who we view as 'worthless' has now become acceptable?

There was another society that came to that point. Not so long ago.

I'm thankful to be able to say, count me out of such a society.

This is so troubling all one can do is mock it.

People in Sandpoint are PISSED over the Jeanetta Riley shooting.

The family of the woman who was shot are seeking $2 million in damages, and you can understand why. If the city apologizes for shooting her, the family's lawyers could use that as an admission of guilt.

Wonderful country we live in.

We don't value people as much as animals. Unless those animals can be made into casseroles.