486
submitted 10 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

What happened next that evening in May 2021 is the basis for a lawsuit by the mother alleging that Burlington police used excessive force and discriminated against her unarmed son, who is Black and has behavioral and intellectual disabilities.

After he failed to hand over the last of the stolen e-cigarettes, two officers physically forced him to do so, then Cathy Austrian’s son was handcuffed and pinned to the ground as he screamed and struggled, according to a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday and police body-camera video shared with The Associated Press by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.

The teen eventually was injected with a ketamine, a sedative, then taken to a hospital, according to the lawsuit and video.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 147 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If you have a problem and you call the cops you now have two problems

Edit: Also, who administered the ketamine? Had they received training in appropriate dosing? Or did some dumb cop just shove a needle into a kid and hope he didn't die.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 61 points 10 months ago

Or did some dumb cop just shove a needle into a kid and hope he didn't die.

Or did some malicious cop just shove a needle into a kid and hope he did die?

[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 21 points 10 months ago

Turns out I have a small shred of hope for humanity after all

[-] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

Don't worry we can get rid of that

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Usually it’s administered by EMS. At least here it is.

At least it’s supposed to be. Cops generally only have slightly better medical training than you’re average cpr/fa/aed cert holder.

Basically, it’s just enough they can say they tried to keep that guy they just shot alive long enough for EMS to show up.

[-] cmbabul@lemmy.world 128 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Say it with me, All Cops Are Bastards

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 36 points 10 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] WoahWoah@lemmy.world 111 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Obviously the police are the criminals here, but that mom...

They clearly didn't grow up being told what I was always told: "if you've got a problem and you call the police, now you've got two problems."

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yeah this is some abusive, privileged bullshit and I really hope this idiot learned a lesson. I also hope her child reminds her of this shit anytime she starts mounting her high horse in the future.

load more comments (15 replies)
[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 105 points 10 months ago

What kind of idiot calls the cops on their black son expecting any kind of positive interaction?

Oh... right...

The white kind...

(grrr!)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna14380

[-] nutsack@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

My mom was this stupid

[-] HipHoboHarold@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

I was actually wondering about that. Like as a white person, I don't want to over step boundaries, but even I'm not surprised.

But this makes a whole lot more sense.

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] Fisk400@feddit.nu 76 points 10 months ago

This is a minor problem compared to the fucking forced ketamin injections but can we please use more words to describe these types of issues. Like, specific ones. "Behavioral issues and intellectual disabilities" has also been used to describe the kid that almost beat a teacher to death for saying he shouldn't have his Nintendo in school and the flying guy that tried to kill the judge. If there is no difference between how we describe them and this kid, we are just reinventing calling people retarded in increasingly elaborate ways.

[-] medgremlin@midwest.social 21 points 10 months ago

I see your point, but that is a bigger can of worms than I think you are expecting. There are dozens of genetic or congenital disorders that can lead to intellectual disabilities and hundreds of acquired ones; all of which result in a range of severity. Also, "intellectual disabilities" and "behavioral problems" are very large buckets of different manifestations. In order to differentiate in the way that you are asking for, they would need to report exact diagnoses and give a detailed description of the individual to differentiate them, and even then, there would need to be a lot of context and clarification if they are to avoid misinterpretation or misunderstanding of any terms or descriptions used.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 12 points 10 months ago

Describing specific issues would violate their right to privacy.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] zerog_bandit@lemmy.world 73 points 10 months ago

Absolute definition of white privilege to think that calling the police to lecture her black son would yield positive outcomes.

I say this as a white person.

[-] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 67 points 10 months ago

What do you say to the armed, violent, unstable nutcase with a gun?
Good morning, Officer.

[-] mainframegremlin@programming.dev 30 points 10 months ago

What sound does a cow make? Moo. What sound does a dog make? Woof. What sound does a cat make? Meow. What sound does a pig make? UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHER FUCKER.

[-] Son_of_dad@lemmy.world 62 points 10 months ago

Police are not an education service. They're armed men who have been trained to be aggressive.

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 19 points 10 months ago

Police are not an education service.

They like to pretend they are. Schools used to invite them into classrooms in the before times.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] _Analog_@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

Right in the first part, but for the second: police come in more than one gender and the training is the same.

(Afaik on the training part - I welcome being proven wrong!)

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

In most civilised countries, the police is trained to de-escalate conflicts and when the do nedd to be agressive, they are trained for it to not be excessive and certainly not letha..

Also in most civilised countries, this takes several years not just 6 months.

That said, I hope that excessive aggression is not taught in the US police and that it is down to bad culture or single bad apples or regions.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Endorkend@kbin.social 49 points 10 months ago

And then people wonder why as a neurodivergent person, I've passed over several obscenely lucrative contracts simple because they required me to go to the US for any extent of time.

[-] herrcaptain@lemmy.ca 39 points 10 months ago

Buddy, I'm not neurodivergent and I also straight up refuse to set foot in that place. I don't even feel particularly comfortable sharing a border with them at this point. Lots of the people are great, but the government and many of its institutions scare the hell out of me.

[-] Sagifurius@lemm.ee 19 points 10 months ago

You live in a country with the fucking RCMP and yet have let the media convince you their institutions are scary.

load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 40 points 10 months ago

Let's have police reform and additional training or more services!

Also...

PARENT YOUR OWN KIDS. Don't call the cops on your underage children to "teach a lesson" you're the parent, YOU do it. That call doesn't come with a lesson, it comes with a pretty larceny charge to help with your kid's "bad week".

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 38 points 10 months ago

When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Minotaur@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

Yeah god bless the woman I’m sure she had good intentions - but she’s not living in some 1990s public service announcement where the nice policeman gives valuable lessons to children.

Police are like… an absolute last resort “I need someone shot” measure. The fact that we also have them (for no particular reason) also authorize things like reports for insurance related incidents is a pretty colossal failure of “the system” as a whole

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] badbytes@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

Can we start IQ testing for cop hiring?

[-] morphballganon@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago

They do already. Average intelligence or higher? Rejected.

[-] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 10 months ago

They filter out those who score too high.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 13 points 10 months ago
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
486 points (97.3% liked)

News

23627 readers
2495 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS