Countdown to DamosA calling the police pigs:

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if you're more concerned about how i address cops than the fact that innocent people are dying in police custody, than i feel alittle sorry for you.

Thanks for the advice, clayclay55, but you left out quite a few points. For example, make sure you don't drive around fitting the police profile of gang member (Keaton Otis). And don't suffer from mental illness and "act strange," or else you could be brutally beaten to death by police, despite being unarmed and not threatening anyone (James Chasse). There are plenty of cases of deaths in police custody that are at odds with your blame-the-suspect's-behavior rule. We can't make people stop using illegal drugs etc. but we have to scrutinize the way the police act in myriad cases or these arrest-related deaths will just keep on happening.

This guy had an undetectable health problem and he died. shit happens I don't see a conspiracy in this one

@geyser: You mean the Keaton Otis that shot Officer Burley? That fits a pretty narrow range of "profiling"; that one is really fucking difficult to pin on the police. PROTIP: If you shoot at the police, they're going to shoot back at you.

so let's see. the traffic stop was at 4:00 a.m. he ran, they seem to have caught him rather quickly. the hospital he was taken to was adventist and was only 1/2 a mile away from where they stopped to give him cpr and 2.1 miles from the traffic stop. yet he didn't arrive at the hospital until 6:00 a.m. where he died 2 hours later at 8 a.m.

the obvious question is what happened to him between 4:00a.m. and 6:00a.m. when he finally got to the hospital? how long was his pursuit? seemingly not that long if again according to the mercury he "hopped 3 fences and was spotted hiding behind a house." so let's say the traffic stop was at 4:00 am he ran and was captured by 4:30 am. and soon after they had him in the car driving to take him into custody. even if they didn't get him back to the car until 4:45 am. there is still an hour and a 15 minutes that's unaccounted for.

how long did the cops give him cpr for? if they even did. there's no camera's inside ppb cars so we just have to believe the cops gave cpr b/c they say they did. how long did they work on him in the ambulance. again if the ambulance picked him up 1/2 a mile from where the cops were giving cpr and driving at 5:00 am with sirens blasting stopping for no lights with light traffic how long would such a journey take?

seems like the cops had plenty of time to take him somewhere... beat the hell out of him and then when they realized something was wrong, panic and have to call an ambulance. for all we know, the cops were smoking and laughing while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. we just don't know.

but to assume that the story went down exactly as the cops and media have reported it, with such a gaping hole in the time-line seems to be a bit shortsighted.

@ Graham:
The police initiated the violence in that case. I wasn't commenting on Otis's pulling a gun out of the glove box, I was commenting on the dubious grounds for pulling him over in the first place. The whole thing that started it was not based on the "suspect's" behavior. He was mistakenly labeled a gang member by his appearance and the fact that he was driving a nice car (his mother's). There were no grounds to pull him over nor to escalate it to violence--that's at the root of the problem here in terms of police accountability. None of this needed to happen in the first place. If the police profile enough people, pull them over, and get violent, inevitably some will (arguably foolishly) make a move to strike back and get away.

And by the way, when I say Otis pulled a gun out of the glove box, I'm assuming the police version of the story is true on that count--not necessarily the case. I don't know what really happened, and I wouldn't readily trust anyone who says they do.

The Beav and clay55 got it right.

@neighbourhoodovserver: So you're saying that the State's Medical Examiner is working in collusion with the PPB to cover-up a... something? Poisoning? Clever assassination? What?

@geyser: I won't disagree with profiling as a problem. It's always been a problem, and will most likely be a problem in the foreseeable future.

"@geyser: You mean the Keaton Otis that shot Officer Burley?"

@ Graham: You mean Keaton Otis, the innocent man who DEFENDED him self and had every damned right to, even as several racist pigs gunned himed down b/c so far as THEY were concerned, he was a "gang member"? You mean THAT Keaton Otis? Murder victim?

@DamosA: So you're claiming that Keating Otis was justified in shooting Officer Otis? If that's your claim, you're even stupider than I thought; it's no small wonder the police keep tazing you. I'm surprised you haven't been institutionalized for Gross Mental Incompetence.

Fucking typo. I meant to write 'Office Burley', not 'Officer Otis'. My mistake.

"Fucking typo. I meant to write 'Office Burley', not 'Officer Otis'. My mistake."

YEAH! Fucking typos, always making me look fucking stupid when i'm trying to prove a false point! God damn you, typo! Go away!

A cops bigest worry is getting shot in the line of duty.
When pulled over, if it is dark outside, turn on your overhead interior light. Keep your hands where the officer can see them, on the steering wheel.
etc

Still more tips from clayclay55 to avoid getting killed by the police: when you get pulled over, don't yell at the officer and then reach for a gun. Fine, except by no one's account is that what happened in the Otis case, at least as far as I'm aware. And again I would ask how Chasse's behavior warranted him getting beaten to death by the police. Are you willing to admit that the detainee or suspect's behavior was not what led them to die in police custody? Or are you still intent on giving phony guarantees that this won't happen if all of us just act in the right ways when detained or pulled over?
And of course, even when a detainee or suspect does something stupid there are often alternatives to deadly force that the police choose not to avail themselves of.

Oops, I meant to write... admit that the detainee or suspect's behavior is not *always* what led them to die in police custody? Sometimes it is, clearly. And sometimes there are accidents that no one can prevent, but I still think we have a real problem, and I'm hardly alone,

The very fact that many people here are convinced that Keaton Otis had NO right to defend himself is indicative of the sheer racism prevalent through-out this city.

Statistics prove time after time that MOST black men murdered by cops are UNarmed! So chances are near 100% that Otis would've been killed that day no matter what. By their own admission, those terrorist cops were out for blood that day, when they tagged Otis as a "gang memeber" and followed him for blocks just WAITING to pull him over on a pre-text.

Atleast Otis had a fighting chance.

Really kind of surprised that the cops haven't made their "Don't chase 'em, Mace 'em" T-shirts yet...

Well that's b/c they first have to catch 'em.

@DamosA:
"Statistics prove time after time that MOST black men murdered by cops are UNarmed! So chances are near 100% that Otis would've been killed that day no matter what."
That makes no sense whatsoever. When I brought up the Otis case, I hoped you wouldn't fling more of your polarizing, pseudo-militant speechifying, but somehow I knew... And you probably have nothing to say about Chasse because he was white, so the incident doesn't fit your reductionist notions that this all boils down to race.
You seem to have no capacity to have any kind of reasoned and informed discussion. Speaking with no knowledge whatsoever and throwing around "pigs" and "terrorists" makes puts people who speak out against police brutality in a bad light. It makes us look ignorant and immature.

CliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiFton! Whats wrong? Mad that your lame hipster ass got beat down by the cops AND a pair of "white boys" in the space of 20 minutes? You have made it perfectly clear that you hate white people, yet you dress, talk, and act just like EVERY lame emo hipster in this town. Why would you move to a town thats 90% white when you clearly hate all of us? Move back to whatever chitlin-circuit hellhole backwater you came from. Better yet, move to Canada.

I have inside info that the cops had an undercover dealer target and sell him the meth he was high on just so they could have a little turkey shoot if the evening did not produce some one they could murder and get away with it?

Yep. Typical portland racists. Thanks for PROVING my point for me, morons.

@neighborhoodobserver: the article states he died 2 hours AFTER arriving at the hospital. He did not arrive there at 6am. "Johnson was declared dead at Adventist Medical Center, just half a mile away from where he fell ill, two hours after he arrived."

1st) Police officers need to let medical professionals determine who needs medical attention.2nd)The whole good guy bad guy belief system is not only inaccurate, (No person is always good or bad.) it is a concept that dehumanizes whether it means to or not and people who are given license to take others lives need negative reinforcing from the community not absolution. Sometimes people die in a police situation. That is a fact. When we determine to justify death we turn unacceptable behaviors into reasonable behavior and we shield police from guilt & feelings of shame that people need to experience to prevent progressive desensitization that begins a cycle of violence that has no conscience or regret.