That policeman should do life in prison!

You're slightly behind the times. There was already a protest. Someone in Dallas murdered cops in response. That's not the answer to that sort of problem.

I know I am a bit late but a serious subject like this requires some thought and needs to be discussed even if it happened one or two days ago.

threadID=1381263

BLM are domestic terrorists, today's Black Panthers.

Black man gets shot for obeying a policeman's order to show him his ID. Why the policeman didn't think the ID would be inside a pocket isn't known. Where does the policeman keep his?

It's really easy to make people out as monsters when you politicize things going in. I can't find this on a better source so bear with me and read this top to bottom.

http://usuncut.com/black-lives-matter/black-lives-matter-protesters-dallas/

BLM isn't some idyllic movement by any means and I don't support them as an organization but lumping them in with terrorists isn't appropriate.

Since it's already political and I gave you a left-wing article, here's a right-wing article. I don't agree with everything it says but I read it through anyway and I ask anyone that wants to comment on it do the same.

http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/07/08/uncomfortable-reason-came-dallas-yesterday/

I used to respect police officers when as a white growing up the Officer Friendly program came to my elementary school to explain law enforcement, Then when I grew up and dealt with regular officers in Scottsdale, Arizona I found out how lazy and corrupt they could be.

The third time someone tried to break into my car, they left clear identifiable fingerprints. The police wouldn't come out and take them so the person could be caught.

When I was a victim of identity theft and got billed from a store I hadn't been in for something I never ordered, I went with the bill to a police station. The merchant that had a misdemeanor loss would file charges. But I was ignored when I wanted to file a felony complaint that would have been a more serious charge.

The final straw was getting attacked by police in my own home for obeying a police officers order. Like the black man that got shot, I couldn't read the officer's mind to do it his way instead of the way a rational person would do it using common sense.

As long as you can avoid the police or live some place where they do their job, it's safe.

I've never been to the USA, and the older I get and the more I read, see about the USA the less interested I am in visiting... So my views are formed at a safe distance, several thousand kilometres away.

Two comments
There are way too many guns in circulation in the USA, and the nation appears to be incapable of implementing any meaningful reform of gun control. I'd suggest you all need to get some major changes happening on that.

Secondly, no matter how bad some police are, having an us versus them attitude won't help. Police have one of the hardest careers imaginable. The regular generally law abiding civilian population should engage with police, in a friendly constructive way to improve the relationships between civilians and Police. Police need to work at this as well, it's in their interests to do so.

Try policing a community when the civilians and private security industry distrusts the police, regards them as lazy and corrupt, compared to policing a community where there is a good relationship between police an civilians and the private security industry.

Some cops are good, some are bad.
Some blacks are good, some are bad.
Some ppl are good, some are bad.

In Murica, most of the cops need better training, and better screening to weed out the racists.

Murica needs less guns, so cops aren't so scared of civilians, so they don't need to defend themselves from death every second of their life.

Murica needs a better education system, that teaches ppl not to be racist. More science and reason, less creationism. Go to church or private school for that.

Murica needs less Faux news, less radical right wing media constantly telling ppl to be racist hateful bigots.

Murica needs a better job market, so poverty isn't so common. Poverty creates criminals.

Murica has LOTS of problems, with simple (not easy) solutions; but too many republicans who are hard-core Nazi KKK racist homophobic maniacs.

The biggest problem is white, racist, republicans who will never let go of their guns or hate or bigotry.

And if Trump gets into power, this tiny little shooting will become a massive daily civil war, with many, many more murders than even murica sees today.

Funny, a few days ago we were celebrating a holiday which commemorates the slaughter of thousands of law enforcement officers who were "just doing their job" enforcing the duly enacted laws of King and Parliament, and now the nation is grief-stricken by the deaths of five black-clad storm-troopers who (as a class) are far more oppressive and trigger-happy than the redcoats ever were.

At least a thousand people - possibly many more - are killed by the police in America every year. Nothing is done about it. We see people shot in the back for running away from arrest and imprisonment from being behind in child support payments. A man shot for declaring he was legally exercising his right to be armed at a traffic stop - just as he was no doubt instructed to. A young man passed out drunk on a friend's back porch blasted at short range with a shotgun because he'd been fiddling with a hose nozzle a few minutes earlier. A schizophrenic homeless man beaten to death by a gang of cops (one of whom bravely proclaims at the start "see these hands? They're going to fuck you up!"). A petty criminal who dies from a broken spinal chord after being given a "nickel ride". Others killed for the "crime" of trying to make some money selling loose cigarettes or CDs. A church volunteer tasered to death for the sin of honking at a motorcycle deputy for going at a 4-way stop without having the right of way (this deputy would later go on to kill two more people in the next 18 months)... this list could go on and on and on forever; I'm even still going from memory here.

With one exception, none of the officers who committed these straight-up murders has faced any prison time. The more egregious offenders get tried by prosecutors who are either too fond or too afraid of the police to put on a real case against them, and inevitably walk after being acquitted by a jury stacked in the cops' favor by both the defense and the prosecution. All killer cops are actually rewarded with a paid vacation - something they even brag about when threatening to kill people on internet forums. Given such inducements, why should any police hero ever err on the side of *not* killing mundane citizens?

The various facets of police impunity like this were mentioned in the Declaration of Independence among the causes of the separation. Then as now, there is no prospect of undoing this great evil through protests or pleading with our political masters. What, then, is the solution? Someone obviously thought the answer was to go out and shoot a bunch of cops. I hope one of you people who are outraged by both police homicides (and other rampant criminality) and the gun battle in Dallas can detail some realistic political and/or social program that would resolve the crisis without violence.

MajorMitchell wrote "I've never been to the USA, and the older I get and the more I read, see about the USA the less interested I am in visiting..."

A long time ago (early 90ies) I stayed some months in the US when I did my engineering Master Thesis at the University of Florida in Gainesville FL. Coming over there, the other students instructed me immediately what to do in case a police officer stopped you while out driving a car.

They told me:
1. Sit still; do not exit the car.
2. Put both your hands on top of the driving wheel and keep them there.
3. WAIT until the officer approaches the car. My friends informed me that the officer probably would come up from behind with one hand on his gun and knock on my door slightly from behind.
4. Now I should very slowly move my hands from the top of my driving wheel and open the window/door, while keeping both my hands visible to the officer.
5. Do not look at the officer; let him talk to you from behind where he feels safe from the potential threat that you may be.
6. Stay calm; answer only shortly and precisely on the question you are being asked.
7. When presenting your driving license be sure to reach for your wallet very slowly and only *after* being asked to do so.

Is it not very sad that my friends thought there was a need to give this kind of instruction to an engineering student arriving the first time into the USA?

Later on this actually happened! I was stopped for speeding in Florida. I was going 74 miles per hour on a 55 mph road. I remembered the instruction my friends had given me and followed it point by point. I got a fine of 128 USD. My friend told me I'd better pay it in case I ever would like to re-enter the USA, but this I have never have done after. The desire to got there has not been present.

Maybe me being a white guy helped me survive this encounter, but still I was shaken by the event afterwards.

@MajorMitchell. I agree with you that the ubiquitous presence of guns is the main problem. If the US somehow was able to reduce the number of guns (short pieces not hunting rifles) to the levels we have in Europe, I think the USA would become a much more human society. But as you concluded they "appears to be incapable of implementing any meaningful reform of gun control" which is very sad!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-08/mistaken-suspect-in-dallas-massacre-says-he-was-defamed

Facing death threats for being innocent and cooperating with the police to clear his name. Now that the police have killed the real shooter and decided that he acted alone, will they do anything? Their previous excuse was they were too busy finding the shooter.

Consider the noble philosophical ideals and principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
Now consider the reality of the American nation....

Exactly, Mitchell. Taxes are in direct contradiction to the Declaration of Independence.

Except that the taxes were implemented by representative officials so no...