An Alabama preacher and politician killed himself Friday two days after being outed for having a secret life he shared online as a “transgender curvy girl.”

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85 points

So, I have a question. From the Daily Beast article:

Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said that deputies who tried to pull Copeland over for a welfare check witnessed Copeland step out of his car and shoot himself.

Why are we taking the word of the cops for what happened? We know the right-wingers don’t distinguish between cross-dressers and pedophiles. We know that some of them find great satisfaction in abusing, torturing and even killing those that they consider “other”. And we know that cops cover for other cops.

Yes, it’s entirely possible and plausible that this guy killed himself, but why are we just blindly accepting the cops’ version of events here?

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40 points

This is the NY Post. It’s a Murdoch-owned, rage-bait rag. It’s going to be slanted, if not completely exaggerated.

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28 points

I would hope there is dashcam footage to corroborate their report.

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20 points

Good point, what kind of wellness check involves a roadside stop?

It seems quite possible that the police pulled him over to harass him.

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-13 points

What incentive would the police have to murder a guy? What do you think is more likely, that the cops decided to murder some guy for cross dressing, or that this dude is so embarrassed that he got outed as a giga pervert who stalked local women and killed himself because everyone now knows

What a dumb comment. There is no evidence the police shot this guy, and all the evidence to suggest that he killed himself.

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16 points

With the track record of the police, I’d say it’s a 50/50.

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3 points

it’s a small Alabama town, might wanna rethink those odds

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-14 points

terminally online take

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8 points

Turn it around: He knew the police in his small town, do you think he expected them to make this roadside stop to help a recently outed queer person that did questionable things like fantasizing about killing a woman that everyone in town knows and becoming her by transitioning or uploading memes in a similar context with pictures belonging to real people to a porn website? I mean he knew them personally, I guess he knew their standing on queer, he might have felt threatened for a reason. I am not saying they shot him, just that he might have expected them to be everything but helpful.

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-15 points

Every cop had body/ dash cams, I doubt there’s anything conspiratorial in the mix.

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35 points

Oh, sure. Nothing ever happens like that with cops. They never turn their cameras off or lie.

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19 points

That doesn’t really count for anything unless people other than cops look at the footage. Not that I’m saying it should be made publicly available but somebody independent should see it.

If it turns out there’s no body cam footage that’s a problem too but again unless someone outside the police force can see that there’s no body cam footage the lack of footage isn’t ever going to be made public knowledge.

The police have body cam footage to make sure they’re doing their actual jobs and not something else, for the bloody useless if they turn them off or no one ever reviews the footage. They are not primarily there for the police’s benefit they’re there for ours.

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-5 points

in most states civilians can request body camera footage. if you believe there to be misdoings then request it and have the journalistic scoop of ages “Cop kills transgender woman after claimed suicide”

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