For once, maybe justice has been served. The jury found Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts.
I was prepared for the worst, because all day the news has been full of stories about Minneapolis bracing for the verdict, windows being boarded up, new concrete barriers being installed, etc. Now all we have to be ready for is grateful crowds of citizens solemnly appreciating a righteous decision…oh, and roving gangs of cops looking for any excuse to bash heads in revenge.
Nice to know that it is actually possible to convict a cop for his misdeeds. All it appears to take is a really egregious action with copious real time documentation and a prosecutor willing to do the work to present an effective case.
Now, of course, come the appeals and we get to see if the appellate courts the cojones to uphold the verdict.
I already wondered about that cop’s” mistaking her gun for a taser.”
“roving gangs of cops looking for any excuse to bash heads in revenge.
Headed to downtown Portland for a job interview today. I really don’t need that image in my head right now.
So far so good – but the sentence will be critical…
Yeah. I have mixed feelings. I mean, it took a year of incontrovertible video evidence, wall-to-wall media coverage, nationwide protests, a concentrated prosecutorial barrage, and a defense that was both inept and conspicuously racist to bring one cop to justice.
It’s the right outcome, the correct verdict. And I hope it opens the door to change, nationwide. But I’m still apprehensive.
I hear Farnsworth coming in to tell us , “Good News Everyone”
getting popcorn out to see the reactions…
Why I’m not hopeful that the Chauvin trial will end well: Graham v Connor.
This is a case argued before the Supreme Court in 1989 where they unanimously found “The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene.”
Both the prosecution and the defense brought it up, but this case is the reason why the cops always claim, “I was in fear for my life.” It allows them to say that a “reasonable cop” would have behaved the way they did because they were “in fear for my life.”
Make no mistake: We often talk about the “reasonable person” standard, but that isn’t the standard used for police actions. It’s “reasonable officer.” And while the prosecution put forward many of Chauvin’s fellow officers and supervisors to say that what he did was not appropriate, all it takes is one juror to sympathize with Chauvin to hang the jury.
So even the verdict came down as guilty, we know this is going to be appealed and I’m sure the claim will be that it’s a violation of Graham v Connor and the verdict needs to be overturned because a “reasonable officer” who was “in fear for my life” would have done what Chauvin did.
And I have no doubt that the current Supreme Court will uphold that claim.
I was actually quite hopeful. First, the Jury had only two white men, second, an unprecedented number of police officers themselves testified and finally, the defense was pretty bad. Right wing youtuber are now hysterical, hahaha.
Some of you may remember Amadou Diallo, who was horribly assaulted by cops in NYC. One of the cops confessed and the four were convicted. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani said “well, I guess that explodes the myth of the ’blue wall of silence’”. How long before we hear this same BS trotted out in this case?
@7 rrhain
Much as I am inclined to feel as cynical about these things as you, I am seriously not sure about that. Appeals have to be on the basis of an issue of law, not fact, isn’t that the case? It would be hard to argue the “reasonable officer” defense given the prosecution’s parade of law enforcement witnesses saying it wasn’t a reasonable thing to do. Plus, appeals don’t have juries. The only way a second jury would be relevant is if an appeals court voided the verdict as a mistrial.
… Which could happen, because of Maxine Waters among many others, whose messages about all of this were COMPLETELY CORRECT but do make a pretty good pretext for the defense to claim it prejudiced the jury and therefore the trial was procedurally invalid. Worry about a cop-sympathetic judge voiding the conviction for THAT reason, I’d say.
But the Supreme Court… in order to get in front of them, you have to not just appeal that high, but appeal something on the basis of interpreting some piece of legislation, especially the constitution. That’s hard here; trying to object to murder being a criminal act is an obvious non-starter. You’d have to argue Chauvin being justified as a point of law, maybe a really twisty interpretation of a qualified immunity statute (what does Minnesota have for that?), or somehow that the ‘reasonable officer’ defense somehow applies even when officers said it wasn’t reasonable. Remember, the SCOTUS does not rule on findings of fact, and even if another trial happens you can bet the prosecution will line up the ‘that was bogus’ LEO witnesses again. Frankly I would expect them to deny cert, in this case that being SCOTUS-speak for ‘not with a ten-foot pole’.
(… jesus tapdancing christ I have been watching WAY too much of ‘Legal Eagle’ on youtube…)
@3 Ray Ceeya:
Good luck with the interview!
@1 a white cop
I know twelve people who are going to beg getting a lot of parking tickets for the next few years…
*going to be getting
Just cheered out loud when I saw the OP title.
abbeycadabra@10 —
That would all be true with a Supreme Court with integrity.
Check out Connick v. Thompson (2011). At no stage was any constitutional interpretation involved — the plaintiff was wrongfully convicted of murder because the prosecutors suppressed clearly exculpatory evidence, an unambiguous violation of his constitutional rights. The Supreme Court should never even have heard the case. But they not only heard it, they found that prosecutors are not accountable for clear and unconscionable constitutional breaches.
Actual majority argument written by Thomas: prosecutors are qualified lawyers and should know when they are violating the constitution, therefore the prosecutorial office cannot be held liable for the conduct of its prosecutors. This is not an exaggeration.
I will note that a reasonable ‘X’ does usually make sense. When evaluating whether a medical doctor has made a decision about patient treatment that was among the possible correct treatments (and not something out on the fringe) you need to judge it by what a “reasonable medical doctor” would do not a “reasonable person” (most of whom don’t have the necessary medical training). The huge problem with the “reasonable officer” is making it a synonym for the “average officer” when there are a lot of officers out there who should not be officers due to racism, blue line, etc. It is a bit like throwing all “alternative medicine” providers into the “medical doctor” pool and thereby making it “reasonable” to prescribe homeopathic remedies for cancer.
I’m very happy about the verdict, but look at what was necessary to get a police officer convicted. He murdered a man on camera, in front of a dozen-plus witnesses, in a way that even fellow officers and medical professionals said was unprofessional and unjustifiably violent. NOT to have convicted him would have convicted the jury of covering up a cold-blooded murder. How many police officers in the future will be more careful about how they murder people? I’m sure there will be the occasional psychopath who thinks he’s safe to kill someone with videos being made, but most killer kops will be more careful about where and how they do it. The only good thing about this is that it might save a few lives because an officer is strangling someone and realizes he’s on candid camera and will let his victim live.
Something I think is really important now: What about the other officers who protected Chauvin while he was murdering a man? Will they face and receive justice for complicity in a murder/ The guy who held the crowd back might get off or get a slap on the wrist on the grounds he did not know for certain what was happening behind him (although he had to be pretty stupid when the crowd was telling him he was helping a murder), but the others who held Floyd down need serious prison time.
I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve been watching trials like this for 50 years. I fully expected an acquittal, because that’s how things like this work. I’ll also be pleasantly surprised if Chauvin spends a significant amount of time in jail (10+ years) because, again, this is how these things generally work. The judge all but told the defense lawyers that they could appeal because Congressional Representative Maxine Waters made a comment about the trial. (She’s a Black woman and, even though she’s a Congressperson, she’s supposed to keep her mouth shut. Anything she says is therefore “suspect” and “taints the verdict.”) Don’t forget that cops have been killing people every day this trial has been going on, the majority of the victims being Black or Brown, so the whole racist structure of policing in this country is still intact. This trial is basically an anomaly. The whole thing needs to be torn down, root and branch. Pleasant surprises are one thing, but given the givens, I don’t think reform of this racist system is possible.
Donald Trump must be turning in his bathrobe.
rrhain @7: Multiple cops testified on behave of the prosecution that what Chauvin did was excessive. This was obviously them throwing him under the bus to cover their own butts, but it ought to be enough to negate the defense of saying it was an action a reasonable cop would have taken.
FINALLY! FUCKING FINALLY!
Do Breonna Taylor’s murderers next, please! If anything her loss was even worse, since she was a healthcare worker (yes, a little tribal of me, but she was constantly doing good!) and a woman on top of being black! That worthless asshole who just shot without thinking (or worse, shot while thinking a bunch of slurs) ought to share a cell with Mr. Chauvin.
I don’t think it’ll change much about the racism in police forces, but it’s a start.
Matt G: Amadou Diallo got shot 41 times, killing him instantly. This was eventually deemed to be the right thing for cops to do but maybe they should switch to anti-personnel ammunition so the bullets don’t go through quite so many walls after missing or sailing through the innocent victim.
Are you thinking of Abner Louima? He managed to get two cops in jail. One is still there. He survived the violence (after several surgeries) and is an activist.
“He” meaning Louima survived and became an activist.
Marissa van Eck: the prosecution there has already decided that the only problem with that shooting was it endangered white people nearby. Being in bed while black is a capital crime.
Justice wasn’t served. A just society wouldn’t have had this young men die at the hands of the state.
“roving gangs of cops looking for any excuse to bash heads in revenge”
Already started. Today cops in Ohio murdered a black teenage girl who called them for help. Later three cops were outside the crime scene chanting “blue lives matter”.
@19 Waters spoke the truth after the jury was sequestered if I heard right. But that won’t stop the cons from trying to blame her for the verdict.
now I don’t have to argue with dumb-ass right wingers arguing that somehow he had a spontaneous heart attack or overdosed on drugs 100x less than the lethal dose.
A white woman cop murdered Bothan Jean. Fortunately she was convicted of murder. Hope her appeal of her conviction which starts next week fails.
@abbeycadabra
For this case, just consider that to be true. The times when you can appeal decisions of fact are pretty limited, while the times when you can appeal decisions of law are pretty expansive. With the crime captured on video, facts are not so much at issue.
Well, no. Not exactly true. See the US Constitution, Article III § 2:
SCOTUS has rather special powers, and can rule on findings of fact. As I said I wouldn’t expect those to come up on appeal, but since your statement about not ruling on findings of fact was not limited to this case, I felt the need to provide a clarification.
That said, I’m not remotely expert in when and how often SCOTUS reverses findings of fact, but the constitution clearly gives them the power to do so, and I know that they have done so at least a few times in the past. Probably findings of fact aren’t at issue on appeal, but we should be hesitant about making our position to absolute without an expert around to pin down the limits of this power.
Re: Maxine Waters. Does anyone know why the jury wasn’t sequestered? With tempers this hot, that would have seemed to have been a reasonable step to take.
Apparently judges in the USA have wide discretion to choose whether or not sequestering is necessary or whether a judicial order not to view/read/otherwise solicit news is enough. From a lawyer talking about this issue over on Wonkette, Minnesota may have even more discretion than normal (and thus the appeals courts be even less likely to overturn a verdict over this choice) or maybe they simply have a stronger tradition of trusting juries to actually obey the self-sequestration orders from the judge.
In either case, if that lawyer is correct, there will be a need not only to prove that improper influence could have happened, but that it did in fact happen.
However, please remember that “prove” here does not mean “prove beyond a reasonable doubt”. The standard of evidence is less (I didn’t think to ask, but probably preponderance of evidence, which is a 50.0001%+ likelihood). Nonetheless, the burden would be on the defense to provide very significant evidence for their assertion. According to that lawyer, it wouldn’t be easy and it would be likely to succeed.
On the other hand, according to a different lawyer talking about the case (also on Wonkette) there are potential problems on appeal for the highest charge (which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years, but under sentencing guildelines would likely be 12.5 years (if no aggravating factors are found) to 18-ish years (if 3 aggravating factors are found) since the defendant has no criminal record, and cannot exceed 30 years given the lack of a previous record unless very unusual conditions were found to apply. Those would be conditions dependent on Minnesota law and I don’t know what they would be. This charge is not guaranteed to be overturned, but the lawyer commenting thought the issues deserved a very serious look and wouldn’t venture a guess as to which outcome (overturning that conviction or sustaining that conviction) was more likely. So for now I’m considering this 50/50 to be upheld, though we’ll get better information about which way courts are likely to lean long before the actual ruling.
There do not appear to be any issues likely to form the basis of overturning the lesser two charges. The more serious of those charges would get Chauvin about 8 years if no aggravating factors are found, as much as maybe 12 with aggravating factors. Possibly slightly more, I’m a bit hazy on that from what was said in the Wonkette thread and haven’t looked up Minnesota sentencing procedures and guidelines. Given the statutory limits on judicial discretion in sentencing, the absolute max someone could get under this 2nd-most serious conviction is somewhere between 16 and 20 years. That said, these maximums are unlikely to come into play in any case as court watchers believe this judge to be sympathetic to the defense and likely to stick close to the sentencing guidelines, but if there is deviation, to deviate downwards.
Other things to consider: under Minnesota law the 3rd degree murder charge and the manslaughter charge are considered lesser included charges of the 2nd degree murder of which Chauvin was also convicted. Given that, only the most serious charge’s sentence will actually apply. You cannot add the sentence for the lower charges to the sentence for more serious charges in this situation.
However, the Feds also have jurisdiction over crimes committed “under color of law”. See especially USC Title 18, § 242. There are levels of possible violation of § 242, but the most serious is imposed when the statute is violated in the process of committing another serious crime like kidnapping or rape or when, regardless of whether another crime was committed, death results (even accidentally, though they have to have intended a rights violation to begin with).
If Chauvin was charged in federal court and the government proved that he violated Floyd’s rights under color of law and that Floyd died in the course of that violation (the second will be nearly automatic should they prove the first) then Chauvin
I’m not holding out hope of a sentence longer than 12 years (the 2nd most serious charge with all aggravating factors of the 1st most serious charge with none) for Chauvin’s convictions in state court, but given federal law’s ability to sentence him for ANY term of years (including life) or even death, and also the ability of the feds to impose their sentence consecutive to Chauvin’s state sentence (so the time doesn’t start counting until his time on the state sentence is over), Chauvin is still at very serious risk of spending more than 25 years behind bars in total.
numerobis@24- You are absolutely correct, I confused the two cases. The Rudy quote was about Abner Louima.
I see that fucker carson has called the verdict an attack on civilisation .
davidc1@35,
Even for Carlson, that’s an odd way to spell “white supremacy”!
Yeah. In MURICA it’s spelled “civilization” with a Z like JUDEO-CHRISTIAN ANGLO-SAXON GOD HIMSELF intended. We fought a war for that.
That Attorney Genera Merrick Garland has ordered a federal investigation into the practices of the Minneapolis Police Department is appropriate, given the results of the Chauvin trial. The death of George Floyd was not just due to just one police officer.
@28
Can I have a link to that story?
logicalcat@39, A moment’s searching found this, Ohio Cop Shouted at Neighbors After Colleague Shot Teen Black Girl. I do not know if that is the article / link Alverant@28 based their short comment on (it may not be the same incident, as there is just one gestapo shouting (once?), not three chanting (as said in @28), albeit there is apparently a video). (So, yeah, if would be helpful if Alverant can provide a citation or correction.)
Wsierichs @18
They are being tried as a group. Their trial starts August 28th.
Violence warning: The bodycam video of the cop who shot Bryant can be seen here;
https://heavy.com/news/makhia-bryant-body-cam-video/
The video is played about 6 minutes into the conference, and then again in slow motion. There are also still photos. It does appear that Bryant was about to stab the girl in pink just before the cop shot her.
Why is it some pictures of him I’m seeing in the internet are showing him looking baby faced in prison orange and not that rawboned-man-with-psychopathic-glare picture of him ? I’m concerned about the sentencing too. He had a reputation for excessive force and asphyxiating people before . He doesn’t really deserve sympathy. I don’t have much sympathy for sadists when they commit sadistic crimes.
As much as it pains me to say it, that would be hard, but it’s unclear whether what they did was illegal under current law. The problem is that the law must be changed to make illegal what those killer-cops did. I’d start with an absolute ban on no-knock raid warrants. That would help a lot.
Thanks for the links. I’m sorry but that girl had a knife and was attacking someone. Unless I see other evidence of justifiable self defense then the cop did his job. In a perfect world she’d be alive but cops are not dead-shot who can shoot to incapacitate at will.
The cops afterwards tho, should not be antagonizing citizens in that neighborhood with their “blue lives matter” bullshit. That cop needs sensitivity training.
@44
I’m not even entirely sure the cops did not knock. There’s a lot of bullshit people are peddling. Hard to tell whats real or not. I even heard stories about how she was killed in her sleep which was a lie.
logicalcat:
Which is why they’re issued Tasers. Less lethal.
And if he did his job by killing an assailant, it follows his job is to kill assailants.
One must be sensitive, after a girl is killed by a cop doing their job.
logicalcat
Yea. I would go further. The idea that they only have to knock for 30 sec before busting down the door is nonsense too. It should be a few minutes. It should also be recorded every time on video and audio, by multiple officers, as a condition of the warrant. The essence of a no-knock raid warrant is to surprise people. I’m saying that this essence should be illegal. Warrant servers should be obliged to wait a reasonable amount of time, plus some more, in order for people to get dressed, walk to the door, etc. Warrant servers should not be allowed to gain surprise. Not when searching someone’s home. I don’t care if that puts the cops in more risk. I don’t care if that gives opportunity for people inside to destroy evidence (and there are sometimes ways around this problem).
@ John Morales
Facepalm
Yes John. The job of police is to kill armed assailants. She had a knife and was attacking people. Tasers suck. Nobody wants to admit it but is he misses with that taser then that woman would have killed someone with that knife. Tasers are to subdue someone who’s unarmed, She wasn’t. She had a knife and was a danger.
Dont let the cop hatred cloud your ability to think logically. I don’t even like cops. Bad experiences with the city I live in. But to pretend that incidents like these are wrong hurts the cause because others see it as dishonest.
logicalcat:
Guns don’t miss?
I doubt that claimed restriction very, very much.
I’ve seen the effects of a taser. Recipients get muscle spasms and become briefly incapacitated.
To what “cop hatred” do you refer? I don’t hate cops, particularly.
You don’t see the use of deadly force as a first resort as wrong; don’t let the cop adoration cloud your ability to think logically.
John
It would be nice if we had “Star Trek phasers, set to stun”, but we don’t. Pretending that a taser is a Star Trek phaser is disingenuous. Tasers are nowhere near as effective as guns at stopping an attacker. Guns have multiple shots in rapid succession, unlike a taser. Guns don’t have significant travel time of the projectile, unlike a taser (AFAIK). Guns don’t have really small minimum ranged (might or might not be relevant in this case). Guns aren’t stopped by a (thick) winter coat or sweater, unlike sometimes for a taser.
Given the circumstances which the cop found themself when arriving at the scene, it looks like to me that the cop made all of the correct decisions, and one could not ask for more. The cop should be commended for handling it calmly, IIRC shouting several warnings before shooting, and for being such a great shot.
Given those circumstances, the cop could use the taser, but if the taser was ineffective for all of the reasons that I named, the would-be stabbing victim is much more likely to get stabbed and/or die. I don’t think that’s acceptable. I don’t think it’s acceptable to place the would-be victim in such additional extreme risk in order to preserve the life of the person who is currently in the act of vigorously trying to stab them.
PS: Having just read a bunch more about tasers, it seems that tasers are even less effective than what I thought.
If the two hooks land very close together on the body, the electricity doesn’t effect enough muscle mass to disable the target. That’s why tasers shoot the hooks forward with a predetermined angle separating them. Older models had a smaller angle between the two hooks, meaning that a taser was more likely to work at a longer range, circa 10 ft to 15 ft. Very new models increase that angle to about 12 degrees, making the taser more effective at the typical engagement range of like 5 ft, but much worse at longer ranges.
The angle of separation can also make it hard to hit. Obviously so. You have two projectiles going out at slightly separate directions, and both have to hit.
Some of the older but recent models have decreased electrical power in order to satisfy safety concerns raised by the public. However, it also significantly reduced the effectiveness of the taser.
I just read like 3 stories where both hooks hit, but didn’t work because of a combination of factors, including the closeness of the hooks on the body and the smaller power compared to much older models. Several of the targets were not incapacitated in any way in spite of both hooks making it to flesh. Tasers are far from effective in every case, even if you hit both hooks into flesh.
Tasers are a nice tool to have, but they are far from the same effectiveness as a gun or a “Star Trek phaser, set to stun”.
Gerrard, I was responding to logicalcat.
In particular, the idea that a cop’s job is to kill assailants and to shoot to kill when in any doubt. And, subsequently, the idea that tasers are all but useless — one which you weakly share.
(Anyway, I’m so very glad I’m in Australia, and not in the USA)
John
It’s not the cop’s job to shoot assailants. It’s the cop’s job to protect life. That was a clear case of justified defense of another. This is true whether the shooter was a cop or not. We’re not talking about judge, jury, and executioner. We’re talking about the same right to life and right to immediate defense of life that all Americans enjoy, but which IIRC Australians do not.
AFAIK, it’s illegal in Australia to carry any implement as a weapon of self defense. After being attacked, during the attack, you can use weapons of opportunity, like a stick off the ground, but self defense with any weapon of opportunity is still illegal if it “is […] such as is likely, to cause death or grievous bodily harm”. Does breaking bones count as “grievous bodily harm”? That’s so fucked up to me. It seems that, in Australia, if someone is swinging a knife at me, it’s illegal to pick up a stick off the ground and swing it at my attacker because I might break their arm – because I intend to break their arm.
Again, I feel that if someone is innocent and being attacked, they should be allowed to use some degree of force to stop the attacker if a lesser degree of force would not suffice to protect their own personal safety. And that same power should extend to any bystander, which includes the cop in this case.
Again, what did you want the cop to do? Draw the taser and use it? Depending on what stats you look at, it has a failure rate of approx 50%. That’s a 50% chance that the knife wielder gets to repeatedly stab the would-be victim. That is unacceptable to me. It is unacceptable that the cop should give such a high chance to the knife-wielder to stab the other person when an alternative exists – repeated warnings then shooting the knife-wielder.
IMAO, someone’s right to life is temporary suspended while 1- they are engaging in an unjust attack with lethal force, and 2- lesser force is insufficient to provide comparable guarantees to the safety of the victim. Apparently in Australia, the right to life of the attacker is more important than the right to life of the victim.
Again, “Gerrard, I was responding to logicalcat.
In particular, the idea that a cop’s job is to kill assailants and to shoot to kill when in any doubt.”
I’m sure that, statistics aside, you all feel so very much safer than we do.
@ GerrardOfTitanServer
Yeah, if your thesis is that deadlier police save lives, it is not well supported to say the least.
What is well supported is that a “right to bear arms” is a really, really, really fucking stupid idea.
Where the hell did I say that?
God the amount of stupid here is thick.
Fact one: she had a knife and was attacking another member of the citizenry.
Fact two: the person weilding a deadly weapon was shouting intent to kill and tried to do so just as the cop arrived.
Fact three: if the cop didnt shoot her she might have killed another human being. What was he to do? Let her?
Anything else is mental masturbation by a commentariat more concerned with setting up ideological bullshit than reality.
The thesis is not that deadlier police saves lives. No one said that and its a strawman. The thesis is deadly force saved the life of an innocent black women against an armed attacker. So please sit the fuck down. I guess black lives only matter to leftists when it can be abused ideologicaly. Reminds me of BLM protest when lefty white dipshits cause havok and made it about themselves.
Indeed. Ma’Khia Bryant was a 16-year-old African-American girl.
True, that. The thesis is that deadly force is necessary and proper against armed assailants. No other options exist.
By killing a 16-yo Black girl. A win!
Context matters.
Black person, USA, cop. No more need be said.
John
Such a ridiculous oversimplification. I expect this kind of argument from a young child.
@Gerrard
Its John Morales. The same idiot who on another thread criticized me for not considering the feelings of a woman who tried to kill her boyfriend with a sword for the crime of playing too many video games instead of spending time with her. He doesnt care as long as it supports his initial conclusion.
@John Morales.
What other options are there? Fucking magic? Telekinesis? Jedi mind trick? What else were the cop to do. Crazy asshole with a knife attempting to kill another black woman whos life doesnt matter I guess because acknowledging her safety would dismantle your original position and the cop has access to what? A taser which is one shot only doesnt have reliable stopping power, hand to hand training that would put his own body in peril and also doesnt have a good track record for stopping ppl since real life is not a Steven Seagul movie. Or a gun, near 100% stopping power with multiple shots and no you cant aim at the legs or arms because real life is not a video game and that doesnt work.
What’s his options? Other than let this other innocent woman get hurt potentialy die.
Is there a penchant for cops to treat black criminals nicer than white criminals? Yes. But when they talk down a white shooter its not when hes in the middle of shooting someone. This woman (or girl I forgor her age) was in the middle of attacking someone. Then did not drop her weapon. There are real problems woth the police but dishonest leftists make it worse by giving the other side ammunition. Im now hearing reports that the video where the cops say blue lives matter was doctored. Wouldnt surprise me at this point.
logicalcat, you seem rather exercised over this.
As I noted @46, you have an expectation that police are supposed to shoot to kill as a first resort. That expectation is not universal.
Dunno. What do cops in other countries where the per capita rate of killings by cops is 20-30 times smaller? That shall remain a mystery.
But sure, maybe in this case there was no other available alternative than to save a Black life by killing a Black child. I don’t know, but the point is that you think that you do, so that you have certitude about the matter.
You’re insinuating that I’m either dishonest or a leftist. I’m neither, so right then and there I can tell you jump to conclusions based on rather scarce evidence.
Ah, that’s where you asserted “That cop needs sensitivity training.”
(Perhaps you were premature in that? )
This is not an honest summary of logicalcat’s position, nor mine. Context matters.
You know, there is a publicly available video that should settle the matter. There’s also plenty of available data on the reliability and effectiveness of tasers. Maybe you should go watch that video, research tasers, and get back to us, instead of openly admitting to talking out of your ass.
I’ll make no such insinuation. I’ll make it an outright accusation. You’re a dishonest shitty troll. Always have been.
John @61:
John @64:
Make your mind up, mate.
Rob, whatever makes you think there’s some conflict between those two statements? What is it you imagine about which I need to make up my mind?
(What a weird aside that was!)
+10 for disingenuousness.
OK, Rob. You evidently cannot specify how or why those two statements are supposedly ambivalent or contradictory, and you cannot specify what it is about which I’m supposed to make up my mind. Heh.
@logicalcat
Makhia was defending herself against two adult assailants. She was the VICTIM. And she died because a trigger-happy pig didn’t want to do his job and de-escalate the situation.
But yeah, we all get it: self-defense is only for white men…
Chasing someone with a knife and making genuine vigorous motions to try to stab them, when the other person is unarmed and retreating – that is not self defense. That’s attempted murder. It doesn’t matter what happened before at all. If violence is taken after the threat has passed, then self defense arguments fail. This background of events is irrelevant and does not allow a self-defense claim to an attempted murder charge. It does not change it into something other than an attempted murder in progress.
Can you define for me what you mean by “is”?
/s
PS:
Did you even fucking watch the video?
@70 WMD KITTY
Either you didnt see the video or are dishonest as fuck about what happened. And you dress your argument with dishonest race baiting. Im pretty sick and tired of white people taking minority issues as an excuse to be bullies themselves or in your case dishonest. Its exploitative, not allyship. At the end of the day an innocent womans life was spared and an attacker put down. If the knife weilder was white you wouldnt care. If the knife weilder killed that black woman you also wouldnt have cared because black lives matter in the eyes of white leftists like you only applies when you can push your dishonest ACAB narrative. I dont even like cops. A lot of them are bastards but nothing signals “I am white blinded by privlege whose rhetoric carries no consequence for my white ass” than all this ACAB bullshit. We want police reform and dishonest portrayal of events gets in the way of that. For the record im not black but hispanic. Just saying this is how I feel.
@John Morales.
In another country with less police killings that girl would have murdered the other black woman. I’m for disarming the police but thats not the discussion here. The discussion is the dishonest portrayal of events by ideologicaly motivated actors. Namely you and a few others here. If you want to say that allowing people with knives so easily kill others is a sacrifice for striping the power of police then thats fine I can kind of agree. Less guns the better. But doesnt change the fact that the cop here saved a live of an innocent woman against an armed attacker.
I saw the video, I read witness accounts, and I judged accordingly.
She was defending herself against two GROWN-ASS WOMEN, who were the INSTIGATORS. These ATTACKERS do not now get to claim victimhood.
Again, swinging a knife at someone who is unarmed and retreating – that is not self defense. Not legally. Not morally. You know it. I know it. We all know it.
In the news:
https://www.vox.com/22406055/makhia-bryant-police-shooting-columbus-ohio
John
That article is nonsense, written by people who are willfully delusional. Exactly what deescalation tactics can one try to use in the second or two that the cop had?
This bit in particular really offends me:
Yea, and the other person might be dead.
Simply incomparable. In none of these situations, as far as I’m aware, involve someone immediately in the active process of trying to harm another. None of the other examples are comparable, no matter how much the author wishes that they were. There is a vast, vast difference between “has a weapon”, and “is currently in the process of actively employing the weapon to try to kill someone”.
Yes the foster and medical system failed Bryant. However, it was also Bryant’s decision to pick up that knife and try to stab someone. This really is not anything like the typical case of unjust police violence. I fully expect that cops would react the same way to one white woman in the act of trying to stab another white woman, or whatever race and gender of the assailant and victim. We can recognize that the shooting was justified, and we can assign some moral blame to Bryant, while also assigning significant moral blame to the foster parents, foster system at large, the individual medical doctor, and the medical system at large. We can also recognize that police in many other cases do employ excessive unjust violence, especially against people of color. We can do all of this and also praise this one individual cop in isolation as doing a good job in a difficult situation where all of the answers sucked.
Context matters. Not all police shootings are the same. Sometimes justified self defense or defense of others is a thing, such as the case of the cop shooting Bryant with the knife who was actively in the process of trying to stab someone else.
John @77: Leaving aside the weaselly use of “allegedly” and “reportedly” for now, the article says
This implies the woman in pink had run away and was not in immediate danger when Bryant was shot. And it is bullshit. Watch the video here. The woman in pink hadn’t run away when Reardon shot Bryant. She was in immediate danger.
And I’d love to see your own (or anyone else’s, for that matter) ideas about the deescalation options open to the cop in the 10 seconds between getting out of his car and shooting Bryant.
I didn’t write the article, just noting it’s in the news.
In passing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States,_April_2021
Clearly, that’s why USAnians (I know, I know… it’s supposed to be “Americans”) feel so very safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_weasel
I didn’t write the article. Just noting in passing.
Rob, why? It’s utterly irrelevant to the topic at hand.
(Are the cops supposed to be weasels? Black people?)
John, it’s relevant to one of the commenters at hand, i.e. you. Which you know perfectly well.
“Due to its small size and fierce nature, the least weasel plays an important part in the mythology and legend of various cultures. ”
OK. I’m important and legendary, in your estimation. Got it.
Perhaps he means you make him feel like wendigo?
Nope. I stand by what I said. Makhia acted in self-defense. In fact, she was the one who called the cops on the two attacking her. Was she supposed to let them beat on her?
The cop should have DE-ESCALATED THE SITUATION instead of acting as judge, jury, and executioner.
Or is the right to DUE PROCESS only for white men?
WMDKitty @86: Even if Ma’Khia did call 911, please explain how the cop getting out of his car was supposed to know that. All he saw was Bryant attacking the two women. And I’ve yet to hear anyone explain what deescalation would have looked like in this situation.
The difference between self defense and vigilantism is whether there is an immediate threat. When Makhia was the only person armed, and her victim was running away, there was no threat in that moment to Makhia. Makhia was not doing self defense. Makhia was doing vigilantism.
@87 Rob Grigjanis
I did explain the level of deescalation that would be used in this situation…fucking magic. That cop should have put some points into telekinesis.
@86
So she gets to act as judge, Jury and executioner then? Since she was you know, attacking another human being with a weapon who was retreating as clearly shown in the video. A video you clearly havnet seen or are ignoring because it runs counter to your bullshit ACAB narrative.
Oh and again more bullshit race baiting by WMD Kitty.
I’m curious who here is actually not white, other than myself. You say due process only matters if your white? I say with you due process only matters when you can dishonestly twist the narrative to suit your agenda because in case you forgot the receipient of the potential stabbing the cop prevented is also black. I said it once and ill say it again. ACAB is the position of privilege white people.