Agreed. I’m so old, I remember being taught that the policeman was my friend. It isn’t a lesson I passed on to my daughter of color.
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You should probably go read the Minnesota statute for second degree murder. It is plainly and obviously not applicable here. Also: Ellison.
How so? I thought it was pretty damning, apart from the weirdness of the interim coroner’s report.
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Complicit, but obviously just a fluke…
Oh wait…
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Over the last year or two, locally the patrol folks started looking normal again. For a long time, they had suddenly started gaining size, shaving their heads and looking like thugs instead of your friendly, neighborhood cop. Our Blue and White Patrol Car schemes went to hard black and whites as well. Now I am seeing cruisers and general vehicles softening the look somewhat.
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I wish this son of a bitch would have stayed in his bunker. Coward be talking tough now, calling the Governors “weak”. Fuck this guy.
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I’ve posted this before:
On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.
Above is a quote from K.L. Williams, who has trained thousands of officers around the country in use of force
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I have been amazed/appalled to see the police leadership taking on military insignia.
Too many Sheriffs and Police Chiefs posturing with 4 stars, like a general. (For example, look at the pictures of that fatuous David Clark: https://images.app.goo.gl/k2BHtStSgscuE1GJ8 )
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I thought the same thing. America’s problem is not just with the police it is also with prosecutors who are all too eager to work with police unions to protect bad cops. Bad prosecutors are both embedded with and afraid of local police departments. They are at the core of the problem. If they had some balls and told police officers to clean up their acts police would behave a lot better.
I knew a lawyer once who served as a prosecutor in a town. He insisted on the cops only bringing good cases, and dismissed any he felt were phony. He referred bad cops to internal affairs and generally did what he could to get rid of them. The local union got rid of him in the next election.
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Eff Minneapolis Police.
Erika Shields is Atlanta Police Chief, Keisha Bottoms is their Mayor. Today 2 police officers were fired when a video surfaced showing them tazing 2 college students who were peacfully protesting. Instantly.
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(already posted by someone else above)
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I had not read the code, but just did. It is here for anyone who wants to look at it:
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.19
The key issue for the non-lawyer is: “causes the death of a human being with intent to effect the death of that person or another, but without premeditation”
I believe that one can show “malice” in this case “intent to kill” from continuing to hold your knew down on someone as they stop breathing. Is it a slam dunk? NO. But 99% of the time prosecutors over charge. Why should cops be any different?
Given the video, this may be one of the few times when over charging is NOT an issue. Certainly with riots likely, going with the minimum possible was criminally negligent by the 74 year old DA. He failed to understand the context he was working in, it is NOT his job to protect the cops and do just the minimum.
And about the complaint? It includes a bunch of assides that are designed to help out the cops, or given them some wiggle (.e.g talking about how big Floyd is). And then they fail to include some of the more damning comments, like how many times he said he could not breath or his comment about them trying to kill him. Or the comments of those standing around who say they are killing Floyd. Why leave those out? Very at best odd, and I read it as a document designed to limit Chuven and the other officers culpability.
I read it, it is here: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6975-derek-chauvin-complaint/cd9e96e708a9b0c8ba58/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
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All depends on whether Chauvin thought he was acting on the DOJ’s or DT’s behalf.
“Malice” isn’t the standard. Intent to kill is the standard, and there is no way you’re ever going to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Derek Fauvin intended to kill George Floyd while making an apparently lawful arrest, using a restraining technique that is (insanely!) authorized by police department policy, and doing it all while looking straight into the camera that he knew was recording him.
Because this case is exceedingly unlikely to be resolved by plea bargain no matter what the charges are, because it is overwhelmingly likely to go to a jury trial, because it’s incredibly hard to convince juries to convict a cop for doing violence in the course of his official duties, and because the best chance to actually obtain a conviction is to charge him with offenses that fit the available evidence.
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They’ll get hired by a different municipality. There is no national registry of cops fired for cause.
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I respectfully disagree that because a cop in involved, and as such a plea is unlikely, that the DA should trim their sails in any way. If the full evidence does not come forward, they can elect to not proceed to trial on that charge, but we have seen (a) the DA say before any charges “well there is exculpatory evidence”, (b) not charge the other officers, © under charge - or correctly charge, but I think we can agree charge less than is typical on the one officer he charges, and (d) the preliminary autopsy speculates about drugs in the system or underlying health conduction when the families autopsy says asphyxiation and as far as I can see there is no evidence of drugs or underlying conditions.
Lots there to doubt IMHO that the MN county officials are actually calling it fair and square.
I am not far left, and I see most police shootings that the far left goes off on as being justified. This is a really bad case by any measure, and given how it has set off a tinder box, officials in Minneapolis would have been better off to have not repeatedly tried to down play this from the start.
There is eyewitness testimony that Floyd appeared drunk, as was noted in the 911 call from the store employee. He is visibly unsteady on his feet in the surveillance video and even appears to fall down when being taken to the police car, which is also consistent with some kind of intoxication. Finally, the ME reported the presence of coronary artery disease, which is in fact an underlying condition, although it is not clear what role, if any, that may have played in his death.
Kind of refreshing to see.
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Does an actuarial table count? I’ll bet several major insurers have just such a thing …
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