Bad cop, coerced verdicts
We cannot say the verdict of guilty on all three counts in the George Floyd trial today is unwarranted. It’s certainly not surprising. But it may be as political as it is judicial.
Every state writes its own criminal statutes. Conviction on second-degree murder feels like a stretch. Officer Derek Chauvin did not kill Floyd while committing a felony. Chauvin was not robbing the store or (for that matter) passing a counterfeit bill. (Which is the same thing, actually.)
On third-degree murder, Minnesota requires an action that was “eminently dangerous” and carried out with a “reckless disregard.” Driving an automobile at high speed through a pedestrian mall at noon on Saturday would qualify. (You may not intend to kill anyone but it would be a miracle if you didn’t.)
Is that the same thing as pressing one’s knee on the neck of criminal suspect who had vigorously resisted arrest but doing so a minute or two beyond what proved necessary? Because that is what it comes down to: a minute or two of indiscretion. Or was it depraved indifference? Or was it murderous intent? That’s a lot of parsing.
If Derek Chauvin had cried out, like Johnny Cash in that song, “You’re going to die” — case closed. But no such invective was heard. An appeals court might whittle the case down to second-degree manslaughter. requires only “culpable negligence.” Poor police procedure, for which Chauvin was justly terminated from the force.
Where was Henry Fonda …
… in Twelve Angry Men? In any event, the jury made quick work of the case. Too quick, given the subtleties of the laws in question, the dangerous drugs running through Mr. Floyd’s system, and those two or three minutes. Not even a full day of deliberation. No requests for clarification.
The Chauvin/Floyd trial may not have been a political show trial. That said, the shortest straw in policing is to have a black man die on the call of a white officer, post Michael Brown, Ferguson MO (where the police officer was clearly acting in self defense) and so many others. Too many, for all kinds of reasons — not all of them racial.
Before the trial ever began, the City of Minneapolis paid out millions of dollars to the bereaved family. The jury was sent home for the weekend, allowing it to “marinate” on the shooting death of another black man, Daunte Wright, in a Twin Cities suburb. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters flew in from either Washington D.C. or Los Angeles CA over the weekend to roil the crowd, to “Get more confrontational” if Chauvin were acquitted. In a city that was already burning. Rep. Waters was only the point of the spear. When has a presiding judge almost invited an appeal?
Let’s put it this way: Guilty on all three counts was the course of least resistance. Do you want to be the brave soul who hangs the jury and frees Chauvin? Better pray you don’t get doxxed by a juror who voted to convict.
Face time for the Reverend
There was the biggest race huckster of all time, Al Sharpton — the inspiration for Jussie Smollett, in front of the cameras. Followed by speaker after speaker (including George Floyd’s rather impressive brother, Philonise), Sharpton never once stepped out of the camera’s view.
If this criminal trial were the least bit political, it would not be the first. O.J. Simpson was found not guilty and Captain Alfred Dreyfus judged guilty (as was an itinerant preacher in ancient Judea).
The archives recall a State of Wisconsin functionary who endured trial for “steering” a minor government contract to a travel agency whose owner had contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle. The company made the low bid, it met all the specs, the campaign contribution was legal. But the zeitgeist of the early 2000s suspected government corruption in every corner. The TV reporter who broke the story reaped journalistic awards. The woman was convicted and sent to a federal penitentiary. Only months later was she released by an appalled appeals court that found the evidence against her “beyond thin.” (Story here.)
Another down payment for racial justice?
What is Derek Chauvin’s life expectancy if he spends any time in prison — a white police officer convicted of killing a black man amidst what statistics tell us will be a predominantly black prison population? Anyone remember the fate of Jeffrey Dahmer?
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Mainstream law enforcement needed a Derek Chauvin to throw over the side. The crowd got its Barabbas but will it be appeased?
Next up that Racist Potter , she is going jail next. All the cops are criminals and all criminals saints.
Ho Hum another Summer with big cities burning. Indifference is the opposite of Love not Hate!
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Watch this video which talks about the law and then see if you agree with the multiple guilty verdicts in the Chauvin trial. Make up your mind based on the actual law instead of emotion and rhetoric.
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“Black lives do matter” has been a common reaction to the verdict.
I’ll take that to mean “All lives matter” is now in play.
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Great post with a lot to think about, Dave.
If Chauvin’s case is appealed and he gets just manslaughter, the phony Resistance will burn the country to the ground. Will the night pass without violence, you ask? I sure as heck hope so.
I think we are a county in deep distress. Mob justice, citizens held hostage by anarchists. Elected officials who are complicit. Police departments paralyzed with fear that they won’t make arrests. Disrespect for the rule of law (Good for that judge for standing up for it, though!)
Sane leaders will have to muster up their courage and help save this Republic, as I fear we are quickly reaching the point of no return. This includes police leaders. No more weak apologists, please.
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(Red Guards) Composing the majority of the urban population (URBAN POPULATION), they were the main strike force of several radically oriented socialist political factions. Red Guard units were created in March 1917 at manufacturing companies by Factory and Plant Committees and by some communist-inclined party cells (Bolsheviks, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, others). The Red Guards formations were based on the worker’s strike forces of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Lenin gave a following evaluation of the phenomenon:
The lack is not in the “new motives”, esteemed Manilovs, but in the military force, in the military force of revolutionary people (not people in general) that stands 1) in the armed proletariat and peasantry, 2) in the organized frontline formations out of representatives of those classes, 3) in the ready to side with people military formations. Taken all together, this is a revolutionary army.
— Vladimir Lenin, “Last word of “Iskra” tactics…”[1]
A number of other militarized formations created during the February Revolution, such as “people’s militia” (народная милиция), created by the Russian Provisional Government, “squads of self-defence” (отряды самообороны), “committees of public security” (комитеты общественной безопасности), “workers’ squads” (рабочие дружины) were gradually unified into the Red Guards.
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They got there pound of flesh.
Will it wet or satisfy their appetite?
That is the question.
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Even if it does satisfy their appetite this time, what happens next time?
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The Left’s appetite for violence and divisiveness is insatiable. And what’s worse is they know they’re the top predator at the moment (and for the foreseeable future)–all they need to do is glide along snapping up their helpless prey. Anyone besides me fantasizing about what might have happened on Jan 6th if the patriot uprising had left Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, AOC, and a few dozen of their henchmen/women disemboweled in the Capitol rotunda?
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Lib, that’s an oxymoron. Of COURSE they’ll be a next time. And it appears they will be mollified once more, and often -after the age-old expression, “the jury is in” is spoken.
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No debate. Mob rules. No problem. Next up, lots of non-white perps.
Problem. Will someone define the construct, JUSTICE?
Is it exemplified by Hillary’s email server, for which she was not prosecuted?
Is it the false reports that Sicknick died from fire extinguisher abuse, when in fact, he died from natural causes?
Justice? Is that the language of Hunter Biden, or were his prostitutes on parole for jaywalking?
Justice? https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010/oct/30/sorry-killers-aide-tells-widow-20101030/
Justice for Channon Christian and Hugh Newsom ?– “The details of their torture are so graphic and heartbreaking that I won’t go into much detail beyond this: After being tortured, Christopher Newsom was killed execution style by multiple gunshots before his attackers poured gasoline on his body and set him on fire. Channon Christian had bleach poured down her throat and on her body before being wrapped in plastic bags and placed in a garbage can in the kitchen of the house—all of this while she was still alive. Her last minutes on earth were spent slowly suffocating in a garbage can.
The five people responsible for these heinous crimes were: Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman and Eric Boyd.”
Do TELL.
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Sentient,
We live in a twisted world, don’t we?
The murders you describe didn’t make most major news outlets because they don’t fit the left’s twisted narratives.
Our Madison police chief (and other officials across the country) made it a point to comment about the Derek Chauvin case. Yet we rarely hear about the victims of violent crimes, including the many innocent children gunned down on big city streets. Who’s weeping for them?
We live in a broken down country with idiots, cowards, thieves, and people who sell their souls for ambitions, in charge. Integrity is a lost value.
JUSTICE? It’s been replaced by mob justice.
This all weighs on my heart and mind quite a bit.
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Liberty…..yes, events weigh on my mind, too. Remedy? Totally reject the totalitarian imperatives of the Loony Left, commies, BLM, and other libtard apologist organizations. We’re being overcome and overrun by ILLEGALS and libtard Bambi-loving, restorative-justice acolytes who masquerade as deep thinkers. Enough. Cancel illusions. Talk to a Vet who had to eat sand or witness the last words of a brother who died from an IED.
More prisons. More jails. More chainsaws that bite “REALITY.”
World done dem wrong? Tough crap. Grow a pair. Man-up. Shoulder the burden.
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Mad Maxine got in her 2 cents, Pelosi spouted, “Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice,” with no coverage in the Lame Stream Media. Pathetic race baiters.
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Agreed. They are despicable.
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Exactly, Squire, too many legal niceties overlooked -and more. In my opinion, a travesty. The MPLS jury was mugged by BLM and the threat of national violence and had no option. Many will agree w/ the verdict simply B/C of the avoidance of much proclaimed future anarchy. But after breathing a sigh of relief, have we gone forward in any moral way ? I believe we have capitulated to inarticulate thugs and their guilt-ridden Caucasian counterparts. Whirl is king…
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The hope the hive-minded media expressed was that this corrupt verdict would stop the BLMing.
All Officer Chauvin got was “social justice”. Real justice be damned. Will it bring social peace?
No, it won’t. For the Black Lives Matter and Antifa fascists the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. The lynch mob doesn’t give a damn about George Floyd or black lives. They haven’t got the slightest interest in the justice or injustice of any case, this one included. Their attitude is: How can we use this case to advance our real agenda which is overthrowing the American political and economic system and instituting a totalitarian state?
You can call it the race card but what it really is is as old as the hills: divide and conquer.
Radiical Leftyism is a blot on our nation’s soul.
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