I am very happy to say that I am not a lawyer. I note that as far as I have been able to find on the informational sites I frequent -- be they corporate media, magazines and blogs, whatever -- I have not found any lawyers who have yet stepped forward to offer a critique of the decision not to prosecute police officers in the death of Breonna Taylor. Paul Campos, for example, has chosen to write about something else today -- agreed, probably something even more important -- but still.
We may yet see some legal eagle commentary, but in the meantime I'm going to speculate that they don't want to speak the truth and be taken the wrong way. Here's how it seems to me, not as a lawyer but as a social scientist who understands a little bit about the law. The fact is it would be very difficult to prosecute those police, and very unlikely they would be convicted. The grand jury would not indict, but I suspect if they had a judge would have dismissed the case without a trial. The Attorney General, in other words, had no choice.
That does not mean, however, that there is any moral justification in the delta quadrant of the galaxy for this young woman to have been killed. That is a different question, although it should not be, in other words the problem here is with the law. And it begins with the "drugs" exception to the Fourth Amendment, and logically prior to that the War on [some people who use some] drugs. This created the possibility for a no-knock warrant in the first place. There is no reason why heavily armed cops should be bursting into people's homes in the middle of the night looking for [some] drugs [possessed by some] people. That there weren't any in this case maybe makes it a little bit worse, but that shouldn't matter.
But the fact is these police had such a warrant and they acted in accordance with accepted procedure. The one who did not, who fired blindly from outside the apartment, was indicted because prosecution is possible in that instance. Just so I don't get accused of a minor technical error which will be blown massively out of proportion, I will be more precise and note that apparently despite the no-knock warrant these cops in this particular instance had been instructed to identify themselves. One witness out of several said he did hear somebody yell "police," which might be true but nobody else heard it. Regardless, one should not be surprised that people who suddenly find heavily armed intruders breaking into their home in the middle of the night would react by trying to defend themselves. The point is this should never have happened in the first place.
The War on [some people who use some] drugs is a fundamentally racist project. White people are just as likely to use illicit drugs as Black and Latino people, but they are far less likely to be prosecuted for it. I don't have the statistics right in my head and don't feel like bothering to look it up, but it's a huge disparity, multiples in fact. But the police aren't bursting into suburban white people's homes at 2:00 am looking for weed, cocaine, ecstasy, opioids or whatever might be there, even though I promise you, it's there. That includes my small, all white town where the cows outnumber the people, and I know who they are, but there sure as hell aren't any police looking for them because the police don't care about them. They aren't a part of the War on [some people who use some] Drugs.
So drug use and possession should not be a crime. To the extent it's a behavioral problem for some people, it should be treated as such, and they should get the help they need. Small time dealing should not be treated as a mortal threat to civilization requiring tactics that put lives at risk. No, these cops can't be prosecuted but that's because of policies and tactics that should never have been legal. But they are. That's what needs to change.
Update: Here's a detailed discussion of the legal issues from David French. He knew in early August that these cops could not be prosecuted, and he explains why. That's what needs to change.
And please note: While I am saying that protestors demanding that these specific police officers be prosecuted are unlikely to get their way, I do completely understand their outrage and endorse the protests. Many are also demanding broader structural change, and the uprising will be validated if that happens.
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It seems to me that "the law"--or laws in general, in the US--are largely in place as repressive and reactionary instruments. It turns out that, in general, "progress" over the years in the US--in any field, whether education, health, the environment, etc.--has been a slow march toward ruin.
I would like to see truth and reconciliation commissions on the local, state, and national level, so we can uncover the "unspeakable" and the unconscionable, and get on the right track for the first time in our history. It's no different from an individual in a Twelve Step program, who has to take a personal inventory and get honest.
I know we disagree on this, Cervantes, but it seems pretty effing obvious to me that 9/11 was an inside job. Companies don't pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to demolition companies to make buildings fall into their footprints; it was controlled demos. Let's drug Cheney and he can tell us how he orchestrated it. (While he's under the influence, let's find out who killed JFK and why.) Let all the cops talk nationwide about the brown people they killed, "throwing down" guns and drugs afterward. Let's talk about the importation of brown people to enslave, 14,000,000 of whom died simply on the voyage over. Let's talk about endemic sexual and physical abuse. Let Shitler apologize to the women he groped and raped. Bring ol' Bill Cosby out of prison if he'll do the same. Let the Republicans, like our future-next-"Supreme Court" judge, air their grievances and talk about their abusive, dominating parents, and the pain they feel that's led them to become haters. Let's vomit out our collective national perversion and violence so we can start over and make a different world. We're so terribly sick because we can't or won't take responsibility for our acts of violence and we keep covering our tracks so we can stay sick. Only when the pain is acknowledged and aired will we be able to reverse course and make true progress.
I had to think two or three times about publishing this. I need to make it clear: it is incontrovertible that the cause of the collapse of the WTC towers was fire caused by airliners striking the buildings. The physical explanation for how this happened is rock solid, and they fell straight down because the phenomenon was what's known as a pancake collapse, for which there is ample precedent. Now, there are certainly questions about who financed and had foreknowledge of the conspiracy, and the official investigative commission was unsatisfactory in many ways. But let's be clear about what the real questions are.
One more thing: you can think all your thoughts without requiring this specific belief about structural engineering. Take it out and everything else can still be true. I really don't want to discuss this but I will note that the WTC towers had an unusual design, called a framed tube system. If you are really interested in this you can read the report of the NIST here.
I have family members who have voted Republican, but it is not because of abuse or even religious indoctrination. My whole family would vote red if that were that simple.
There are complex reasons for how every individual has turned out they way they are. Upbringing is only one part of the puzzle. In every life, there are a series of choices and experiences that have led us to where we are.
Okay, so complexity has led people to become who they are. Fair enough.
I'd vote for a Republican (I'm sure I have) whose policies I believed in. Why are Shitler's supporters impervious to reason, or to acknowledging that in supporting him--or other current Senate or House Republicans--they are voting to kill themselves because of policies around health, environment, education, and more--hence, Judge Barrett's looming ascent to the court to kill their health care in a pandemic? I think the answer is for many is simply that their party has become a cult of personality, devoid of reason, truth, logic, compassion, or sense. Others are simply single-issue voters, or nonsensical so-called Christians whom Jesus would no doubt give a tongue-lashing.
But here's another question, Eddie: the tendency of people who vote Republican (and I know and have worked with many of them) to vote against their own interests has been developing for some time, especially since the porcine Gingrich and the introduction of the abortion issue into American politics. Why do people still support assholes like McConnell, etc., who abuse and disenfranchise them? I'm guessing it's because of the race issue--they don't give a shit what happens to them (hence, they don't wear masks), just as long as the people with the brown skin have it worse.
Because I have yet to hear a single Republican voter explain rationally or believably why he or she would vote for Shitler--or any Republican. Did these people really choose to vote Republican, or are they just doing what ma and pa did because they're afraid to think, to be different? Because they're in Aristotle's cave, in other words ...
From what I have seen from the people that surround me that vote for and cheer on the republican candidates, the main motivation is money. Primarily, they have money and they want to keep it.
"who cares if some old people die. my 401k!"
Tax breaks mean they can buy that extra condo in Chicago/New York/London, or take another trip to Hawaii/Tahiti/Peru.
Corporate tax breaks mean they can afford to build that new distribution center in a wetland, pay the government to dig a ditch to fill with water in another location, and hide the profits in a special LLC.
Staying open during a pandemic means the money keeps coming in, and they can pay the people on the front lines an extra $1.00/hour "appreciation pay" (but don't call it hazard pay!)
And the one issue voters (abortion) have been told time and time again that they will go to hell if they vote for a democratic candidate. And they tithe to the priests who tell them this, and know that their good fortune comes from 'god'.
That sounds like a really, really sad state of affairs.
I can't help thinking of the chefs, trash collectors, business owners, middle level managers, and others I've worked with who seem ... just plain ignorant of what's going on. Their refrains:
"It won't matter much who we elect" ...
"Do you want the GOVERNMENT making decisions about your health care?"[I tell the"m, Yes, that's precisely what I want. It worked when I lived in Canada, and it worked when I lived in Spain. No reason it can't work here."]
And then there are friends I have who are African American. Some are aware of what's going on, and others feel they'll continue to get screwed no matter who's president--so why vote?
I understand that; that's how my Jewish grandmother felt in Ukraine, back in 1918 (we were trash under the Czar, we're trash under the Bolsheviks).
If Democrats would VOTE, there'd be no problem getting rid of the mentally ill swindler I refer to as Shitler.
But there's so much apathy in a waning empire, full of abuse, entitlement, and ignorance ...
And as far as voting goes, there are also the additional challenges of gerrymandering and voter I.D. regulations.
Right. I just wonder if any of the subterfuge and illegality is coming from Democrats--because clearly the Republican party has gone full rogue. I don't know how to see it any other way. Or do they believe what they're doing is a "crusade?" Those didn't work out well the last time.
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