This shit shouldn't be hard.
Was there a homicide? Yes/no. In this case, yes, obviously.
Do we know who is responsible for the homicide? In this case, we do; the deputy in question. This isn't being disputed.
Once we have established those two facts (and they're a given, here), you have a murder case. If they want to argue that the homicide was justifiable, that's an affirmative defense. Meaning that, in a sane society, the officer would have to provide the evidence that justifies their choice to use lethal force. Their own testimony should not be considered unbiased evidence in this, and only considered in explaining the officer's mindset. Otherwise, like any murder case, we'll rely on the physical evidence available. And if the officer can't produce things like body camera footage or other eyewitnesses to back them up, they should be facing an uphill battle in proving this. I'd go so far as to suggest that unless you can find physical evidence indicating the victim was A> armed and B> fired first, the officer should be found guilty, in this case. We shouldn't accept an accused officer's word that the victim seemed armed, or even that the victim was threatening them with a weapon if they had one (this guy didn't, just being thorough). That's just an unsubstantiated claim. Would we accept a husband saying "I thought my wife had a gun, that's why I shot her" in explaining why his murder wasn't a crime? Why would we accept the same from a police officer, without similarly strong evidence to support it?
The absence of evidence should work against the officer. Not for them. Justifying a homicide is an affirmative defense, and a lack of evidence works against that outcome.
In before our Resident Big Brain Independent chimes in, noting that the victim had a gun on their person, claims 'Gun having Americans make the Police nervous so him firing into that man's back was entirely reasonable!' and runs that into the ground for six pages.
"During an operation in the Northland area of Columbus, the deputy reported witnessing a man with a gun," Columbus Police said in a statement. "The deputy pursued that man, and there are reports of a verbal exchange.Attorney Mark Collins wrote in an e-mailed statement, “At no time did Deputy Meade mistake a sandwich for a gun. Mr. Goodson pointed his gun at Deputy Meade.""There has been confirmation that our client gave verbal commands for Mr. Goodson to drop the gun."Body cams need to be mandatory.The deputy fired at Mr. Casey Goodson, Jr., resulting in his death."
I'm sure that A> they have the gun in question in evidence, B> that they've established chain of custody for that weapon, and C> that there's evidence of the victim actually purchasing that weapon at some point, rather than it being an impossible-to-track illegal weapon the officer could've easily planted, right?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/u...e-funding.html
This is good! Moving money from policing to other social services so the cops aren't a "one-stop-shop" for literally everything. It's a first step, but hopefully it's the first of many.Months after their pledge to dismantle the Police Department fell apart, members of the Minneapolis City Council voted early Thursday to divert nearly $8 million from the proposed policing budget to other city services, a move heralded by some as an important step toward transforming public safety in a city where law enforcement has long been accused of racism.
The shift in funds — about 4.5 percent of the proposed $179 million police budget — was not nearly the sweeping change that activists and some lawmakers had demanded in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in May. Still, Jeremiah Ellison, a city councilman who had favored more aggressive efforts to defund the police, called it an “incredible investment.”
“I think what we’re able to do with that $8 million is going to do a lot for public safety in our city,” he said.
The money will go toward bolstering the city’s Office of Violence Prevention, starting a team of mental health professionals who can respond to crises without the aid of the police and allowing city workers outside the Police Department to process minor complaints, such as parking violations and property damage.
The decision to divert the funds capped several days of charged, emotional debate over the size of the police force and the role of the department and came amid a spike in violent crime this year.
In his budget proposal, Mayor Jacob Frey suggested slashing last year’s police budget of $193 million by more than 7 percent. Council members went further, in large part by cutting money earmarked for overtime and other staffing costs. Trimming of those items raised alarm bells among the police chief and some lawmakers, as the department has lost 166 officers this year — some permanently, others because they are on disability, and still others saying they have post-traumatic stress from the massive protests that swept the city over the summer.
Wonder if the protesters can get the city to pay for their PTSD from being assaulted and abused by the police?
A Fetus is not a person under the 14th amendment.
Christians are Forced Birth Fascists against Human Rights who indoctrinate and groom children. Prove me wrong.
And on the subject of the Ahmaud Arbery murder, we have body camera footage of the cops acting as accessories after the fact.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/body-camer...ry?id=74742905
Warning : Above post may contain snark and/or sarcasm. Try reparsing with the /s argument before replying.
What the world has learned is that America is never more than one election away from losing its goddamned mindMe on Elite : Dangerous | My WoW charactersOriginally Posted by Howard Tayler
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN28R33L?il=0
Weird, so the federal government was playing up the violence from "leftists", and while there was some it was largely oversold by the Trump administration pressuring officials? who would thunk.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former acting chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence office has told Congress that DHS leaders pressed him to overstate illegal border crossings from Mexico and overplay the role of far left groups in violence during anti-government protests last summer, his lawyer said.
In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, former intelligence chief Brian Murphy accused department leadership of urging him to “blame Far Left groups in an exaggerated fashion” for violence during summer protests in Portland, Oregon, according to lawyer Mark Zaid.
In closed-door committee hearings last Friday and Monday, Murphy acknowledged that Far Left protesters were responsible for some of the violence, Zaid said.
In a Sept. 8 whistleblower complaint, Murphy accused President Donald Trump’s acting DHS chief, Chad Wolf, of having told him to hold back on circulating assessments of the threat of Russian interference in the approaching Nov. 3 election in part because it “made the President look bad.” Wolf also asked Murphy to play down U.S. white supremacist activity, the complaint said.
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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...ry-confinement
End ICE. Jail those involved. Prosecute any private companies involved.“During our inspection, we identified serious violations regarding the administrative segregation of detainees at [Imperial Regional Detention Facility],” the report states. “Specifically, IRDF was using administrative segregation as a long-term solution for detainees in protective custody and overly restricted detainees by not offering privileges similar to those offered to detainees in general housing units.”
In addition to finding 11 immigrants had been kept in solitary confinement for more than 60 days and two others for more than 300 days, inspectors said there had been no documented review to evaluate the continued solitary confinement and the immigrants were not afforded recreation time for an hour a day, as required. The inspectors also said the detainees received inadequate medical checks.
“Our examination of segregation records showed the facility inaccurately reported to ICE that detainees were receiving recreation time when, in fact, they were not,” the inspectors wrote. “Moreover, detainees in administrative segregation were restricted to their individual cells for approximately 22 to 23 hours a day without access to the same group activities or opportunities as those in the general population.”
Oh this one again. How the USA loves solitary confinement.
That shouldn't be an option in the first place. Because it's fucking torture. It's literally torture.
And then they argue that there is no redeeming some of it's inmates. No shit Sherlock, when they have been mentally fucking destroyed by the usage of solitary confinement. But I guess it's cheap to make tiny concrete cubicles, and we have to keep the prisons stacked for money somehow, so I guess we are going to let it slide.
I'm not even surprised when it's used on immigrants. Seems like a natural development over there.
Not really. The US would refuse to extradict and there would be much hemming and hawing of the punditry but really...who's gonna do anything about it? Nobody's gonna want to risk relationships with the US over domestic torture in the US borders. The worst we'd see would be some strongly worded letters.
The ICC is one of those international governmental bodies that we like to support when it's dealing with non-allies, but view as lacking any actual authority over ourselves when it comes to our citizens.
I am pretty sure the US is not a state party of the ICC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...Criminal_Court
They never did so the ICC could not judge US citizens for war crime and such.
Warning : Above post may contain snark and/or sarcasm. Try reparsing with the /s argument before replying.
What the world has learned is that America is never more than one election away from losing its goddamned mindMe on Elite : Dangerous | My WoW charactersOriginally Posted by Howard Tayler