My heart sank when I heard the news but I am not surprised at all. Face it, we now live in a police state. They can pull you over for no reason, take you out of your car, search you, put you in jail, they can shoot you full of holes and claim they were doing it for legitimate reasons, then the state will come in and make it legitimate. It's your word against theirs and these are the state's minions so who will they believe? Here in Indiana a few years ago a young woman supposably shot herself in the back of a police car even though she was handcuffed. Yeah, tell me how she got ahold of a gun and killed herself in the back of the policecar again? Yet, the police got away with it. And now they have stun guns as well and they get busy stunning 6 year old black kids because you know, 6 year olds are so dangerous, especially if they have black skin. I am sick at heart.
I meant to respond to this earlier but didn't get a chance, and I'd hate to not respond completely.
People's anger at the verdict is understandable.
These cops were tried criminally, and acquitted. In his opinion, the judge said that the witnesses against the cops were not credible. While witness accounts can be expected to differ, in this case the witness accounts were wildly different. A number of factors led to the shooting, including the victim and another subject with him claiming, verbally, to have guns, and then one of them ramming a police vehicle and attempting to run down an officer. Given the circumstances, the not guilty finding was correct.
Now, that being said, there is still an investigation by the DOJ/FBI, and there will be civil lawsuits. In my opinion the not guilty finding was justified in a criminal court, but I also believe that the officers and NYPD should be held civilly liable, given what I know about the case. The state could not meet the burden of evidence to get a criminal conviction; this doesn't mean that a plaintiff's attorney won't be able to obtain a civil judgement, which in my opinion is more appropriate.
I'm going to try and post something in the next week or so talking about police shootings.
9 comments:
Oh I know, sickening.
This was one of the "top stories" on CBC Newsworld this morning. Why - I have no idea. I hadn't heard of this story beforehand. It is sickening.
Agreed
I am angry not only at this story, but at the Chicago Tribune's typical piss-poor reporting.
What happened outside the nightclub? Why were the cops shooting? How did it happen?
I know none of these things.
living through this every day has been a nightmare
the fact that it was a judge-only trial already stacked it in favor of the NYPD...
there is so much more here......
this is tragic
My heart sank when I heard the news but I am not surprised at all. Face it, we now live in a police state. They can pull you over for no reason, take you out of your car, search you, put you in jail, they can shoot you full of holes and claim they were doing it for legitimate reasons, then the state will come in and make it legitimate. It's your word against theirs and these are the state's minions so who will they believe? Here in Indiana a few years ago a young woman supposably shot herself in the back of a police car even though she was handcuffed. Yeah, tell me how she got ahold of a gun and killed herself in the back of the policecar again? Yet, the police got away with it. And now they have stun guns as well and they get busy stunning 6 year old black kids because you know, 6 year olds are so dangerous, especially if they have black skin. I am sick at heart.
Sad, sometimes it feels like stupidity and cowarness wins the battle...
50 shots...reloading...no weapon found on any of those shot...enough said.
I meant to respond to this earlier but didn't get a chance, and I'd hate to not respond completely.
People's anger at the verdict is understandable.
These cops were tried criminally, and acquitted. In his opinion, the judge said that the witnesses against the cops were not credible. While witness accounts can be expected to differ, in this case the witness accounts were wildly different. A number of factors led to the shooting, including the victim and another subject with him claiming, verbally, to have guns, and then one of them ramming a police vehicle and attempting to run down an officer. Given the circumstances, the not guilty finding was correct.
Now, that being said, there is still an investigation by the DOJ/FBI, and there will be civil lawsuits. In my opinion the not guilty finding was justified in a criminal court, but I also believe that the officers and NYPD should be held civilly liable, given what I know about the case. The state could not meet the burden of evidence to get a criminal conviction; this doesn't mean that a plaintiff's attorney won't be able to obtain a civil judgement, which in my opinion is more appropriate.
I'm going to try and post something in the next week or so talking about police shootings.
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