Shirley you jest.

Don't call me surely (sic)

TTFN
HP

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_..._courts_are_eroding_the_second_amendment.html

It might be tempting for liberals to view these cases through the lens of gun control and favor the state or for conservatives to see them as a question of law and order and support the officers. Both sides should resist the temptation. A rule that allows cops to search or seize individuals for carrying a gun can only lead to more brutality against young black men like Philando Castile. It also permits officers to trample upon our rights to property and self-defense. These are constitutional values, not partisan ones. And advocates across the ideological spectrum should urge the courts to follow the First District’s lead and reject the disastrous illogic now developing in the federal circuits.

 

The Miami toy truck shooter has been charged with felony attempted manslaughter, but only after 9 months of police department lies to the press and the public, and after the Miami New Times called Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle “a disgrace”.

https://photographyisnotacrime.com/...anslaughter-shooting-autistic-mans-caretaker/

The police department also threw in a misdemeanor, "culpable negligence" charge so they could drop the felony charge before this goes to trial.

So, there ya' go. The, "investigation" has been forced to a finish by the local newspaper. Without the Miami New Times, there would have been no, "investigation" because Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has never charged a cop for an on-duty shooting in the 24 years she’s been running the prosecutor’s office.

Another corrupt, militarized police department caught by its own cameras. May they treat each other as well as they treat completely innocent citizens.

 

Some people are never satisfied with a proper result. It was easy to see from the start this was from negligence. If a trained SWAT officer wanted the guy dead, that guy would be six feet under today.

"Aledda fired three shots from his Colt M4 carbine rifle, one of which struck Kinsey in the leg" Select fire, three round burst. The news release stated that Aledda "was not in a position to correctly assess the situation or in a position to accurately fire."

If you can't fire accurately on target with a full-auto weapon then your finger needs to be off the trigger and the weapon needs to be in safe.

 

Some people are never satisfied with a proper result. It was easy to see from the start this was from negligence.

So let me ask a hypothetical question. If this "negligence" was a guy sitting on his own porch with a gun, and "negligently" fired and hit a cop writing a traffic ticket in the leg, you would think he shouldn't be charged? He would have been in jail so fast, and not charged with "negligent discharge of a weapon". Cops in a case like this should be charged the same as a citizen would.

 

Justice delayed, is justice denied.
William Gladstone
British politician (1809 - 1898)

"He would have been in jail so fast,"
as in, "not nine months later".

 

From:
http://www.wbur.org/news/2016/09/20...men-may-have-legitimate-reason-to-flee-police


Mass. High Court Says Black Men May Have Legitimate Reason To Flee Police
September 20, 2016
By Zeninjor Enwemeka
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Black men who try to avoid an encounter with Boston police by fleeing may have a legitimate reason to do so — and should not be deemed suspicious — according to a ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Citing Boston police data and a2014 report by the ACLU of Massachusetts that found blacks were disproportionately stopped by the city's police, the state’s highest court on Tuesday threw out the gun conviction of Jimmy Warren.

Warren was arrested on Dec. 18, 2011, by police who were investigating a break-in in Roxbury. Police had been given a description of the suspects as three black men — one wearing a “red hoodie,” one wearing a “black hoodie” and the other wearing “dark clothing.” An officer later spotted Warren and another man (both wearing dark clothing) walking near a park. When the officer approached the men, they ran. Warren was later arrested and searched. No contraband was found on him, but police recovered an unlicensed .22 caliber firearm in a nearby yard. Warren was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and later convicted.

In its ruling, the court made two major findings: The justices said police didn’t have the right to stop Warren in the first place, and the fact that he ran away shouldn’t be used against him.

On the first point, the court said the description of the break-in suspects’ clothing was “vague,” making it impossible for police to “reasonably and rationally” target Warren or any other black man wearing dark clothing as a suspect. The court said the “ubiquitous” clothing description and the officer’s "hunch" wasn’t enough to justify the stop.

"Lacking any information about facial features, hairstyles, skin tone, height, weight, or other physical characteristics, the victim's description 'contribute[d] nothing to the officers' ability to distinguish the defendant from any other black male' wearing dark clothes and a 'hoodie' in Roxbury."

On the second point, the court noted that state law gives individuals the right to not speak to police and even walk away if they aren’t charged with anything. The court said when an individual does flee, the action doesn't necessarily mean the person is guilty. And when it comes to black men, the BPD and ACLU reports “documenting a pattern of racial profiling of black males in the city of Boston” must be taken into consideration, the court said.

"We do not eliminate flight as a factor in the reasonable suspicion analysis whenever a black male is the subject of an investigatory stop. However, in such circumstances, flight is not necessarily probative of a suspect's state of mind or consciousness of guilt. Rather, the finding that black males in Boston are disproportionately and repeatedly targeted for FIO [Field Interrogation and Observation] encounters suggests a reason for flight totally unrelated to consciousness of guilt. Such an individual, when approached by the police, might just as easily be motivated by the desire to avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled as by the desire to hide criminal activity. Given this reality for black males in the city of Boston, a judge should, in appropriate cases, consider the report's findings in weighing flight as a factor in the reasonable suspicion calculus."

The SJC concluded that police lacked reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop in this case.

Matthew Segal, the legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, called the decision "a powerful ruling" that demonstrates what role courts can play in addressing community concerns about policing.

"The state’s highest court, in talking about people of color, it’s saying that their lives matter and under the law, their views matter," Segal said. "The reason that’s significant is that all the time in police-civilian encounters there are disputes about what is suspicious and what is not suspicious. So this is an opinion that looks at those encounters through the eyes of a black man who might justifiably be concerned that he will be the victim of profiling."

The ACLU's report found that between 2007 and 2010, 63 percent of Boston police encounters were with blacks, though at that time the city's black population was just 24 percent. Notably, the report said that taking into account high-crime neighborhoods did not explain the disparity.

Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans blasted the SJC ruling and said he was "troubled" the court cited the ACLU report, which he called "heavily tainted against the police department."

"I think they relied heavily on an ACLU report that I think was clearly way out of context," Evans told reporters Tuesday. "I’m a little disappointed that they relied heavily on a report that didn’t take into context who was stopped and why. That report clearly shows that we were targeting the individuals that were driving violence in the city and the hot spots."

The SJC ruling also cited the Boston Police Department's own analysis, which found blacks were 8 percent more likely to be stopped repeatedly and 12 percent more likely to be searched and frisked even when controlling for factors like criminal history, gang affiliation and violent crime areas.

Evans said the department's report found there was no indication of bias. The department's report did outline steps to ensure fair stops, including increased training on racial profiling and unconscious bias.

The SJC ruling comes a week after the launch of a long-awaited police body camera pilot program in Boston -- a program many, including Segal, see as a positive step toward police accountability and transparency. Body cameras have been part of a larger national conversation on policing since the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other high-profile police shootings of unarmed black men across the country.

WBUR's Delores Handy contributed reporting.

 

So let me ask a hypothetical question. If this "negligence" was a guy sitting on his own porch with a gun, and "negligently" fired and hit a cop writing a traffic ticket in the leg, you would think he shouldn't be charged? He would have been in jail so fast, and not charged with "negligent discharge of a weapon". Cops in a case like this should be charged the same as a citizen would.

Uncle Billy on the porch would be charged almost instantly but the cop was responding to a official incident, with a official weapon with the power to legally shoot a citizen if needed and not drinking a beer while cleaning his gun in a rocking chair. It is silly to say they should be treated the same until all the facts are known about why the cop discharged his weapon. I smelled a rotten egg from the beginning but still think "negligent discharge of a weapon" is pretty close to what really happened.

 

First off no one said the hypothetical guy was drinking. And you mean that cops never drink on the 'job'? Though I should have said also he has a CCP, so he is legal too. Fact are facts, the cop and the hypothetical guy both discharged their weapons negligently they both should be treated the same.

 

Fact are facts, the cop and the hypothetical guy both discharged their weapons negligently they both should be treated the same.

I agree, once the facts are known then they should be treated the same IF the facts are the same but the odds are long the discharged their weapons facts would be the same for a sober CCP holder pulling the trigger while cleaning a gun on a porch and a SWAP officer on a possible 'gun' call pulling the trigger while getting into a firing position.

Seems a very strained comparison to make if the question is why it took 9 months. It took 9 months because of police protecting politics not facts.

 

I think the increased militarizing of the US police force is part of the problem.
The huge infusion of actual military hardware into every community, large and small, since 9/11, has only made the problem worse.

"When the only tool you have is a gun, every situation looks like a shootout."

 

I think the increased militarizing of the US police force is part of the problem.
The huge infusion of actual military hardware into every community, large and small, since 9/11, has only made the problem worse.

"When the only tool you have is a gun, every situation looks like a shootout."

I'm not convinced things are getting worse, and in fact I think these episodes of police excess are declining. Vivid coverage of them is dramatically increasing, and this has caught the attention of the public, so every incident makes the news. We now see things every day that were hardly talked about 20 years ago. But this new exposure is making every police department across the country reconsider their policies.

There's one human nature that seems to be a common factor in many of these incidents: A person in authority loses their cool when their authority is not honored. It's the same thing when a child acts up in defiance of a parent. A lot of parents will lose it and escalate the penalties. It's the same thing that led United to beat the crap out of a paying customer. They had the authority to order that passenger off the plane, and lost their minds when the passenger refused. He got beaten for no other reason than that he refused to honor the authority of the security people to remove him.

 

It's the same thing that led United to beat the crap out of a paying customer.

United didn't beat the crap out of him, the federal authorities did. But of course one could then argue that United "unleashed the dogs" on him...

They had the authority to order that passenger off the plane, and lost their minds when the passenger refused. He got beaten for no other reason than that he refused to honor the authority of the security people to remove him.

Here are a few comments presenting the case from the way the airline might be looking at it:

https://thepilotwifelife.wordpress....thoughts-from-a-pilot-wife-about-flight-3411/

Personally, I think that rules are rules and should be respected... but sometimes rules are made in detriment to users or participants and become unfair rules that should, and must, be challenged.

 

United didn't beat the crap out of him, the federal authorities did. But of course one could then argue that United "unleashed the dogs" on him...

That ambiguity probably contributed to the problem. The United people that called the authorities may have "assumed" they would never escalate to the level they did. (They didn't factor in the Chicago effect.) The authorities may not have known the circumstances and "assumed" force was warranted. Those assumptions are a recipe for trouble.

Personally, I think that rules are rules and should be respected... but sometimes rules are made in detriment to users or participants and become unfair rules that should, and must, be challenged.

When I first heard this story I was surprised that anyone was ... surprised. Refusing to get off a plane when ordered could/should get you killed. A broken nose shows relative restraint by authorities, compared to a double tap being the ear.

The problem is with issuing an order to eject a passenger for the airline's convenience rather than for just cause. I believe the airlines should have the authority to do what United did, and that the good doctor was in the wrong and got off easy. But with that authority comes the responsibility to not abuse it. United abused their authority terribly.

 

The problem is with issuing an order to eject a passenger for the airline's convenience rather than for just cause. I believe the airlines should have the authority to do what United did, and that the good doctor was in the wrong and got off easy. But with that authority comes the responsibility to not abuse it. United abused their authority terribly.

I'm almost with you on this point but I don't think the good doctor was completely wrong in this case. Cases where Dead Head stand-by crew can bounce (the flight wasn't overbooked) a booked&boarded paying passenger involuntarily are rare for good reason, people get angry and money is used to placate that anger. United was cheap, abused their authority to cover that cheapness and used the police to solve a business dispute. They could have up'd the amount (offer $2000 cash) in another round after bypassing the Doc. Now United is looking at a 7 figure payout to the DOC as just punishment and is refunding all tickets. $30,000 - $40,000 down a rat-hole that could have been used to find seats on that flight instead.
http://www.wave3.com/story/35135187/united-to-refund-ticket-cost-to-flight-3411-passengers

It’s beyond pathetic that United wasn’t capable of fixing this situation without getting the police involved.
http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/travel-guide/a9266366/david-dao-united-law-suit/

"There is nothing in that contract that gives United the right to commit an assault and battery on a passenger," he told me over the phone.

"This is not a denied boarding incident, which is covered by the contract; this man was already boarded. This is not an oversold incident, as provided for by the contract; this airplane was not oversold—every passenger was ticketed and had a seat.

"This was not a situation where the passenger was unruly, committed a criminal act, interfered with the flight crew, was incapable of being a passenger by himself or anything of that nature, obviously until they attempted to physically throw him off the airplane.

"So to me, United Airlines breached their own contract of carriage."

 

I'm not convinced things are getting worse, and in fact I think these episodes of police excess are declining

I don't think your factoring in one reason they've declined. It's called winter. Once good weather is back .......

 

I'm almost with you on this point but I don't think the good doctor was completely wrong...

There's no question the doctor was the victim of an injustice. But he could have avoided his outcome and saved his arguments for a courtroom. You just can't argue with cops and expect to win, right or wrong.

It amazes me that United didn't simply offer $850 to get one more person off. I usually jump once they get to $400 or so. In my experience, it's rare to even get an offer that good. Some student usually gets in at far less.

 

By law, they can offer something like 1250 or so. I noticed they stopped at 800 ... Cheapskates.

That 2400 they spent might have gotten the crew on a private conveyence.

 

There's no question the doctor was the victim of an injustice. But he could have avoided his outcome and saved his arguments for a courtroom. You just can't argue with cops and expect to win, right or wrong.

Yes, he could have stayed under the covers of his bed in the morning and avoided this entire mess by being a compliant little wimp (not likely as he left Vietnam in 1975 after the fall of Saigon) instead of being IMO illegally forced to exit the plane by brute force. There are limits to what the airline can do in a pure contract dispute. The Captain can't legally ask the passengers to bark like a dog and fork over another $100 dollars or be removed from the plane.

The cops didn't win, they were only were used as thugs by a company accustomed to using thug tactics. If I were one of the cops likely to be fired because of this my lawyer would be suing United too.

 

By law, they can offer something like 1250 or so. I noticed they stopped at 800 ... Cheapskates.

That 2400 they spent might have gotten the crew on a private conveyence.

The limits are for pre-boarding overbooking, there are no limits for boarded passenger compensation leaving due to dead headed crew members needing seats.