Court Cites George Floyd Killing While Denying Immunity To Officers Who Shot A Black Man 22 Times As He Lay On The Ground

from the scaling-back-an-extra-right dept

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has triggered a shock wave across the country. The nation has seen the full horror of law enforcement's indifference to the lives of black people, this time personified by Officer Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck. In full view of several citizens' cameras, the officer choked Floyd to death, leaving his knee on his neck for nearly three minutes after another officer failed to detect a pulse.

Cities are responding to a fact they can no longer ignore. So are some police departments. And the courts are starting to take notice. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied qualified immunity to police officers involved in another killing of a black man, pointing out that this pattern of violence against black citizens has not only been seen by the courts, but will weigh against officers in future civil rights lawsuits. (h/t Matthew Segal)

The opinion [PDF] starts with a concise recounting of the events leading to this lawsuit, delivered with a dryness that does nothing to eliminate the horrific aspects of the officers' actions.

In 2013, Wayne Jones, a black man experiencing homelessness, was stopped by law enforcement in Martinsburg, West Virginia for walking alongside, rather than on, the sidewalk. By the end of this encounter, Jones would be dead. Armed only with a knife tucked into his sleeve, he was tased four times, hit in the brachial plexus, kicked, and placed in a choke hold. In his final moments, he lay on the ground between a stone wall and a wall of five police officers, who collectively fired 22 bullets.

There are more details about these officers' actions in the decision, none of which lend themselves to a favorable ruling on their treatment of Wayne Jones.

Staub wrestled Jones to the ground and put him in “a choke hold, just to kind of stop him from resisting.” A loud choking or gurgling sound, which seems to be coming from Jones, is audible on Staub’s audio recorder at this time…

[...]

One officer can be heard loudly calling Jones a “motherf**ker.” At least one officer can be seen kicking Jones as he lay on the ground. Officer Neely tased Jones for a third time, and North then applied “a drive stun without any probes.”

Jones was carrying a knife, but not one he appears to have used against the officers. It was a small knife, rolled up in the sleeve of his shirt. This didn't stop the cops from insisting Jones was trying to kill or injure them. The recordings seem to indicate Jones was legitimately confused by the officers' questions and was only attempting to get some straight answers to the officers' oblique questions. But too many cops seem to view citizens' questions as a form of resistance and that's how the officers received Jones' queries. And they addressed his words with violence.

One homeless black man, carrying a knife in his sleeve -- one he seemingly never held in his hands -- was extrajudicially killed by a semi-circle of "reasonably scared" officers.

Having learned of the knife, the officers simultaneously drew back approximately five feet. As they moved back, Jones’s left arm dropped lifelessly. Jones was motionless on the ground, laying “with his right side on the ground” and his “right elbow . . . on the ground.” All five officers drew their firearms and formed a semi-circle around the recumbent Jones, who was between the officers and the bookstore wall. The officers ordered Jones to drop the weapon. Jones remained motionless and did not verbally respond. Lehman reported that Jones “did not make any overt acts with the knife towards the officers.” On the night of the incident, Staub similarly reported that as the officers stepped back, Jones “still had the f**king knife in his hand and he wasn’t f**king doing nothing.” Seconds later, the five officers fired a total of 22 rounds at Jones, causing 23 wounds, and killing him where he lay on the sidewalk. Neely fired the first shot, but the next rounds immediately followed. Most of the bullets entered Jones’s back and buttocks. Jones died shortly before midnight.

It appears at least one cop recognized they had overreacted. But there was no effort made to save Jones' life. Instead, the officers decided to save their careers.

In the immediate aftermath on the scene, one or two of the shooting officers called for emergency medical services, but none of them rendered aid themselves. When searching Jones’s lifeless body, officers found a small fixed blade knife tucked into his right sleeve. After being told that state police were coming to investigate, officers can be heard saying that the incident would be a “cluster” and that they were going to “have to gather some f**king story."

Although the cops testified one of them was stabbed by Jones, the court says the facts don't exactly lend themselves to this testimony. And even if Jones had attacked one of them, he was still "secured" by the five officers, which means the force deployed by the officers was excessive.

Given the relatively inaccessible location of the knife, and the physical inability to wield it given his position on the ground, the number of officers on Jones, and Jones’s physical state by this time, it would be particularly reasonable to find that Jones was secured while still armed.

The obvious retort is that a suspect who stabs an officer is not secured. But even given that admission, there remains a genuine question of fact as to whether Jones was secured at any point after Staub felt the knife, and before the officers simultaneously backed away. Staub called out multiple times that Jones had a knife, and another officer yelled to get back, all before the officers retreated. To be sure, the incident moved quickly. But during all of this, Jones was still on the ground, with five officers on him. A jury could reasonably find that Jones was secured before the officers backed away, and that the officers could have disarmed Jones and handcuffed him, rather than simultaneously release him.

Nothing about the killing was justified.

[T]he fact that Jones did not move or respond corroborates that he was incapacitated, and the reasonable officer would have recognized that fact. Indeed, Lehman reported that Jones “did not make any overt acts with the knife towards the officers,” and Staub reported that Jones “wasn’t f**king doing nothing.” And yet five officers wasted no time, giving Jones mere seconds to comply before firing. The officers shouting “drop the knife” seconds before shooting him was, at best, farcical because it was impossible for an incapacitated person to drop a knife tucked into his sleeve.

The court also takes a moment to slam cop-speak -- the mangling of English that turns absolutely nothing at all into justifications for searches, seizures, and the taking of citizens' lives.

According to North, Jones’s hands were “about to go up,” and he “took that as [Jones] may try to assault him.” Unless he was clairvoyant, North could not have known that Jones’s hands were “about” to be raised.

The closing paragraph addresses the current civil unrest and its roots in cop behavior -- something that has been deterred not at all by the routine application of qualified immunity to violent cops who escalate non-threatening situations until they feel deadly force can be deployed. The court's message to the officers in this case extends to all law enforcement officers in its jurisdiction: this level of violence in response to minimal "threats" isn't acceptable.

Wayne Jones was killed just over one year before the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of Michael Brown would once again draw national scrutiny to police shootings of black people in the United States. Seven years later, we are asked to decide whether it was clearly established that five officers could not shoot a man 22 times as he lay motionless on the ground. Although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split-second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives. Before the ink dried on this opinion, the FBI opened an investigation into yet another death of a black man at the hands of police, this time George Floyd in Minneapolis. This has to stop. To award qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage in this case would signal absolute immunity for fear-based use of deadly force, which we cannot accept.

Hopefully this points to a shift in the court's thinking. Maybe the Fourth (and hopefully other circuits) will consider more than simply whether or not precedent has declared this particular violation of rights unconstitutional. This decision says the court is considering both prongs of the qualified immunity argument. If so, this will stop the steady creep of qualified immunity to cover nearly any action taken by cops. The other prong -- whether or not the actions were reasonable -- has been ignored too often for far too long. This decision places the officers' actions in the context of today's civil unrest and recognizes it is part of the problem.

Filed Under: 4th circuit, george floyd, qualified immunity

DEA Wants In On The Fun, Asks DOJ To Give It Permission To Surveil George Floyd Protests

from the GTFO-drug-warriors dept

I thought there was still a Drug War being fought in this county. I guess it's not as important as billions of annual budget dollars would indicate it is. When the going has gotten mildly tougher for US law enforcement agencies, the DEA is there to help out by placing people engaged in First Amendment activities under surveillance.

The demonstrations over George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers have provoked all sorts of responses from government entities. The DEA's is one of the worst. As usual, it's FOIA terrorist Jason Leopold who's managed to obtain a document the DEA probably didn't want shared publicly.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been granted sweeping new authority to “conduct covert surveillance” and collect intelligence on people participating in protests over the police killing of George Floyd, according to a two-page memorandum obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Floyd’s death “has spawned widespread protests across the nation, which, in some instances, have included violence and looting,” the DEA memo says. “Police agencies in certain areas of the country have struggled to maintain and/or restore order.” The memo requests the extraordinary powers on a temporary basis, and on Sunday afternoon a senior Justice Department official signed off.

The DEA has always been able to engage in domestic surveillance. Most of its targets reside in the United States. Domestic surveillance to engage in drug-related investigations isn't really the problem here. (This is not to say the DEA's surveillance efforts aren't problematic.) This is the DOJ saying it's okay for an agency that's supposed to be shutting down drug operations to start snooping on protesters. Even if there has been some criminal activity occurring during demonstrations, in recent days this has been the exception, rather than the rule.

The memo [PDF] notes that the law says the DEA's law enforcement powers are supposed to be limited to drug enforcement activity. But there's always a loophole. And that's what the DOJ is using. The memo admits the "federal crimes being committed in the wake of Mr. Floyd's death are largely not drug-related," but says the Attorney General can re-task the DEA as the DOJ sees fit. That's how the DOJ sees it. No further details are discussed in the memo. And the DOJ has nothing to say about what percentage of observed federal crimes to date might have anything to do with drugs.

It appears no one in the DOJ felt the DEA's assistance was necessary. In other words, the DOJ did not ask the DEA if it would be willing to expend its resources surveilling protests for non-drug-related crime. The DEA asked to do this, suggesting it has some underutilized resources that should be budgeted out of the agency when the next appropriations bill comes up for a vote.

It doesn't appear many DEA agents think they should be involved in surveilling protests. The DEA only needed 25 volunteers to do god knows what with their drug investigation expertise. It couldn't get them -- not without stripping the tasking of its voluntary nature.

Two sources knowledgeable about the deployment said 15 people from the DEA’s elite Special Response Team and 10 special agents were chosen. Not all 25 volunteered, the sources said.

Kruskall’s email did not describe what specific tasks the detachment would be given. It added that if insufficient numbers of agents volunteered, others would be assigned the job. According to the sources, fewer than 25 agents raised their hands [when asked to volunteer].

Leopold's DEA sources aren't happy with the DEA's actions. Three people who spoke with Leopold said they were "troubled" by the DEA's desire to send agents to surveil people engaged in protected speech.

And they're correct. The DEA has no business engaging in "covert surveillance" of protests, especially when there's no evidence pointing to drug-related federal crimes being committed. The agency also shouldn't be sending non-volunteers out to help handle protests by "intervening" on regular law enforcement's behalf or arresting protesters for allegedly engaging in criminal acts.

The DEA saw an opportunity to engage in mission creep, if only for a limited time. A DOJ less in thrall to hypocritical "rule of law" notions would have rejected this naked attempt to put DEA boots on First Amendment ground. But that isn't the DOJ we have at the moment. And now we have at least 25 DEA agents burning through tax dollars for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Defund the DEA.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, dea, doj, george floyd, protesters, protests, surveillance

#NoRightsMatter: US Postal Service, Law Enforcement Team Up To Seize 'Black Lives Matter' Facemasks

from the guaranteed-but-also-fungible-I-guess dept

In this time of coronavirus and social unrest, you'd think the government -- at all levels -- would engage in a little more care not to make either problem worse. Of course they haven't. Cops are arresting journalists and tear-gassing peaceful protesters as the President himself calls for domestic military action targeting US citizens. Dystopian fiction writers have been put on notice: the usual shit just isn't going to sell anymore. The ideas you thought wouldn't sustain suspension of disbelief are swiftly becoming reality.

Stepping into the breach for reasons it will probably never be able to fully explain is the federal government, using nationwide protests as a reason to suspend as many rights as possible until everyone agrees the government is not an oppressive force -- even when personified as a white cop strangling a black man to death by putting his knee on his neck.

Good luck with that. The government needs all the goodwill it can collect. It has apparently failed to realize the importance of harvesting goodwill in difficult times. And when the lawsuit inevitably gets filed, it will have to explain why it chose to do this massively stupid thing. Ryan Reilly reports for the Huffington Post about an apparent First/Fourth Amendment double-punch.

Law enforcement agents have seized hundreds of cloth masks that read “Stop killing Black people” and “Defund police” that a Black Lives Matter-affiliated organization sent to cities around the country to protect demonstrators against the spread of COVID-19, a disease that has had a disparate impact on Black communities.

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) spent tens of thousands of dollars on the masks they had planned to send all over the country. The first four boxes, each containing 500 masks, were mailed from Oakland, California, and were destined for Washington, St. Louis, New York City and Minneapolis, where on May 25 a white police officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old handcuffed Black man, setting off a wave of protests across the country.

Here's the original post detailing the apparent seizure of free speech d/b/a protective face masks:

This was multiple levels of fucked up, both in terms of what happened and who was involved. It's not clear which law enforcement agency seized the masks but it all started with the US Postal Service's "inspection" unit (USPIS), which apparently flagged the items as somehow illegal and/or dangerous.

The masks Rene Quinonez of Oakland's Movement Ink created never made it any further than the postal depot. The only thing unusual about the face masks -- millions of which have traversed the country unmolested in recent months -- were the slogans they bore.

Heads up, government agents: slogans printed on face masks are protected speech. And deciding to make off with a citizen's personal property because you just don't like what's printed on it doesn't just violate their First Amendment rights. It also violates their Fourth Amendment right to be free of unjustified molestation by the government.

"Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…" And it hasn't! Which makes this seizure unlawful. Lot of people who swore to uphold the Constitution are now wandering around acting like rights are privileges that can be completely suspended if stuff starts going sideways. Sure, there's lots of executive power to throw around and everything Congress has handed itself to use during wartime, but civil unrest across the nation isn't the bar for the suspension of guaranteed rights.

When anti-government demonstrations are widespread, it's speech the government doesn't like that needs the most protection. And here, the government (on a number of levels), has failed.

UPDATE: The federal government -- acting incredibly strangely -- has now released the masks and refunded Movement Ink's shipping costs. Sounds like the entities involved were hoping no one would talk about this and are trying to fix things on the sly now that this bullshit has been exposed.

An organizer involved in producing the masks, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they received a call from a USPIS employee on Friday morning, hours after HuffPost’s initial story on the seizure ran. What was strange about the call, the person said, is that they weren’t the person who mailed the boxes or the point of contact.

The organizer who received the call said the USPIS official said there would be a refund for the cost of express shipping since the boxes wouldn’t be arriving on time, which would have allowed them to be used by protesters on Thursday night and this evening.

All's well that ends well and all that, I guess. But there's still a civil rights lawsuit in here and Movement Ink should go after the government for its decision to violate multiple rights just because no one involved was willing to end this unconstitutional process before it could cause any harm.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, asset seizure, black lives matter, covid-19, face masks, george floyd, law enforcement, seizure, uspis
Companies: movement ink

Twitter Taking Down Trump Campaign Video Over Questionable Copyright Claim Demonstrates Why Trump Should Support Section 230

from the better-for-free-speech dept

Here's an interesting tidbit: the latest move by Twitter to deal with a tweet related to President Trump is that it pulled down a Trump campaign video that was presented as a "tribute" to George Floyd, the Minneapolis man murdered by police last week, and whose senseless death has brought so many thousands to the streets across the US. The video remains on YouTube for the moment. It includes a lot of still photos and a few short video clips. It appears that the copyright holder on one (or perhaps more) of those images and clips likely didn't like it to be included for use by a President for a propaganda video they disagreed with, and filed the DMCA claim.

I think there's a very strong fair use argument here for a whole variety of reasons (and, yes, I fully understand the moral claims that whoever took this photo may feel about it being used in this way, but copyright is not supposed to be used in that way).

But seeing as this comes so soon after Trump's complete and total meltdown over Twitter and Section 230 after it added some additional context to one of his tweets -- leading him to state publicly that Section 230 should be revoked -- I do wonder if this move, in which a video was actually taken down (unlike with his tweets), will have him similarly rage against copyright law? Will we see an executive order demanding an impossible reinterpretation of Section 512's notice-and-takedown provisions? Or does it not work like that?

Of course, what this really demonstrates is why Trump and his fans should absolutely support Section 230, rather than pan it. Section 230, among other things, gives Twitter the freedom to decide how best to run its site, and to date, that's meant bending over backwards to keep the President's tweets online and available for people to view. However, Section 230 explicitly exempts intellectual property. For copyright, there's Section 512 of the DMCA, which is much, much weaker than CDA 230. With CDA 230, there's an immunity -- if there's 3rd party content, a site is not liable and also a site cannot be liable for its moderation choices. With DMCA 512, it's a "safe harbor." Where if you meet certain conditions, you can then be protected. But one element of that safe harbor, is that to retain it you have to take down the content upon receipt of a valid DMCA takedown notice.

I've long argued that this aspect of the DMCA 512, in which the threat of significant liability from the state (i.e., the court system) raises serious 1st Amendment issues. That's because the law heavily favors silencing content with the threat of massive liability if you don't. And the system is heavily imbalanced as there's no effective punishment for false notices, meaning the system is weighted very, very heavily in favor of censorship.

So here's a good point to compare how the two different "intermediary liability" regimes actually work. Under CDA 230, free speech is much more protected. Indeed, the very nature of it is that the courts under 230 cannot force sites to take down speech (they leave that choice up to the sites themselves). Under DMCA 512, however, the liability issue makes it very, very easy to issue bogus takedowns that lead to content being removed.

It's interesting that this is all coming a week after Trump's bizarre tirade against 230, and the same week that the Senate argued that we should make the censoring power of the DMCA even more censorial.

It seems a much better approach would be to leave 230 alone, but fix DMCA 512 by getting rid of the imbalanced nature in putting tremendous state pressure on websites to remove content based solely on an accusation of infringement.

Filed Under: campaign video, copyright, dmca, dmca 512, donald trump, free speech, george floyd, notice and takedown, section 230, takedowns
Companies: twitter

The Military Is Being Tapped To Handle Domestic Protests, Something It's Not Really Equipped To Handle

from the answer-to-protests-over-force-is...-more-force? dept

With protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin erupting all over the nation, states are beginning to ask the National Guard to step in. The epicenter of these demonstrations is Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the National Guard has already been deployed to handle protests and enforce the curfew.

But it's not just Minnesota. The military apparently has plans to intervene in several other states if necessary, as Ken Klippenstein reports for The Nation.

The US military is monitoring protests in at least seven states, according to Defense Department documents obtained exclusively by The Nation.

In addition to Minnesota, where a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, the military is tracking uprisings in New York, Ohio, Colorado, Arizona, Tennessee, and Kentucky, according to a Defense Department situation report. Notably, only Minnesota has requested National Guard support. The documents were originally stored on an unclassified server but were subsequently elevated to a classified system.

In the only state where the Guard has been deployed, troops have been given the green light to enforce the law at bullet-point, if needed.

Another document about the protests in Minnesota, titled “MNNG Civil Disturbance Response Storybook,” is also marked FOUO and is dated May 29. It states that National Guard members have been authorized for “weapon status red,” meaning magazines loaded but safety on.

The good news is the documents seen by Klippenstein express concern about the Guard's response to civilian unrest. They emphasize the protection of human life and personal property. But we'll have an opportunity to see where these two directives meet if more property is targeted by looters or protesters. The National Guard is a branch of the military and crowd control isn't a directive it's had a lot of practice exercising. The few times that it has, it hasn't exactly been applauded for its restraint.

The National Guard is being inserted into a volatile situation with a shortage of equipment and possibly conflicting directives. This likely isn't going to work out well. As Steven Aftergood points out in Klippenstein's article, thrusting a military entity into a situation where there's no clear enemy tends to lead to bad decision making.

They are not trying to defeat an adversary, but to support their fellow citizens, to preserve order and to protect the defenseless. And unlike a response to natural disaster, they have to act in an environment of intense anger and provocation without losing their own bearings. It’s a near-impossible task even with the best training and equipment.

The National Guard has already demonstrated its inability to handle things well in limited action. A video shot by a Minneapolis resident shows troops firing paint canisters onto the porch of a house -- directly at the residents -- for ignoring unlawful orders to go back inside. The curfew only says people cannot be in public places past a certain point in the evening. It does not say they need to remain indoors.

There also appears to be a great deal more surveillance happening. A Predator drone on loan from the CBP has been spotted flying over the city and the state's government -- momentarily and mistakenly -- claimed the NSA was engaging in domestic surveillance.

Walz also reportedly said during a press conference that the National Security Agency was providing “intelligence support” and intercepted communications regarding riots.

This statement has since been walked back by the governor's office.

“No NSA involvement,” a Walz spokesperson told CyberScoop. The Democratic governor was mistaken in suggesting Saturday during a press conference that the U.S. military had provided the state with signals intelligence collected by the NSA, the spokesperson said.

But that doesn't mean there's no domestic surveillance being performed by intelligence agencies. The Intelligence Community provides support to military intelligence and the National Guard is a military component. Governor Walz mentioned "signals interception," which can mean a whole lot of things and it appears the governor is actively seeking access to DoD intelligence collections. The NSA's involvement -- if any -- won't be direct. But domestic-facing agencies -- including the FBI -- have access to NSA collections and can perform backdoor searches to access "inadvertent" collections of US persons' communications.

With President Trump citing the Insurrection Act in tweets and public statements, there's a possibility other branches of the military could become involved in crowd control and curfew enforcement. This Act was invoked during the 1992 LA riots but the law has been expanded twice since then to give the president even more discretionary power, meaning Trump can likely make good on his threat to send the troops in to shut down demonstrations if he feels cities and states aren't doing enough on their own.

This unrest has erupted from the use of excessive force by an armed government employee. It seems unlikely that sending more armed government employees with a directive to deploy force will defuse the current situation -- especially when defusing situations isn't something that comes naturally to them.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, free speech, george floyd, military, minneapolis, national guard, protests, surveillance

Let's Stop Pretending Peaceful Demonstrations Will Fix The System. 'Peace Officers' Don't Give A Shit About Peace.

from the [types-self-out-of-any-government-employment-ever] dept

First off, I would like to thank Mike Masnick and Techdirt for publishing my post on the George Floyd killing and the (in my eyes) justifiable destruction of police property as an answer to years of injustice and "bad apple" excuses. Very few sites would have published such a post. Most would have rejected it after reading the title.

I also appreciate the commenters who weighed in, including those who disagreed with me. It was a strong stance for me to take and I expected to be drowned in criticism. That I wasn't buried by critics perhaps demonstrates my points were well-made. Or it may just indicate the general public is sick and tired of cop bullshit -- bullshit they far too often walk away from, thanks to generous union contracts, the almost-obligatory judicial application of qualified immunity, or the continued sheltering of police officers from personal responsibility by legislators.

But I did want to respond to one comment in the thread in particular. This comment suggested I was off-base and that peaceful protests are productive and have resulted in systemic changes. Despite the evidence I had laid down that being peaceful and seeking change through acceptable routes has been a net loss over the last 50+ years, a commenter suggested otherwise.

This is the central argument of the comment submitted by one of our many anonymous commenters. (Just a reminder, we love anonymous commenters and would never demand you give us all your vitals in exchange for your ability to comment on articles. We also allow you to turn ads off if you wish with no financial obligation. That being said, there are multiple ways to support this fiercely independent site, so click thru if you'd like to help. Thanks!)

In contrast to a number of the opinions I have been reading here and on other sites, I am not okay with burning everything down and I do not think that rioting and looting is going to result in any lasting change for the better. Taxpayer dollars were used to build that police station and purchase the police vehicles that got destroyed. A person's life savings might be invested in that house or business that was set on fire. A corporate building (such as Target) might not be replaced in the future. (Black neighborhoods have been complaining of corporate chains avoiding them due to the higher costs incurred.) Yes, insurance might pay to replace the lost things. Yes, corporations and people might rebuild. However, what of the turmoil and hardship that occurs in ALL of the surrounding lives that have to find ways to cope without the services or shelter they previously had?

Rioting seems to only divide us into those who follow the rules of civil society and those who do not. I have read multiple accounts of people who came to peacefully protest, but LEFT when they realized things were going turn violent. They came to PROTEST violence, not PARTICIPATE in it. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi showed us that big changes CAN be be achieved without using violence. The PBS series "Eyes on the Prize" shows how the system in place tried multiple tactics and violence to derail the civil rights movement. Video clips of police violence were aired on TV. But the protesters did not fight back. They did not join in the violence. As those who wanted to maintain the status quo were forced to use stronger tactics against the protesters, the more it became obvious to the other members of society that something was seriously wrong and needed to be changed. The injustice was clear. Those who wanted justice then JOINED the protesters until those in power couldn't ignore the injustice any further. Remember, our political representatives ONLY rule with the consent of the governed. When the governed rise up in unified agreement, change DOES happen.

I appreciate the point being made. Nonviolent protest can result in positive changes. Unfortunately, given the history of this nation and its law enforcement agencies, one cannot apply it to the current situation. The argument is coherent. But the effectiveness of holding back and operating within the confines of numerous social contracts has yet to prove a net gain for minorities -- especially black Americans, who spent years as slaves and years as subhumans following the abolition of slavery.

Here's Trevor Noah explaining eloquently why this flashpoint isn't an overreaction to a single data point, but rather the culmination of hundreds of years of history.

That's why this commenter's argument doesn't work. And here's why the current situation -- as horrendous and shocking as it seems -- is more likely to move the dial on moving cops back into their rightful position as protectors and servants, rather than self-appointed warlords overseeing a mostly imaginary domestic conflict.

Several commenters said I was advocating for violence and destruction. They're only half-right.

I don't want looting and senseless violence either. In fact, I want no violence. I do not want police officers killed or injured. But if anyone should be targeted for destruction, it should be the entities that have perpetrated this violence upon certain Americans for years. Let them experience what it is to live as a black person in America -- one now "led" by someone who openly calls for violence against those exercising their First Amendment rights (protesters, journalists).

I have already pointed out how peaceful protests have failed to effect change. These acts -- the burning of precincts and police vehicles -- may not either, but it will make the point far more effectively than hanging back and being compliant. I don't want to see business owners victimized by opportunists but I think a few burning cop cars is a small price to pay for equality and serious police reform.

The law enforcement agencies of America have earned every bit of the hatred they're now feeling. But during these protests all things are equal. There are no courts, no unions, no "tough-on-crime" legislators standing between cops and the destruction of their property. Sucks for them. And when the shit goes down, they flee their posts and give up any appearance of giving a damn about serving or protecting.

No one forced cops to behave this way. They took it upon themselves to act as warriors while performing a job that asks them to act as society's protector. They talk a lot about the "thin blue line" between us and chaos, and then act as agents of chaos as soon as an opportunity presents itself. De-escalation tactics are an anomaly. Talking about the great sex you'll have after offing a citizen is the norm.

The police in America have long taken advantage of programs that give them military vehicles, clothing, and weapons at nearly no cost. That they now perceive themselves as soldiers rather than peace officers is demonstrated daily -- beginning with the flash bangs announcing their presence during no-knock raids targeting non-violent crime and continuing through their mostly-unchallenged ability to strip US citizens of their cash, cars, and other property at whim.

There is no compelling reason for cops to change their standard M.O. And, granted, lighting the occasional cop car on fire will likely only solidify their misguided "warrior" mentality. But it does make it clear that the people still have power, even if the greater power -- the US government that has treated minorities as lower classes for years -- will ultimately prevail.

Then there's the entire subclass of US citizens who spend their days bumper-stickering and forum-posting about how they and their guns will rise up against the government should it prove to be dangerous to American citizens and their rights. WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY? Outside of a few Boogaloo contingents, the "Obama is coming for muh guns" crowd has remained silent and useless, presumably digging into their eight-year supply of dehydrated food until the government makes it safe for white people to walk around again. Fuck those guys. They suck as much as the government entities they claim to view as enemies. When the shit goes down, these motherfuckers start bunkering. Cowards.

The current situation is far from ideal. No one wants to live in a civil unrest hotspot, given the unpredictability of the situation. Governments all over the nation, however, are willing to make things worse -- calling in an offshoot of the military best known for killing Vietnam War protesters. The war is at home, but the instigators are the people we've entrusted to protect society. They have continually proven they're not up to the job. And they've made things worse by pretending every movement is furtive, every black man is probably armed, and every bit of cash in a someone's wallet is probably drug money. They are road pirates, murderers, gang members, and charlatans. Let them feel the flames.

They have created their own personal hell. There should be no more free passes. This is the America they created. Whatever burns, burns. This is on their heads. No matter what any politician says in hopes of mollifying the voting public, the truth remains undeniable: you reap what you sow.

REAP MOTHERFUCKERS. REAP.

Filed Under: black lives matter, george floyd, police, police brutality, protests, racism

Let. The Motherfucker. Burn.

from the 'not-all-cops'-said-the-bucket-brigade dept

Warning: this post will contain what we in the business like to call strong language, invective, and violent content. Govern yourself accordingly.

Content warning 2: possibly exceedingly long.

ONCE UPON A TIME, A MAN GOT FUCKED

Let's start with a story:

(Those of you who'd like to read a transcript, rather than watch this powerful performance by Orlando Jones [possibly for "Dear God, I'm still at work" reasons], can do so here.)

This is the history of black Americans. For a few hundred years, they weren't even Americans. And even after that -- even after the Civil War -- black Americans spent a hundred years being shunted to different schools, different neighborhoods, different restrooms, different bus seating, different water fountains. They are not us, this land of opportunity repeatedly stated.

Integration was forced. It was rarely welcomed. Being black still means being an outsider. Four hundred years of subjugation doesn't just end. This is how the story continues:

A hundred years later. You're fucked. A hundred years after that. Fucked. A hundred years after you get free, you still getting fucked out a job and shot at by police.

Fucked.

That's George Floyd. The Minneapolis resident allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill at a local store. The penalty was death -- delivered extrajudicially by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Officer Chauvin put his knee on the neck of the handcuffed Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. This continued for more than two minutes after Officer Chauvin had checked Floyd's pulse and stated he "couldn't find one."

It was all captured on video:

A man was dead under Chauvin's knee and yet he never moved. No one around him moved either. The other three officers at the scene watched Officer Chauvin kill a man, and not a single one of them did anything to prevent this from happening.

The good news is they've all been fired. The other news -- with the "good" excised -- is Officer Chauvin is being criminally charged. That's only news. Buy your insurance now because it's almost guaranteed Minneapolis will burn again once a jury has had a shot at this thing.

First, there's the murder charge. We all want this but there's little that supports it. It looks like murder, but the state has to prove things it's probably not going to be able to prove -- especially when the people doing the prosecuting aren't all that interested in prosecuting cops.

Third-degree murder is the most minimal of murder charges and even that might not be enough to drag Officer Chauvin into the crushing wheels of the carceral state. As Scott Greenfield explains, there doesn't appear to be enough to justify this charge in what's been seen in multiple videos. It appears Chauvin deployed a restraint technique that's been given a thumbs up by multiple law enforcement agencies.

Former police officer Derek Chauvin was charged with Murder 3, a not-insignificant charge even if it lacks the panache of Murder 1, with a potential sentence of 25 years in prison. Unlike intentional murder, the mens rea under Minnesota Statutes § 609.195 requires only a “depraved mind.”

609.195 MURDER IN THE THIRD DEGREE.

(a) Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years.

Yet, the complaint filed by the Hennepin County Attorney made almost no effort to assert that the elements of the charge were met, that Chauvin was “perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.”

While the video clearly showed Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, which was naturally assumed, for obvious reasons, to have been the cause of death, that alone does not suffice to meet the element that it was an “act eminently dangerous.” It’s hardly an undangerous immobilization technique, but it’s also not an uncommon restraint, and is a permissible use of force in Minneapolis. That it’s only supposed to be used to restrain someone actively resisting gives rise to a departmental violation, but doesn’t elevate a lawful use of force to an eminently dangerous act.

If that falls, we're left with manslaughter. And that probably won't be enough to convince anyone Chauvin has been punished enough for continuing to use his knee to "restrain" Floyd for almost three minutes after a cop couldn't detect his pulse.

Then there's the preliminary findings by the coroner, which have a bunch of "GET OFFICER CHAUVIN OUT OF JAIL FREE" excuses already built in. But let's start with the police officers who allowed Officer Chauvin to kill George Floyd. One officer deployed an excuse constructed by a manufacturer of "non-lethal" weapons to excuse almost any death in police custody.

“I am worried about excited delirium or whatever,” Lane said.

From that, we run into the details of the coroner's report. These are preliminary, so they will change. But the exonerative text is already in there, ready for deployment by tough-on-crime politicians, media personnel willing to act like PD stenographers, police union officials (and the police union in Minneapolis is one of the worst), and anyone else seeking to justify Chauvin's actions.

George Floyd didn't die because Officer Chauvin crushed Floyd's neck with his knee for almost nine minutes -- most of which were spent with Floyd stating he couldn't breathe. He died because he was going to die, with or without Officer Chauvin's intercession.

The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.

George Floyd died of heart disease, you guys. It coincidentally killed him while he was having his neck compressed by a cop who checked his pulse and discovered he was likely already dead and continued to compress his neck for another two minutes. Also peep the "potential intoxicants," which probably gave George Floyd the superhuman strength he needed to stay alive for seven of those nine minutes before succumbing to "coronary artery disease."

If Chauvin walks, Minneapolis burns again. Multiple cities burn. Unlike other killings of black men by cops, this has prompted intense protests across the nation. This one -- committed in full view of multiple phones and at least one nearby CCTV camera -- shows cops do not give a fuck who is watching. They will do what they want to do and roll the dice on a favorable ruling by federal courts.

LET IT BURN. LET IT ALL BURN.

In response to this killing, Minneapolis burned. Looting accompanied the protests, as is often the case. We can argue about the positive/negative effects of looting for as long as you want in the comment threads, but let's take a look at a couple of facts.

We have had riots in America for years. And looting. Those arguing that the destruction of businesses during these protests is counterproductive need to have their memories refreshed. This nation began with the looting of British ships. A whole offshoot of the "rule of law" party (also the "free speech" party, which is currently headed by someone seeking to directly regulate social media platforms) named itself after protesters who boarded British ships and threw their merchandise overboard.

Even if you decry the the destruction of local businesses which may not have the funds to recover from this unexpected turn of events, you cannot argue with protesters going straight to the source of the problem.

And, as a bonus, the thin blue line between us and chaos being filmed abandoning their posts and leaving us to the chaos they could never protect us from, no matter how many black men they killed.

The cops fucked this up. The cops should pay. Unfortunately, it will be taxpayers funding the rebuilding of the Third Precinct station in Minneapolis, but, by all means, burn every cop car, precinct, etc. that stands between black Americans and the respect of their rights.

The message is clear: cops are the problem, not the solution. Burn the shit that means something to them -- the stuff that protects them from the people -- and see where we all are at the end of the day.

Let's take the long view. What has this accomplished? Here's a list of riots sparked by police violence against minorities -- one dating back nearly 60 years.

1965: Los Angeles
1967: Newark
1967: Detroit
1968: King assassination
1980: Miami
1992: Los Angeles
2001: Cincinnati
2014: Ferguson
2015: Baltimore
2016: Charlotte

What did that get us? Burning small parts of the system to the ground got us Nixon (who ran on a "tough on crime" platform following the riots in the 1960s) and a immensely-harmful drug war that has done nothing to slow the supply of drugs but has done everything to improve the bottom lines of PDs and prosecutors.

Cops haven't changed. And they haven't changed despite having every reason to. Several dozen cop shops are operating under consent decrees with the Department of Justice because they can't be trusted to not violate rights en masse on their own. The rest are still acting like it's a war zone out there, cladding themselves in cast-off military gear and equipment even as crime rates remain at historic lows. It's tough to be a cop out there, say cops, even as unimpeachable data says otherwise to a bunch of impeachable cops.

But let's just say you're arguing that riots/protests/looting don't solve anything. Let's look at the data again. Here are the years where nothing happened:

1966
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2017
2018
2019

Did not attacking cops help then? Did leaving retail outlets intact make policing better? Did a lack of looting force cops to realize their systemic bias was hurting communities? Did all of this non-action bring us to a better place in terms of our relationship with law enforcement? (Those of you who are not minorities can put your hands down. Thanks.)

Short answer: it did not. The boot stamping on a human face forever is the past, present, and future. This image was personified by Officer Chauvin, who placed his knee on the neck of a human being suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill until he died. And continued to perform this inadvertently symbolic move for nearly another three minutes after that.

If it's going to burn -- and it should -- it should start with those who have earned the flames. Cop cars are burning. Police stations are burning. Good. There is nothing wrong with this. The cops pretended to fear us whenever it was convenient. They claimed their subjective fear that someone might have a weapon justified every bullet they pumped into a person. Then they did nothing when people carrying actual guns marched on government buildings to demand access to restaurants and haircuts.

Fuck them. If you're going to cry about the threats separating you from making it home to your family every night, at least be consistent. And if you can't be consistent, at least restrain yourself from killing non-resistant people in the street in front of several cameras. And for fuck's sake, if you can't do that last part, it just means you don't fear the public and their representatives. It means you think the courts will clear you, if not your own department and union. No public official deserves this much deference, trust, or unearned protection.

YOU OWE US.

That obligation has never changed. The only thing that has changed is the other branches of the government, which have decided -- either through QI rulings or deference to police unions -- that the public matters less than those sworn to serve it.

This is not me wading into a recent controversy with my eye on harvesting clicks. This is me -- and this site -- covering the abuses perpetrated by law enforcement agencies for years. There is nothing anomalous about this event. It just shows accountability can't be brought solely by the mute witnesses of criminal acts by law enforcement officers. We have our cameras pointed at them. They have their own cameras. And yet, they still don't care.

If this is how they want it, we have the power to give it to them.

Be the god of righteous hellfire. All these years of not setting fire to the possessions of an invading force intent on treating fellow citizens as enemy combatants has done nothing.

Let the motherfucker burn.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, derek chauvin, free speech, george floyd, police, police brutality, protests, racism, violence