I have written at least two (admittedly) incendiary posts for this site responding to the response (and -- one level further -- commenters' responses) to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin has been arrested and is now facing a shifting set of charges -- some of which are unlikely to be sustained. Minneapolis is still burning. And it will probably burn again once the justice system is done with what's left of Chauvin and his criminal charges.
In these posts, I openly advocated for the targeted destruction of government property. I do not apologize for that. If the problem is law enforcement, it should be law enforcement's stuff that burns. Say what you will for peace and reason, but we're dealing with unreasonable forces that consider themselves soldiers in a warzone, rather than public servants in troubled areas where a little kindness on their part would go a long way.
Peaceful protests can effect change. I'm not arguing that they can't. But decades of peaceful protests -- interrupted occasionally by violent civil uprisings -- haven't changed much in this nation. And that's just the last 50 years of this on/off cycle. The anger presenting itself now dates back more than 300 years to slavery. And the 300 years following that haven't been much better. Nearly 100 years after slaves were freed, governments in America -- along with the populace supporting them -- treated blacks as subhumans only worthy of very limited rights and privileges.
But let's go with the argument that peaceful protests will bring peaceful resolutions. Here's how that's playing out around the nation.
This guy is bleeding from his skull and the police have the nerve to tell the media he “tripped” pic.twitter.com/WPjvZNAneo
This happened today: Philadelphia Police Officers were firing tear gas on peaceful protesters who were TRAPPED on a fenced off hill on the side of a highway!
Here is a 38 photo sequence of what happen this morning with Joyce Beatty, Shannon Hardin, Kevin Boyce, protesters and Columbus Police. pic.twitter.com/ZZEd6MfJCh
With a nation watching them -- including the hundreds of cameras present at any protest -- police officers are acting as though nothing matters. They have responded to accusations of excessive violence with excessive violence. They have greeted non-violence with violence. And it doesn't appear to be slowing down. Empathy and self-awareness are apparently traits considered to be weaknesses by our nation's law enforcement agencies. Proving protesters right isn't helping the cops win. But leaving it up to ineffective and cowardly legislators isn't ending the cops' winning streak either. The cops claim fear provokes every violent reaction they have. But when they have nothing to fear, they engage in violence anyway.
Let's not abandon peaceful solutions. But let's not pretend they're more effective than violence targeting the objects of state oppression.
We can disagree (vehemently and at length) about the most effective means of societal change. But we've seen a blend of tactics that no one unanimously agrees are helpful or harmful, but are still pushing legislators and other government officials towards meaningful change.
Maybe we'll never fully understand what motivates society as a whole. (And yet we live in one.) Let's celebrate the steps forward -- especially one that have occurred despite certain government officials (including our President) declaring almost any anti-government action to be stupid, criminal, and useless.
No one asked for cops in schools. At least, very few students did. Maybe some parents did. To be sure, a whole lot of school administrators did because it meant they could offload every disciplinary problem -- no matter how small -- to cops trained to handle serious criminal acts rather than underage acts of defiance. It made things easier for administrators who used this void they'd created in their own responsibility to enact a number of "zero tolerance" policies that relieved them of the pressure of using common sense and restraint when dealing with troublesome students. The end result was objectively awful.
The city’s public school board unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday night that will end the district’s contract with the Minneapolis police department to use officers to provide school security. The Minneapolis superintendent said he would begin work on an alternative plan to keep the district’s more than 35,000 students safe in the coming school year.
“We cannot continue to be in partnership with an organization that has the culture of violence and racism that the Minneapolis police department has historically demonstrated,” Nelson Inz, one of the school board members, said. “We have to stand in solidarity with our black students.”
Hopefully this will spring a sizable leak in the school-to-prison pipeline, allowing the tax dollars no longer required for the receiving end to be routed to the future of America and those tasked with teaching them.
In a statement Wednesday evening, University of Minnesota President Joan Gabel announced changes in the school's relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department.
U of M will no longer contract with MPD for additional law enforcement support needed for large events. This includes football games.
The school will also no longer use MPD for specialized services such as K-9 Explosive detection units.
As extraneous cop opportunities dry up, so should their funding. This will make it easier for legislators to remove police from situations where their dubious expertise has done more to harm than to help. What used to be just a libertarian fever dream is now a few steps closer to reality. Members of the Minneapolis City Council are actually considering at least a partial dismantling of the city's police force.
Several members of the Minneapolis City Council this week have expressed support for drastic overhauls to the way the city handles law enforcement, ranging from calls to defund the department, to suggestions that social workers, medics or mental health professionals should be sent to some calls currently handled by police.
Council member Jeremiah Ellison, son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison — who is leading the case against the officers involved in Floyd’s death — took a more radical approach.
“We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. And when we’re done, we’re not simply gonna glue it back together. We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response. It’s really past due,” Ellison wrote on Twitter Thursday.
Council President Lisa Bender joined Ellison’s call to dismantle the department.
“We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a transformative new model of public safety,” Bender wrote on Twitter Thursday.
The police likely won't be disbanded, no matter who's vowing to do what. And the Council -- at this point - isn't threatening to deprive the PD of its funding until it gets its problems sorted out. But the state's Department of Human Rights has sued the PD, demanding a host of changes and a partial blockade on certain enforcement activities until the PD agrees to its demands for increased accountability. This is nothing new for the Minneapolis PD, which was hit with similar demands by the DOJ back in 2003. It appears the federal effort didn't actually result in better officers so more drastic reforms are in the works.
While legislators may not be able to dismantle the PD and rebuild it from the ground up, they are taking steps to steer cops away from situations they've proven they can't handle, like welfare checks and calls relating to mental health issues. Too often when cops are faced with situations they don't completely comprehend, they respond with force, mostly of the "deadly" variety. If these reforms are pushed through, calls like these will turn EMS units and mental health professionals into first responders, giving these at-risk residents a better chance of surviving their encounter with the government.
Things are changing. This is good news. But let's not be dismissive of all the bad news that led us to this point -- including demonstrations (violent and otherwise) that demonstrated law enforcement's inability to properly serve the public they owe their jobs to.
A COP IN EVERY HOUSE: that's the American dream. Maybe they can't enter the home, what with the Fourth Amendment and all, but they can be invited to every online get-together thrown by apps that promise neighborhood unity while asking law enforcement to get in on the action.
Ring, Amazon's doorbell/camera company, has made the relationship between neighborhood "sharing" and law enforcement explicit. It's right there in the term sheets. While Ring takes the PR reins to steer the official discourse, it's offering cops steeper discounts on Ring cameras they can hand out to citizens in exchange for pushing citizens to sign up for Neighbors, Ring's snitch app. Once attached to the app, Ring makes sharing of camera footage seamless and encourages homeowners to report suspicious people and activities. Unsurprisingly, many of the suspicious people reported are minorities.
Charles Husted, the chief of police in Sedona, Arizona, couldn’t contain his excitement. He had just been accepted into the Public Agencies Advisory Council for Nextdoor, the neighborhood social networking app.
“You’re the best!!! A great Christmas present,” he wrote in a December email to Parisa Safarzadeh, Government Relations Manager for Nextdoor.com Inc., obtained by CityLab through a public records request.
The invitation was too good to turn down: an all expenses paid trip to Nextdoor's headquarters in San Francisco. The company covered the costs for all invitees. In exchange for their participation, Nextdoor picked up the estimated $16,900 tab. And it swore participants to silence with a non-disclosure agreement.
Unfortunately for Nextdoor, this doesn't cover public records, which is what Citylab used to uncover this unseemly relationship between the social media company and US law enforcement. Chief Husted has no regrets -- or at least none he's willing to share publicly, possibly because of the NDA he signed. From what he can see, this isn't questionable. It's just a step in the right direction.
Husted says that leaning on social media — not just Nextdoor, but also Facebook or Twitter — in the line of duty is an inevitability of the current age. “It’s naive to think as public safety folks that we can keep doing our work the same as we have for years and years,” he said. “We have to evolve with the times, and the times have to do with social media: That’s where our communities are at. We have to find a way to be there too.”
He's right. Social media can't be ignored. But Nextdoor isn't inviting anyone from its largest group of stakeholders: members of the public. Instead, it's paying for government employees and officials to travel to San Francisco to hear its pitch for greater government involvement in a private company's communications platform. Nextdoor may claim to be connecting locals with each other, but its efforts are focused on roping in the people who are supposed to be serving its users: public servants.
Robbie Turner, a senior city strategist with Nextdoor, wrote to Husted that when expanding Nextdoor’s reach to Canada, the company was using “the same strategy we used when we first launched in the U.S. — recruit the major Police Departments and have them help us grow membership and engagement quickly.”
That's the bottom line: bumps in usage and users. Turning public entities into tools of corporations is seldom a good idea and it's certainly a bad idea when Nextdoor's user base appears to be willing to turn themselves into snitches at the drop of a hyperlink. If cops want to break bias patterns, they need to steer clear of unsubstantiated reports from biased Nextdoor users. Instead, Nextdoor is encouraging police to embrace the platform and all the problems inherent in its "see something, say something" nudges.
As for other public officials who took advantage of Nextdoor's all-expense-paid offer, they're having a problem seeing a problem with any of this. Never mind the optics. Officials want everyone to focus only on the letter of the law, which contains enough loopholes to drive an entire junket through.
Several public officials who were part of the Public Agencies Advisory Council say that the trip didn’t conflict with any city policies. Lara Foss, a corporate communications marketing consultant for the City of Austin, told CityLab that since the trip was work-related, it did not violate the city’s gift policy. Sedona’s Husted also said there were no endorsement regulations that prohibited him from participating. Katie Nelson, social media and public relations coordinator for the Mountain View Police Department in California, said that because the city’s policy prohibits taking paid trips on clocked time, she took a few days off from work to participate in the San Francisco meet-up.
Being wined and dined on a corporate tab makes people more receptive to their pitches. Everyone knows this. And that's why nearly everyone thinks things like this reek of buying off cops and politicians. Everyone, that is, but the cops and politicians being seduced by a whirlwind trip to a tech company's headquarters.
Once the dirty has been done, it's time to let what happened at Nextdoor HQ stay at Nextdoor HQ. This isn't so much a slogan as it is an existential lawsuit threat. Shut up, says Nextdoor, or it will be more than an un-invite to future events. It will be your proverbial ass in a litigation sling. Public officials owe a duty of transparency to their constituents. But Nextdoor is appending a whole lot of asterisks to the duties of public officials. The exceptions include a completely separate arm of the government.
In the terms of Nextdoor’s NDA, advisory council members are not allowed to release public statements about the partnership without the consent of Nextdoor, nor are they able to follow a court order to disclose any information deemed confidential by Nextdoor without alerting the company first.
And Nextdoor has made it easy for its snitchiest users to bring the government in on conversations other Nextdoor users might have thought were private. The platform can't allow users to file actual police reports but it does give users an option to screw other users over. A feature called "Forward to Police" allows users to send copies of private conversations to officers monitoring accounts. This feature is activated by police departments themselves, so those willing to further demonstrate their indifference for the people they serve can give people an one-click solution for all their snitching needs.
Sure, any participant in a private conversation could take screenshots and hand them to law enforcement. Removing the minimal tech hurdles, however, encourages people to use this option anytime they come across something that bothers them. It's a "speak to the manager" button, but one that potentially involves government-blessed use of deadly force. If people don't even have to leave their chairs to engage in SWATting-adjacent activities, they won't. Giving them a button just increases the chance someone's going to get hurt or killed.
At the end of the day, it's problematic all over. Public officials are endorsing a platform that paid to have them feel good about it -- both by covering their trip to San Francisco and by giving them the impression they are doing something to make their communities better by making them members of a private company's "Public Advisory Council."
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.
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.
There was a window of opportunity for cops following the George Floyd killing. Floyd, suspected of nothing more than passing a fake $20 bill, was killed by Officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis PD. Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd's neck until he was dead. This act lasted for nearly nine minutes -- and for nearly three minutes after Chauvin checked for a pulse and found nothing. Yet he persisted, and none of the three cops around him stopped him.
Chauvin has been criminally charged and is under arrest. We'll see where that takes us. But the opportunity was there for the rest of the nation's cops to separate themselves from this "bad apple." Cop defenders ignore what bad apples do to barrels, but we won't. Chauvin is a symptom. He is not the disease.
As protests broke out around the nation, law enforcement agencies responded. While a small number attempted to find middle ground with aggrieved citizens, most acted as though they were a law unto themselves in these troubled times.
One site got it completely right -- a site that so often offers up hot takes that it is the source of its own meme. Slate, of all places, nailed this call:
Also in today's criminal justice news, police in Louisville KY – who just watched police in Minneapolis MN arrest a CNN reporter live on-air – say "hold my whiskey" and deliberately shoot a reporter and her cameraman
Photos taken by @PLBarghouty show HuffPost senior reporter Chris Mathias (@letsgomathias), with press badge clearly visible, being taken into custody by the NYPD. Chris was on assignment for HuffPost covering the protests in Brooklyn. pic.twitter.com/EWcWNoFjMW
"You are part of the problem, if not the entire problem." - MPD officer
Minneapolis Police called our journalist the "entire problem" & threatened he "would get baked" as he filmed them at 31st & Blaisdell after curfew a block away from #GeorgeFloydProtests at the 5th Precinct. pic.twitter.com/K25MIapPcf
I just got hit by a rubber bullet near the bottom of my throat. I had just interviewed a man with my phone at 3rd and Pine and a police officer aimed and shot me in the throat, I saw the bullet bounce onto the street @LAist@kpcc OK, that’s one way to stop me, for a while pic.twitter.com/9C2u5KmscG
— Adolfo Guzman-Lopez (@AGuzmanLopez) June 1, 2020
This should come as no surprise. When the shit goes down, no rights will be respected. The Fourth tends to go first, but the First is often right behind it.
First, we had to deal with the coronavirus and government grabs for power. And this is where we are now: trying to limit a rational response to hundreds of years of racism, manifested as Officer Chauvin's decision to place his knee on the neck of a black man until long after the man was dead.
The streets are filled with cameras. Cops control most of them. But they can't control journalists. So, they seek to intimidate them by making it clear their presence isn't welcomed. The current situation may heighten the response but it has been this way for years. Cops have made it clear -- and they've been backed by the Commander-in-Chief -- the press is the enemy. Journalists record things and those recordings usually make their way to many people -- far more than the average internet rando could hope to rope in. If you can't control the narrative, you can always attempt to control the journalists.
When chaos is on the menu, the cops can still try to maintain control of the reporting. And most of their sins will be forgiven because the situation was unforeseeable. But when it's happening, we can see it. We can see what they do and how they react. And, because they react badly, every unblinking eye must be closed. The power must remain centralized, and if that means taking a few journalists out, so be it.
(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."
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.
“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.
Police precinct set on fire on the third day of demonstrations as the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seethed over the shocking police killing of a handcuffed black man
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.
This is the moment Minneapolis police abandoned, fled the police precinct during the protests for #JusticeForGeorge - minutes later the precinct went up in flames pic.twitter.com/thYDXBThLe
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:
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.
Infamous Israeli malware developer NSO Group is currently being sued by Facebook for using WhatsApp as its preferred attack vector. Malicious links and malware payloads are sent to targets, allowing government agencies -- including those in countries with horrendous human rights records -- to intercept communications and otherwise exploit compromised phones.
NSO has argued it can't be sued for the things done by its customers, all of which appear to be government agencies. The company says those actions are protected by sovereign immunity. NSO insists it only sells the malware. It does not assist its customers with target acquisition or malware deployment. Documents filed by Facebook say otherwise. NSO appears to deploy malware through servers it owns or rents in the United States, suggesting it is actually more involved in its customers' actions than it has sworn in court.
Like any business, NSO Group wants more customers. It's not content to sell exploits to questionable governments that have used its offerings to target journalists, lawyers, activists, and dissidents. It wants to do business in the United States, where there are thousands of potential law enforcement customers.
NSO Group, the surveillance vendor best known for selling hacking technology to authoritarian governments, including Saudi Arabia, also tried to sell its products to local U.S. police, according to documents obtained by Motherboard.
[...]
"Turn your target's smartphone into an intelligence gold mine," a brochure for the hacking product, called Phantom, reads. The brochure was made by Westbridge Technologies, "the North American branch of NSO Group," it says. Motherboard obtained the document and related emails through a public records act request.
"Phantom" is just US branding for NSO's "Pegasus" -- the hacking tool sold to foreign governments that's at the center of Facebook's lawsuit. According to the marketing documents sent to the San Diego Police Department, Phantom turns targeted phones into a steady stream of intercepted communications. The software allows police to grab emails, text messages, contact lists, track the device's location, and surreptitiously activate the phone's camera and microphone. Once a phone is compromised, encryption is no longer a problem, as NSO's sales materials point out.
Pitching a tool this powerful to the San Diego PD had a predictable response:
After talking to the company in a phone call, SDPD Sergeant David Meyer told Westbridge in an email that the hacking system "sounds awesome."
The PD's statement says the department is always looking at products that could aid them in investigations. But as tempting as this one was, it was out of the PD's price range.
In his email, Sergeant Meyer added, "we simply do not have the kind of funds to move forward on such a large scale project."
That the NSO Group is seeking US law enforcement customers isn't a surprise. But the nation's police agencies should try to be selective about who they purchase from. NSO has sold malware to serial human rights abusers and one would hope US agencies would voluntarily choose not to buy from a company with such shady clientele. Unfortunately, this single sampling of law enforcement documents shows at least one cop shop showed interest in buying what NSO was selling, and was only held back by budgetary constraints.
Last August, the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided it was OK for police officers to use protected speech as the basis for retaliatory stops. The stop -- and the criminal charges that followed -- originated from this interaction:
While assisting the stranded motorist, Trooper Stevens turned his attention to another car traveling on the roadway. Defendant, a passenger in a small white SUV, had his arm outside of the window and was making a back-and-forth waving motion with his hand. As Trooper Stevens turned to look towards the car, defendant’s gesture changed from a waving motion to a pumping up-and-down motion with his middle finger. Believing that defendant was committing the crime of disorderly conduct, Trooper Stevens got into his patrol car to pursue and stop the SUV.
The ensuing stop resulted in the defendant being charged with obstruction -- not because of his middle finger waving, but because he, at first, refused to present his ID to the trooper. He was never charged with the disorderly conduct the trooper felt was criminal enough to justify a stop.
Despite several other courts reaching the opposite conclusion -- that flipping the bird cannot form the basis for a lawful stop -- the NC Court of Appeals went in a different direction.
Here, without having to determine whether Defendant’s conduct of extending his middle finger, in itself, constituted a crime, we conclude that the trooper had reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop of Defendant. The trooper saw Defendant make rude, distracting gestures while traveling on a highway in a moving vehicle in the vicinity of other moving vehicles. A reasonable, objective officer having viewed Defendant’s behavior could believe that a crime had been or was in the process of being committed. For instance, the crime of disorderly conduct in North Carolina is committed where a person “makes or uses any . . . gesture . . . intended and plainly likely to provoke violent retaliation and thereby cause a breach of the peace.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-288.4(a)(2) (2017). Defendant’s actions, both his waving and middle finger taken together, aimed at an unknown target could alert an objective officer to an impending breach of the peace.
And just like that, North Carolina law enforcement officers had permission to engage in retaliatory stops. This ruling was greeted with near-unanimous derision, given its hot take on the statute Trooper Stevens pulled out of his ass to justify his actions. At least one law prof speculated social media outrage had something to do with the court's decision to withdraw its opinion roughly two weeks after it had delivered it.
Whatever second thoughts the majority might have had about their conclusion, they weren't enough to overcome their first thoughts. A couple of days later, the court released an amended opinion that changed nothing but how loudly the table was being pounded. It doubled down on its bad legal rationale, claiming that the fact that the rude hand gesture continued after the car had passed the state trooper as the vehicle continued down the road changed it from protected speech (a middle finger extended to law enforcement) to a crime (a middle finger extended to no one in particular).
Unlike the circumstances in those other cases, where all that was involved was an individual expressing contempt to a law enforcement officer, here, it was not clear to the trooper to whom Defendant was continuously gesturing. Indeed, Defendant was well past the trooper when he changed his gesture to a pumping motion with his middle finger extended. While it may be reasonable for the trooper to suspect that the gesturing was, in fact, meant for him, and therefore may be constitutionally protected speech, it was also objectively reasonable for the trooper to suspect that the gesturing was directed toward someone in another vehicle and that the situation was escalating. Such continuous and escalating gesturing directed at a driver in another vehicle, if unchecked, could constitute the crime of “disorderly conduct.”
The stupidity is finally over. The state's Supreme Court has reversed [PDF] the Appeals Court ruling, determining that an objectionable hand gesture alone cannot provide the basis for a traffic stop. (h/t Volokh Conspiracy)
We conclude that these facts alone are insufficient to provide reasonable suspicion that defendant was engaged in disorderly conduct. The fact that Trooper Stevens was unsure of whether defendant’s gesture may have been directed at another vehicle does not, on its own, provide reasonable suspicion that defendant intended to or was plainly likely to provoke violent retaliation from another driver. Likewise, the mere fact that defendant’s gesture changed from waving to “flipping the bird” is insufficient to conclude defendant’s conduct was likely to cause a breach of the peace. Based on the facts in the record, we are unable to infer that, by gesturing with his middle finger, defendant was intending to or was likely to provoke a violent reaction from another driver that would cause a breach of the peace.
Thus, we conclude that it was error for the trial court to find that there was reasonable suspicion of disorderly conduct to justify the stop.
It also appears the government lost interest in defending the actions of Trooper Stevens. Its only argument was that the stop was justified under the community caretaking function, which the Appeals Court rejected in favor of the trooper's disorderly conduct theory. The Supreme Court notes it presented no arguments here at all, making it that much easier for it to overturn the lower court's decision.
In its brief here, the State acknowledges that its sole argument in the Court of Appeals involved the community caretaking exception, and that the court unanimously rejected that argument. In fact, the State agrees that the specific, articulable facts in the record do not establish reasonable suspicion of the crime of disorderly conduct.
That sends the decision back to the Appeals Court, which will have to send it back to the trial court to finally grant the suppression motion that triggered this unfortunate succession of bad decisions by North Carolina courts. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court doesn't go so far as to say giving cops the finger is always protected speech, but it does make it clear it's not a criminal act and, alone, cannot justify a stop.
The problem originates with the Supreme Court, which established this new quasi-right in a 1967 decision stating that police officers could be granted immunity for rights violations if they acted in "good faith." But it really didn't start going off the rails until 15 years later. In 1982, the Supreme Court expanded this protection, adding the "clearly established law" prong that has derailed countless civil rights lawsuits in the following forty years.
It's this prong that makes it incredibly difficult for plaintiffs to prevail. Without a case exactly on point, the rights violations are overlooked as not being "clearly established." And since courts are under no longer under any obligation to reach that far in their rulings, very few rights violations become "clearly established," allowing cops to violate rights with near impunity and force citizens to fund their defense in the resulting lawsuits.
Section 1983 meets Catch-22. Plaintiffs must produce precedent even as fewer courts are producing precedent. Important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered. Courts then rely on that judicial silence to conclude there’s no equivalent case on the books. No precedent = no clearly established law = no liability. An Escherian Stairwell. Heads defendants win, tails plaintiffs lose.
What was already problematic was made even worse by the Supreme Court a little over a decade ago. Its ruling narrowed qualified immunity discussions to this single point, allowing court after court to avoid making any findings about the underlying rights violations.
The Supreme Court in 2009 raised the bar even higher for plaintiffs to overcome qualified immunity. In Pearson v. Callahan, it gave judges the option to simply ignore the question of whether a cop used excessive force and instead focus solely on whether the conduct was clearly established as unlawful.
In the decade since then, the Reuters analysis found, appeals courts have increasingly ignored the question of excessive force. In such cases, when the court declines to establish whether police used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, it avoids setting a clearly established precedent for future cases, even for the most egregious acts of police violence. In effect, the same conduct can repeatedly go unpunished.
That's the Catch-22 Judge Willett described. Since the discussion of the rights violation is limited to whether or not a court has declared that particular rights violation unlawful, courts look only for precedent on point, rather than establish any new precedent of their own. If courts do decide to establish precedent, or determine a previous case not exactly on point addresses the violations in the case in front of them, they're likely to see their decisions overturned by the Supreme Court.
Qualified immunity is the Supreme Court's baby. Understandably, it's done all it can to protect it. It has admonished courts for interpreting precedent too broadly. And it has shown a clear preference for giving officers stripped of immunity a chance to win it back.
Over the past 15 years, the high court took up 12 appeals of qualified immunity decisions from police, but only three from plaintiffs, even though plaintiffs asked the court to review nearly as many cases as police did. The court’s acceptance rate for police appeals seeking immunity was three times its average acceptance rate for all appeals. For plaintiffs’ appeals, the acceptance rate was slightly below the court’s average.
Nearly every decision has favored law enforcement officers. Given the way the system is set up, this outcome is unsurprising.
The high court has also put its thumb on the scale by repeatedly tweaking the process. It has allowed police to request immunity before all evidence has been presented. And if police are denied immunity, they can appeal immediately – an option unavailable to most other litigants, who typically must wait until after a final judgment to appeal.
This has resulted in appeals courts finding in favor of officers 57% over the last two years. This contrasts with cases heard prior to the Supreme Court's 2009 decision. Before that decision, the situation was nearly reversed, with courts finding in favor of plaintiffs 56% of the time.
Much of the point swing since 2009 can be directly attributed to the Supreme Court's "clearly established" focus. As the percentage of wins for plaintiffs has dropped from 57% to 43%, the percentage of cases where the question of excessive force has been ignored completely has grown to consume much of that 14 point difference.
If there's any good news, it's this: the Supreme Court may be reconsidering its continuous expansion of this self-created legal doctrine.
The high court has indicated it is aware of the mounting criticism of its treatment of qualified immunity. After letting multiple appeals backed by the doctrine’s critics pile up, the justices are scheduled to discuss privately as soon as May 15 which, if any, of 11 such cases they could hear later this year.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the court’s most liberal members, and Clarence Thomas, its most conservative, have in recent opinions sharply criticized qualified immunity and the court’s role in expanding it.
Unfortunately, no one's really sure what the best approach to fixing qualified immunity might be. There's zero chance the court will decide to eliminate it completely or severely limit its reach. But it could at least reestablish the examination of excessive force issues it has encouraged courts to ignore, allowing more violations to be clearly established. This would result in more plaintiffs seeing restitution and, hopefully, fewer police officers engaging in rights violations since the courts will no longer be quite as stacked in their favor. Whatever the case, the public isn't being served by this judicial doctrine, which has done nothing to limit deployments of excessive force or encourage officers to exercise restraint in questionable situations.
Fucking predictive policing/how the fuck does it work. Mostly, it doesn't. For the most part, predictive policing relies on garbage data generated by garbage cops, turning years of biased policing into "actionable intel" by laundering it through a bunch of proprietary algorithms.
More than half a decade ago, early-ish adopters were expressing skepticism about the tech's ability to suss out the next crime wave. For millions of dollars less, average cops could have pointed out hot crime spots on a map based on where they'd made arrests, while still coming nothing close to the reasonable suspicion needed to declare nearly everyone in a high crime area a criminal suspect.
The Los Angeles Police Department's history with the tech seems to indicate it should have dumped it years ago. The department has been using some form of the tech since 2007, but all it seems to be able to do is waste limited law enforcement resources to violate the rights of Los Angeles residents. The only explanations for the LAPD's continued use of this failed experiment are the sunk cost fallacy and its occasional use as a scapegoat for the department's biased policing.
Predictive policing is finally dead in Los Angeles. Activists didn't kill it. Neither did the LAPD's oversight. Logic did not finally prevail. For lack of a better phrase, it took an act of God {please see paragraph 97(b).2 for coverage limits} to kill a program that has produced little more than community distrust and civil rights lawsuits. Caroline Haskins has more details at BuzzFeed.
An LAPD memo dated April 15 quoted Police Chief Michel R. Moore saying that the police department would stop using the software, effective immediately, not because of concerns that activists have raised but because of financial constraints due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
"The city's financial crisis, coupled with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in the immediate freeze of new contractual agreements and 'belt-tightening' instructions by the Mayor to all city departments for all further expenditures," the memo said. "Therefore, the Department will immediately discontinue the use of PredPol and its associated reports."
Activists like Hamid Khan of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition are calling this a win. And it is, sort of. When something you want stopped stops, it's still a victory, even if it appears to be due to unforeseeable developments rather than local activism. This doesn't mean Khan and others shouldn't keep working to keep LAPD's predpol system shut down. But it's perhaps too optimistic to declare this turn of events as a testament to your activism when it appears the LAPD is only temporarily mothballing a program its budget can't support at the moment.
But we can still hold out hope it won't be resurrected when the current crisis passes. The LAPD has struggled to show the program actually impacts criminal activity more than it does Constitutional rights, despite having more than a decade to do so. We can still celebrate its death, even if it's only being buried in effigy at this point. Maybe by the time this has all passed, the LAPD will realize it hasn't missed the expensive software's dubious contribution to the city's safety and abandon it for good.
