Maybe this is too "inside Florida", but my first thought was, "Angela Corey? Is that you?"
Corey's name may be familiar to non-Floridians who are gun culture folks. She's the prosecutor who zealously went after George Zimmerman, wasting tons of taxpayer money on a case that very few people thought she had any chance of winning. It was widely considered pure politics, just trolling for stupid voters, but it wasn't the only anti-gunner prosecution she ran.
It's all just parts in a play. All the rent-a-mob protesters, from Malik Zulu Shabazz to the Crips and Bloods, whoever went from Ferguson to Baltimore, and will move on to the next city, wherever that may be. You hear the same comment from locals in both cities: those guy aren't from around here. They were flown in to Baltimore. What's the game? As Al Sharpton said today, federalize local police forces. To fulfill Obama's statement that we need "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military. And to get rid of those stupid, annoying little states rights and give all powers to the Fed.gov.
I don't think were quite at the '60s yet, but we're sure headed there fast!
ReplyDeleteFreddie Gray was chased because he ran......NOT AN ILLEGAL ACT. He was arrested for having a knife.....NOT A SWITCHBLADE but a normal folding knife. NOT AN ILLEGAL ITEM. While he was I. Custody he was injured in a fashion. VERY difficult to self inflict at a level resulting in paralysis and then death. The entire interaction between LEO and Freddie Gray cannot be justified by any law. The co duct of the officers was criminal....FELONY level criminal.
ReplyDeleteSo while these indictments may be politically motivated they ARE appropriate for the actions the officers engaged in. Even a broken clock is right........and the DA is correct in charging these men. They had NO IDEA who Freddie Gray was and NO EVIDENCE AT ALL that he had broken a law yet they chased him arrested him and inflicted MASSIVE physical force on him. They broke the law and for the system to work they MUST be tried for those crimes. If not than the ONLY recourse citizens have to police crime is vigilantism..... And when that starts all hell will break loose.
I think your comparison of Marilyn Mosby to Angela Corey will turn out to be prescient.
ReplyDeleteWhat Mosby has done is lay the foundation for another, and almost certainly more severe, round of the Rodney King Festivities. It will take months, perhaps half a year, to get into court, from where it will spend more months, quite probably devolving into something other than what the aggrieved masses desire.
Remember, in the spring of 1992 we had riots in most major cities, and that was without Twitter, texting and much use of the fledgling internet; the forces of anger and disruption are much better organized and funded now. The next cycle - probably about this time next year - will be different.
Fortunately, we have that time available to make preparations.
Dan - with all due respect, that may all be true and it may not be, but it probably doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteMosby made a lot of mistakes. She said a lot of things that can easily be interpreted as contaminating the jury pool. That whole thing I linked to where she spoke about "getting justice" for the people in the street sounds like lynch mob justice. A prosecutor can't talk like that.
I think there may be charges that can get convictions, but they'll be minor things. Everything you say is based on one story, the one in the press, and the press is biased toward keeping riots going. We don't know what actually happened. It can take weeks to get a toxicology report; we can't know if there was some justification for the way he was treated.
I can see some disciplinary action, maybe negligence, but 2nd degree murder won't be proven here. Unless there is evidence that the officers wanted to go kill someone, evidence far beyond what has been talked about so far.
A smart defender will destroy this case in a couple of hours.
Which is the point of my analogy to Angela Corey. She might have been able to get manslaughter or negligent homicide against George Zimmerman, but she went for premeditated murder. Not a chance, but it looks good for the idiots in the street.
Alien, I think I'm with you. It will calm down for a while until the verdicts come down, and then it will be LA riots all over.
Hmmm, just in time to coincide with the elections...
ReplyDeleteA prosecutor, when charges are filed, swears that the criminal complaint is true and accurate, and that the facts of the case indicate that the person being charged probably committed the crime they are being charged with.
ReplyDeleteHow can that be true, when the police report was sent to the prosecutor less than a day, and the preliminary autopsy report was sent to the prosecutor less than 4 hours before charges were filed?
The cops may very well have committed a crime here, but I just don't believe that the prosecutor has in her possession the facts to support that.
I was stationed at Ft Campbell awaiting movement to RVN. Although we had riot training there was far more jungle training going on. A sister unit went to Detroit to help put down the rioting. I fully expect rioting to get much worse this time as there are far more dysfunctional people to include politicians. I suggest to all that leaving the big cities while you can is a smart move.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find "interesting" is that these activities have been pretty much confined to the cities where the "crime" took place.
ReplyDeleteIn the '60s we were burning from coast-to-coast.
I wonder what trigger TPTB will deploy to ignite all the cities at once?
DrJim, There have been "solidarity demonstrations" in many places. Does yesterday's Oakland demonstration count? There were confrontations between protesters and police in several cities: Minneapolis, NYC, Boston, Chicago and DC have been mentioned. Another NYPD cop was shot today. Seems to me like it's getting pretty widespread.
ReplyDeleteGuess I need to keep up more with the news....
ReplyDeleteWhether the prosecutor made mistakes in this case only time...and a trial will tell.
ReplyDeleteIt would not be the first high profile case that a prosecutor screwed up.....OJ....paging OJ.
And I have no doubt that her rush to prosecute is based in part on politics....virtually ALL high profile cases like this have that as an element.
Whether or not she had the necessary facts to justify the announcement is speculation.
She reportedly had the police report AND the ME's report. The question being was the information in those two items
so blatant that it became a 'Ray Charles' type of call, even a blind man could see the obvious.
Again...till trial it's speculation. And whether or not she charged appropriately is a valid question. If your evidence does not support a murder charge then filing one is either gross incompetence or cloistered brilliance. By filing in such a way it's possible for a DA to LOOK like they are seeking justice while KNOWING that the judges will instruct the jury in such a way that the a not guilty verdict will be handed down whereas if a manslaughter charge was filed a guilty verdict may happen. A method to appear as if
justice matters, going through the motions knowing the outcome will be not guilty...the best of both worlds. All I know is that
what happened to Freddie Gray cannot be an accident, can NOT be self inflicted and therefore has to be a crime perpetrated by those in control of his body...
the Baltimore PD. And if the system does not charge these officers and others like them then the system is pointless, useless and needs to be eliminated....burned down if necessary.
I live just outside the Baltimore City limits, maybe a 15-minute drive most of the time. I was in high school (a little farther out) during the riots of the 1960s. I am beginning to plan for the aftermath of this trial now.
ReplyDeleteFreddie Grey was in an alley with another person acting in a suspicious manner. The officer said to stop and grey ran. Right there he broke the law. To imply that the police had no roight to stop this 20 time felon who was out on bond AND parole is foolish.
ReplyDeleteGrey was OK when he wasput into the van and the report claims whatever happened to grey happened inside the van. But the fellow prisoner has said the officers did not get into the van with Grey untilthey helped him out ofit at the police station. So whatever caused his injuries happened inside while he was alone. The other prisoner also said there was no "rough ride" (which was something made up by the media). So how did an officer cause his death???
Worse the DA and chief of police have been caught in numerous lies throwing the six officers under the bus. The ONLY evidence is that grey was indeed throwing himself around inside the van. Everything else is speculation.
Really? You were there?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all quote me the law....one that has passed constitutional review saying it is illegal to run away from LEO. Unless he has probable cause to arrest he has no legal basis to force an interaction on a citizen, that citizen is free to walk away, you don't have to say a word....you can even RUN AWAY.
Then....if the criminal pinned to a badge is stupid enough and egocentric enough to take freedom as a personal insult he can BREAK THE LAW and force the citizen to interact....that is the key here. The po po had NO LEGAL BASIS for their conduct. everything that occurred in subsequent to that illegal act is a crime.
As for the 'witness'. He has PUBLICLY contradicted the initial stories attributed to him.
As stated the ONLY people who knowmformsure what happened is the DEAD Mr Gray and the six criminals who had plenty of time to conspire and create a story to cover for the crime they committed. Too bad that reality makes it clear that whatever happened to Mr Gray was done by the officers and his death was the result. Ipso facto a crime. They then compound the crime by conspiring to hide the facts. Mr Gray's history is IRRELEVANT as they had no way to know it when they assaulted him.