#"Since 2005, 98 nonfederal law enforcement officers have been arrested in connection with fatal, on-duty shootings, according to the Police Integrity Research Group's data. Another 22 officers were acquitted in a jury trial, and 9 were acquitted during a bench trial by a judge or prosecutor. Ten cases were dismissed by a judge or prosecutor." "Police officers convicted for fatal shootings are the exception, not the rule."
Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University, found that in officer arrested cases, about 6.3% involved false reports or statements. Stinson also found that of all arrested officers, just one half lost their jobs. A chart prepared by Stinson on a subset of 31 convictions, shows that convictions for manslaughter exceeded convictions for murder by about 4 to 1 -- 21 to 5. Sentences for manslaughter tend to be much lighter than convictions for murder.
#Stephen Rushin, an associate professor of law at Loyola University, Chicago, and Atticus Deprospo analyzed 657 police union contracts and 20 law enforcement officers' bill of rights. About 20% of the agencies stipulated a waiting period for officers before they can be interrogated about suspected misconduct, and about 28% of agencies required internal investigators to turn over potentially incriminating evidence to officers before they may be questioned.
#According to data compiled by The Social Movement Lab at IRISE (University of Denver), that even after adjusting for inflation, since 1980, criminal justice spending has more than doubled in 48 of 50 states. Nationally, our criminal justice spending is now 232% higher than it was in 1980. Police spending has increased by 223%; judicial/legal spending has risen 235%; and corrections spending is up by 340%.
#Michael Gerson,"GOP disregard for COVID-19 risk is a moral outrage," The Albuquerque Journal, April 2, 2021. - Gerson says of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem: "What level of hubris, extremism or insanity does it take to crow about one of the worst COVID-19 records in the nation?"
""Under former President Donald Trump, the federal government largely surrendered its role in the unfolding crisis, leaving red and blue states to respond according to their ideological proclivities." "By Aug. 5, the relative risk of dying from COVID-19 was 1.8 times higher in GOP-led states," "But concerning COVID-19, Republican governors tended to put a greater value on economic activity than preserving the lives of the elderly and vulnerable and others, when compared with Democrat-led states."
#Kathleen Parker, "From Birx to Fauci to Trump, plenty deserving of blame," The Albuquerque Journal, April 2, 2021. - " 'Uncomfortable' is an apt way to describe how [Dr.] Birx routinely looked during these White House news conferences with Trump during the pandemic peak." " 'Why doesn't she say something?' I heard myself shouting at the screen. Why, during all these months as thousands were dying, didn't she say, 'Enough! This is ridiculous!' "Fauci, too, conveyed a stoic's resolve to reveal nothing of his professional or personal thoughts as Trump rambled through daily data."
'Given the threat of a deadly airborne virus, the task force prescription was akin to telling children in the 1950s and 1960s to get under their desks in case of a nuclear attack." "But shouldn't Birx also accept some responsibility for numbing her tongue and allowing the president's pandemic to flourish?"
#Editorial: "Santa Fe leaders should release police internal affairs reports," The Albuquerque Journal, April 2, 2021. - "But transparency should be the easy part of police reform. It requires no balancing act between civil rights and police authority, or arguments over police use of military gear, nor debates about bringing the values of the community and the police together, or whether money needs to be diverted from law enforcement into mental health programs."
#In addition to calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find' some 1,178 votes for him to edge out Joe Biden's victory margin, former President Trump called the chief investigator of the Georgia secretary of state's office to overturn the results of the election, he told the investigator, Frances Watson: "When the right answer comes out, you'll be praised." Watson replied that she is interested only in the truth.
ADDENDUMS:
*Trump said of Dr. Birx: "Dr. Birx is a proven liar with little credibility left." He called Fauci and Birx, "two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned."
*The U.S.is building a new $100 billion nuclear missile, called the ground-based strategic deterrent (GBSD). The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said: "It is becoming increasingly clear that there has not been a serious consideration of what role these cold-war-era weapons are supposed to play in a post-cold war security environment."
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