July 2015: BLM activists seize the mic at a Democratic candidate forum to grill Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders on police violence.
Oct. 2015: Rapper Vic Mensa's video for "16 Shots," a song about Laquan McDonald, goes viral.
Nov. 2015: A judge orders the release of dash-cam footage that appears to show McDonald walking away from police when he was shot. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel fires his police chief the next month.
Feb. 7, 2016: Beyonce's dancers adopt a Black Panther look for the Super Bowl halftime show. Police unions call for a boycott of the star.
Feb 24, 2016: BLM activists disrupt a Hillary Clinton fundraiser, demanding she apologize for her racially charged comments about 'super predators' during the 1990s. Clinton appears irritated, but the next day she does just that.
May 2016: The first state "Blue Lives Matter" bill passes in Louisiana. Attacking a cop is now a hate crime.
June 2016: The police-van driver in the Freddie Gray case is acquitted.
July 5, 2016: Alton Sterling is fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while officers have him pinned to the ground.
July 6, 2016: During a traffic stop, a Minnesota cop shoots Philando Castile as he reaches for his wallet --that's according to Castile's girlfriend, who live-streamed his demise on Facebook: "You told him to get his ID, sir!"
July 7, 216: A black gunman kills five cops at a Dallas protest against police violence. He holes up in a parking garage, where police kill him with an explosives-bearing robot.
July 12, 2016: President Barack Obama defends Black Lives Matter as a memorial for the slain officers. "We have all seen this bigotry in our lives at some point," and "none of us is entirely innocent," he says. "That includes our police departments."
July 17, 2016: A black military vet who ranted online about the treatment of black people by police assassinates three officers (one of them black) in Baton Rouge.
July 18, 2016: At the Republican National Convention, Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, who is black, proclaims that "blue lives matter." In an op-ed the same day, he calls Black Lives Matter the "enemy."
July 18, 2016: A police officer in Florida shoots a black caregiver who was lying in the street with his hands up. A union rep explains that the officer had been aiming at the man's autistic patient, whose toy truck he mistook for a fireman.
July 27, 2016: After further acquittals in the Freddie Gray case, charges are dropped against the remaining officers.
Aug. 2016: 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick starts sitting out the national anthem to protest police violence. A few pros and countless high school and college athletes follow suit.
Sept. 2016: Clinton debates Donald Trump: "I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police," she says. Critics pounce. "Yes, Hillary Clinton called the nation racist," writes a Washington Post columnist.
Oct. 2016: Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the DOJ will (finally) start collecting national data on police use of force.
Showing posts with label Laquan McDonald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laquan McDonald. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Updates on Recent Shootings and Ted Cruz's Comments
I. CPD Lies About Shooting of Teenager
A Chicago Police Department report on the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald claims that McDonald menacing turned toward officers as he walked past the assembled police officers; also, the report claims that McDonald treated to rise up after being shot down and again made a threatening gesture with his knife. The released video shows McDonald actually turning away as he passes the officers and he stays flat on the street after being hit by gunfire.
This claim of aggressive action on the part of McDonald is just another illustration of how police will blatantly lie to save the skin of a fellow officer. The firing of the police chief and the first degree murder charge against Officer Jason Van Dyke, and even the appointment of a special committee to investigate police procedure and behavior aren't really sufficient to address the real problem, which is the corruption in the Chicago Police Department. The crux of the problem is that police department personnel will lie and cover-up when the department's interests are threatened by serious misconduct by its officers, including the many instances of excessive use of force. A root-and-branch investigation of the CPD is needed and the formation of that committee should not be done by anyone with ties to the CPD or the city political leadership. The Department of Justice seems to be the obvious choice to do the investigation, although I, personally, have serious doubts about how well the DoJ handled Michael Brown's murder investigation.
The CPD's cover-up proclivities were in evidence when for many years it wouldn't take any action to stop the torture activities of the notorious Jon Burge, who used his division stationhouse to torture, almost exclusively, African-Americans, to confess to murders that the CPD had not been able to solve. I spoke at a rally for one of those torture victims, who was released from Death Row in the latter 1990s, because there was no evidence, apart from his confession, tying him to the homicide for which he was convicted.
II. Senator Ted Cruz's Comments on PP Shooting and Firearms
Senator Ted Cruiz (R-TX) labeled the shooter in the Planned Parenthood clinic located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as a "transgender, leftist activist." On Fox News Sunday, Cruz denounced the "vicious rhetoric on the left, blaming those who are pro-life." There is no evidence that the shooter is or was transgender, a leftist or that he was an activist. The neighbors who lived closest to the trailer of the almost certain shooter -- deemed to be innocent until and if he is convicted in a criminal trial -- described him as a loner. Cruz's motivation was obviously to blacken the character of those who are not heterosexual or politically conservative.
A more plausible case can be made for the premise that it was the extreme rhetoric aimed at Planned Parenthood and the efforts in Congress to defund it, that may have figured in the shooter's decision to shoot up the clinic. He has been described as saying that his intent was to stop the sale of fetal tissue. Ruth Marcus, columnist for the Washington Post, wrote an article entitled: "Republicans deserve some blame for the Planned Parenthood shooting", in the December 1, 2015 issue of the Post. Marcus wrote : "Republican politicians who fueled the overwrought and unsupported controversy over selling body parts bear some measure of responsibility." She calls it "literally, a manufactured issue, cobbled together from doctored videotape, and overheated accusations.The organization's activities have been so mischaracterized, and the practice of providing fetal tissue so overblown and so manipulated by lawmakers and politicians, that blame for the ensuing violence falls more heavily on them."
Marcus cites the case of Michael ;Bray, who served forty years in prison for bombing a string of abortion clinics. Bray told "60 Minutes" in 1999 that: "If we are to affirm, as I do, that the children in the womb who are killed at abortion clinics are in fact children... than action taken to defend them is justifiable and cannot be condemned."
Senator Cruz has commented on the strangeness of gun massacres always occurring in "gun-free" zones. The problem is that much of the United States is composed of "guns a'plenty" zones" and guns from these "guns a'plenty zones" are taken to an alarming number of venues to wreck their violence by human trigger-pullers.
A Chicago Police Department report on the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald claims that McDonald menacing turned toward officers as he walked past the assembled police officers; also, the report claims that McDonald treated to rise up after being shot down and again made a threatening gesture with his knife. The released video shows McDonald actually turning away as he passes the officers and he stays flat on the street after being hit by gunfire.
This claim of aggressive action on the part of McDonald is just another illustration of how police will blatantly lie to save the skin of a fellow officer. The firing of the police chief and the first degree murder charge against Officer Jason Van Dyke, and even the appointment of a special committee to investigate police procedure and behavior aren't really sufficient to address the real problem, which is the corruption in the Chicago Police Department. The crux of the problem is that police department personnel will lie and cover-up when the department's interests are threatened by serious misconduct by its officers, including the many instances of excessive use of force. A root-and-branch investigation of the CPD is needed and the formation of that committee should not be done by anyone with ties to the CPD or the city political leadership. The Department of Justice seems to be the obvious choice to do the investigation, although I, personally, have serious doubts about how well the DoJ handled Michael Brown's murder investigation.
The CPD's cover-up proclivities were in evidence when for many years it wouldn't take any action to stop the torture activities of the notorious Jon Burge, who used his division stationhouse to torture, almost exclusively, African-Americans, to confess to murders that the CPD had not been able to solve. I spoke at a rally for one of those torture victims, who was released from Death Row in the latter 1990s, because there was no evidence, apart from his confession, tying him to the homicide for which he was convicted.
II. Senator Ted Cruz's Comments on PP Shooting and Firearms
Senator Ted Cruiz (R-TX) labeled the shooter in the Planned Parenthood clinic located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as a "transgender, leftist activist." On Fox News Sunday, Cruz denounced the "vicious rhetoric on the left, blaming those who are pro-life." There is no evidence that the shooter is or was transgender, a leftist or that he was an activist. The neighbors who lived closest to the trailer of the almost certain shooter -- deemed to be innocent until and if he is convicted in a criminal trial -- described him as a loner. Cruz's motivation was obviously to blacken the character of those who are not heterosexual or politically conservative.
A more plausible case can be made for the premise that it was the extreme rhetoric aimed at Planned Parenthood and the efforts in Congress to defund it, that may have figured in the shooter's decision to shoot up the clinic. He has been described as saying that his intent was to stop the sale of fetal tissue. Ruth Marcus, columnist for the Washington Post, wrote an article entitled: "Republicans deserve some blame for the Planned Parenthood shooting", in the December 1, 2015 issue of the Post. Marcus wrote : "Republican politicians who fueled the overwrought and unsupported controversy over selling body parts bear some measure of responsibility." She calls it "literally, a manufactured issue, cobbled together from doctored videotape, and overheated accusations.The organization's activities have been so mischaracterized, and the practice of providing fetal tissue so overblown and so manipulated by lawmakers and politicians, that blame for the ensuing violence falls more heavily on them."
Marcus cites the case of Michael ;Bray, who served forty years in prison for bombing a string of abortion clinics. Bray told "60 Minutes" in 1999 that: "If we are to affirm, as I do, that the children in the womb who are killed at abortion clinics are in fact children... than action taken to defend them is justifiable and cannot be condemned."
Senator Cruz has commented on the strangeness of gun massacres always occurring in "gun-free" zones. The problem is that much of the United States is composed of "guns a'plenty" zones" and guns from these "guns a'plenty zones" are taken to an alarming number of venues to wreck their violence by human trigger-pullers.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Now Is the Time to Speak of Many Things: Cabbages and Kings
I.) Police Union President Actions Leap Over All Reasonable Bounds
The president of the Chicago police union is trying to raise a defense fund for Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot to death 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, even though video shows that the teen represented no threat to him. The union president has asked Chicago police to contribute money for Van Dyke. Even though it is a standard prerogative of a union president to defend union members who are in trouble, there are lines that should not be crossed. The fatal shooting by Van Dyke was so over-the-top and an utterly inexcusable use of deadly force that it represents a case in which the president should have taken a pass. The gravity of the offense is indicated by the rarity in which a prosecutor charges a police officer with first degree murder, as in the Van Dyke case.
In recent years, police union presidents have displayed an unusual affinity to say and do the wrong things. The president of the St Louis police union expressed his anger at the five St. Louis Rams football players who threw thier arms in the air upon entering the playing field, in imitation of Michael Brown's surrender position. He demanded an apology from the St. Louis Rams organization and wanted a series of meetings. Although the Rams leadership insisted that they did not apologize, a statement was released that read much like an apology and the Rams leadership indicated a reluctance to vigorously defend the free speech expression rights of their players.
When an obviously deranged man shot to death two New York City police officers sitting in their police vehicle, the police union president blamed those protesting against excessive use of police force for inciting the shooter. He also assailed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for campaigning against stop-and-frisk and counseling his son about how to act in any confrontation with the police. Subsequently, a number of police officers turned their backs on de Blasio when he appeared in their presence.
The Cleveland police president also blasted critics of police excessive use of force when officers in his union exhibited excessive use of force.
II. Sustained Attacks on Planned Parenthood May Have Led to Tragedy
Ever since an organization masquerading as a health research group released videos purportedly showing Planned Parenthood employees jocularly discussing the sale of fetal tissue, anti-abortion zealots have been waging an unrelenting assault on Planned Parenthood. Republican presidential candidates and the Republican lawmakers in Congress have kept up a rhetorical campaign attack.. Now the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has announced a special committee, like the one on Benghazi, to investigate Planned Parenthood.
Within the last couple of days, a man named Robert Louis Dear invaded a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado with a bag full of firearms and ammunition. He began shooting at clinic employees and arriving police, which developed into a standoff, punctured by bursts of gunfire, until Dear was persuaded to surrender. A police officer and two persons in the clinic were killed, while nine others, both police officers and civilians, were injured.
Dear has been reputed to have said that his actions were designed to stop the sale of fetal tissue. This comment and the attack itself has led to some commentators making a direct connection between the effort to defund Planned Parenthood and to totally discredit it with the public. Terri O'Neill, president of the women's organization, NOW, had called the shootings an act of "domestic terrorism" triggered by harsh rhetoric and defunding efforts. Radio talk show host, Bill Press, made a similar link on this morning's show.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has welcomed the endorsement of Troy Newman, head of Operation Rescue, who in a book he authored praised the killer of Dr. George Tiller. In that same book, Newman sanctioned the killing of abortion providers, because they would kill many more unborn fetuses if left to practice their trade. Dr. Tiller was frequently called "Killer Tiller" by his most extreme opponents. Tiller was killed in church on a Sunday morning while serving as an usher.
The mention of the killing of Tiller brings to mind the killing of two other abortion doctors: one shot to death through his residence window and the second shot to death in his arriving vehicle, along with the death of his assistant sitting next to him. -- in Florida, I believe. The larger point to be made here is that unstable minds can be induced to take tragic actions through strong societal influence; also, some may come to believe that killing abortion providers leads to the saving of many more lives and that is an overall societal good.
III.) More Firearms Leads to Fewer Deaths and Injuries
A book published some years ago was premised on a statistical claim that more firearms in a community equate to fewer deaths and injuries. The premise is that a potential shooting will be deterred by the knowledge or fear of the intended shooter that he/she would be the one shot. The premise that more firearms equate to fewer deaths and injuries has been largely debunked by exposure of the statistical shoddiness of the original study.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is one who believed in the proposition that more firearms are associated with fewer deaths and injuries. Recently, however, he said that Syrian refugees should not be allowed to settle in Texas, because it is too easy to obtain firearms in that state. How quickly can base beliefs be abandoned if abandonment better suits a new political reality.
The president of the Chicago police union is trying to raise a defense fund for Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot to death 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, even though video shows that the teen represented no threat to him. The union president has asked Chicago police to contribute money for Van Dyke. Even though it is a standard prerogative of a union president to defend union members who are in trouble, there are lines that should not be crossed. The fatal shooting by Van Dyke was so over-the-top and an utterly inexcusable use of deadly force that it represents a case in which the president should have taken a pass. The gravity of the offense is indicated by the rarity in which a prosecutor charges a police officer with first degree murder, as in the Van Dyke case.
In recent years, police union presidents have displayed an unusual affinity to say and do the wrong things. The president of the St Louis police union expressed his anger at the five St. Louis Rams football players who threw thier arms in the air upon entering the playing field, in imitation of Michael Brown's surrender position. He demanded an apology from the St. Louis Rams organization and wanted a series of meetings. Although the Rams leadership insisted that they did not apologize, a statement was released that read much like an apology and the Rams leadership indicated a reluctance to vigorously defend the free speech expression rights of their players.
When an obviously deranged man shot to death two New York City police officers sitting in their police vehicle, the police union president blamed those protesting against excessive use of police force for inciting the shooter. He also assailed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for campaigning against stop-and-frisk and counseling his son about how to act in any confrontation with the police. Subsequently, a number of police officers turned their backs on de Blasio when he appeared in their presence.
The Cleveland police president also blasted critics of police excessive use of force when officers in his union exhibited excessive use of force.
II. Sustained Attacks on Planned Parenthood May Have Led to Tragedy
Ever since an organization masquerading as a health research group released videos purportedly showing Planned Parenthood employees jocularly discussing the sale of fetal tissue, anti-abortion zealots have been waging an unrelenting assault on Planned Parenthood. Republican presidential candidates and the Republican lawmakers in Congress have kept up a rhetorical campaign attack.. Now the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has announced a special committee, like the one on Benghazi, to investigate Planned Parenthood.
Within the last couple of days, a man named Robert Louis Dear invaded a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado with a bag full of firearms and ammunition. He began shooting at clinic employees and arriving police, which developed into a standoff, punctured by bursts of gunfire, until Dear was persuaded to surrender. A police officer and two persons in the clinic were killed, while nine others, both police officers and civilians, were injured.
Dear has been reputed to have said that his actions were designed to stop the sale of fetal tissue. This comment and the attack itself has led to some commentators making a direct connection between the effort to defund Planned Parenthood and to totally discredit it with the public. Terri O'Neill, president of the women's organization, NOW, had called the shootings an act of "domestic terrorism" triggered by harsh rhetoric and defunding efforts. Radio talk show host, Bill Press, made a similar link on this morning's show.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has welcomed the endorsement of Troy Newman, head of Operation Rescue, who in a book he authored praised the killer of Dr. George Tiller. In that same book, Newman sanctioned the killing of abortion providers, because they would kill many more unborn fetuses if left to practice their trade. Dr. Tiller was frequently called "Killer Tiller" by his most extreme opponents. Tiller was killed in church on a Sunday morning while serving as an usher.
The mention of the killing of Tiller brings to mind the killing of two other abortion doctors: one shot to death through his residence window and the second shot to death in his arriving vehicle, along with the death of his assistant sitting next to him. -- in Florida, I believe. The larger point to be made here is that unstable minds can be induced to take tragic actions through strong societal influence; also, some may come to believe that killing abortion providers leads to the saving of many more lives and that is an overall societal good.
III.) More Firearms Leads to Fewer Deaths and Injuries
A book published some years ago was premised on a statistical claim that more firearms in a community equate to fewer deaths and injuries. The premise is that a potential shooting will be deterred by the knowledge or fear of the intended shooter that he/she would be the one shot. The premise that more firearms equate to fewer deaths and injuries has been largely debunked by exposure of the statistical shoddiness of the original study.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is one who believed in the proposition that more firearms are associated with fewer deaths and injuries. Recently, however, he said that Syrian refugees should not be allowed to settle in Texas, because it is too easy to obtain firearms in that state. How quickly can base beliefs be abandoned if abandonment better suits a new political reality.
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