I just don’t understand how there are no charges against the cops who shot John Crawford in WalMart. The videos clearly show him doing nothing but walking around talking on the phone and not paying attention to anyone and more importantly, not threatening anyone, and the final video take of his death shows him throwing the gun to the floor and then being shot. It’s insane.
In other news, the conviction of a cop who was charged with beating the hell out of a student in Maryland has overturned by a judge. In this case, the police originally stated that the student had attacked a mounted officer and his horse and his injury was caused by the horse kicking him. Here’s the video of this horse kicking:
This video led to the police modifying their “account” of what happened and further led to the conviction of one of the police:
James Harrison was found guilty of second-degree assault in the 2010 beating and was given a one-year suspended sentence in Dec. 2012. He served 30 days of home confinement.
Judge Beverly Woodard did not explain the reason for her decision in tossing out the conviction; beating victim Jack McKenna called the judge’s decision “frightening.”
“It sends a message that they (the police) can do whatever they want,” McKenna, now a second-year law student, said Tuesday. “If they can get away with beating me up on national TV for doing nothing, it really makes me scared for what’s going to happen to those in a dark alley when the cameras aren’t shining.”
Jon Erzen, a spokesman for the Office of the State’s Attorney, said prosecutors, too, were surprised that the judge set aside the jury’s verdict in the case.
“They (jurors) said Mr. Harrison’s actions were not acceptable policing and they were criminal,” Erzen said Tuesday.
Harrison, along with another officer who was acquitted, were charged with beating up McKenna as students celebrated the men’s basketball team’s victory over Duke on March 3, 2010.
Harrison retired with a full pension before his trial, but now with his felony criminal record cleared – there is a chance he could go back into police work. Harrison’s lawyer did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.
McKenna collected a $2 million dollar settlement from the police department to drop a civil lawsuit in the case, but his attorney was fuming Tuesday over the criminal conviction being overturned.
You’re probably wondering what on earth the judge in this case was thinking. That’s an interesting question:
It was only due to the persistence of Mr. McKenna’s lawyers that the cover-up and lies were shredded. At trial, in late 2012, a jury convicted Mr. Harrison on a felony charge of assault. Another officer, Reginald Baker, was acquitted, although he, too, used his baton to beat Mr. McKenna as he lay stunned and defenseless on the ground.
Ms. Woodard conducted herself unprofessionally at trial. She failed to disclose an apparent conflict of interest — she had been previously married to a Prince George’s officer who himself was convicted for brutality — until asked about it by a journalist. In court, she exhibited what many observers regarded as overt hostility toward Mr. McKenna, the victim.
In Maryland, judges sometimes toss out convictions for first-time offenders in minor cases. This is another matter — a clear case of egregious police brutality. Mr. Harrison, who was allowed to retire from the department with a full pension, may now work again as a police officer if he wishes.
Fer fuck’s sake.
Cacti
Nullification happens in grand juries too.
? Martin
And the other thing we learned today is that John Crawford apparently is still black.
Howard Beale IV
Setting aside a juries decision is a whole different matter as opposed to a grand jury. Grand juries bar for allowing evidence is pretty low; but setting aside a full jury’s decision takes some stones.
Violet
One of the talking heads on MSNBC said it’s hard to convict cops because they have to make split second decisions in difficult situations and we don’t always know what’s going on. And since there’s no sound on the video we don’t know what was being said. Also something about how this is the agreement the public makes with the police–they get permission to shoot people to protect the rest of us, or something along those lines. Wasn’t fully listening but sounded full of crap.
Edited for slightly more clarity.
Baud
Question for criminal lawyers: can the state appeal where a defendant was acquitted by a judge after the jury reached a guilty verdict?
BGinCHI
2 million bucks from taxpayers ought to cause some outrage as well. People’s money going to a settlement instead of, say, Head Start.
The University needs to account for this too.
Botsplainer
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/open-carry-activist-tennessee-school
Yet this guy gets to walk around outside Tennessee schools in body armor and with a loaded rifle.
It’s a shame no parent has beaten him to death with his own rifle. It would be a public service.
Botsplainer
@Baud:
Here in KY, I think it would.
Mnemosyne
I hope that police department has good insurance, because I can’t see even the most cop-loving jury not finding them culpable for Crawford’s death in the inevitable civil lawsuit.
D58826
John, you just don’t get it. Those two brave public servants encountered an n-clang behaving in an extremely suspicious manner. Therefore they were justified in shooting. The man should be thankful they only shot him 1/2 doz times before killing him. In fact medical science has a term for this type of dangerous behavior – its called breathing!
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Apparently, the jury felt that it was justified because “the police were responding according to their training”. One thing that tells me (other than the jury basically just let them get away with murder) is that mayhaps cops should have better fucking training so ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ is not the go-to reaction for shit like this.
And if anyone hasn’t heard: apparently, cops in Ferguson have taken to wearing “I Am Darren Wilson” armbands for solidarity.
Meanwhile, the worst most horrific thing in the country according to the news apparently is that Obama saluted with a latte in his hand, proving how much he fucking hates all America and baby Jesus.
BGinCHI
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Not playing well in Chik fllet country according to Chuck Todd.
Violet
@D58826:
Fixed that for you.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@BGinCHI:
One of the worst indictments of our political atmosphere is that Chuck Todd is in a position to dictate narratives.
Mart
When arguing with other old white folks about the Michael Brown murder by a police officer, I know I am making a little ground when they say, “why didn’t the cop just shoot him in the leg?” It just flummoxes me that it is now standard thinking to shoot first and ask questions later.
WTF happened to shouting commands like, “We Have You Covered, Drop the Weapon”, and if the command is not followed, fire a warning shot? And then maybe shoot him in the effing leg.
Some small nation statistic on police firing guns had something like 88 shots in a year, with about 60 that were warning shots. This nation done gone mad.
Laertes
Not only should those two cops be charged with murder, but the guy who made the false statements to police about Crawford’s behavior should be up on felony murder charges. His false statements were a crime, and the police murdering Crawford was an easily forseeable consequence of that crime.
Laertes
@Mart:
I’m not convinced that “shoot to wound” has ever existed anywhere but in the movies. If you’ve got any kind of link to any reputable firearms instructor who discusses how you train people to use ordinary firearms with live ammo to “shoot to wound,” I’d be eager to read it.
danielx
At this point I am starting to wonder if there is anything at all (other than out and out corruption) for which on-duty police officers will be held responsible in a court of law. I’ve heard the old line about how a prosecutor can lead a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich; evidently it’s also the case that a prosecutor can lead a grand jury not to prosecute what appears to be out and out murder.
Botsplainer
@Mart:
Glock mentality.
It is a military sidearm, easy trigger pull.
Even the Sigs, Berettas and S&W 9mm and .40 cal with safeties fit into this category – too easy to shoot in the heat of the moment.
Beat cops really need to go back to .357 magnum revolvers. The trigger is a stiff pull even when the hammer is cocked; you really have to think about it before you do it, and aim is better, besides.
There’s the added bonus that round 2 is harder than round 1.
rikyrah
How is it not murder?
Because the victim was Black.
Period.
rikyrah
@Laertes:
ICAM!
Mandalay
@Mart:
Folks on BJ who own guns have repeatedly stated that it is difficult and risky to aim for an arm or leg; you are very likely to miss. I think that cops are instructed to aim for the torso when they fire to maximize the chance that they will hit their target somewhere.
Mnemosyne
@Laertes:
That 911 caller managed to kill two people — Angela Williams also died in the panic he caused (of a probable heart attack, though it’s not clear if her family released the actual cause of death).
mclaren
The police weren’t convicted because in Police State America, the police are never convicted. We’re living under undeclared martial law, Cole. Get over it. Anything a mugger with a badge does is now legal.
This is the definition of a police state. We’re not “approaching” a police state, we’re in it. The message is clear: anyone who publicly dissents from the status quo or who points out in public the crimes of our rulers gets brutalized by our stasi. The only people who go to jail nowadays are the former CIA operatives who reveal the torture, not the torturers themselves.
“Crime” in 2014 America is now defined as “revealing perjury or torture or mass murder or bribery or thievery by those in power.” Unless, of course, you’re poor and non-white. Then ‘crime” is defined as “breathing.”
greennotGreen
From the video it looked liked the cops should have had the ability to hide behind the shelves so they could scope out the situation first. Instead, they went in with guns blazing and killed an innocent guy who was just milling around Walmart. What was the grand jury thinking? How can they believe the cops responded in a rational, or remotely professional way?
I’d like to do an experiment. Replace John Crawford with a fifty yo white guy in camo and a truck cap. Let’s see what happens. Or hell, let’s do it with a 70 yo grandmother. Behavior would have to be exactly the same. It’s the cops’ expectations that would be different.
mclaren
@danielx:
Of course — revealing the crimes of their fellow muggers with badges. That’ll get you thrown in jail toot sweet.
R. Porrofatto
@Mart: That small nation is Germany, 80 million people and the largest country in Europe. Which makes the comparison all the more insane.
Gvg
That was a strange video. I don’t know much at all about guns and that toy gun looks like a gun to me. I would have called the police too the way that guy was waving it around like a….toy something. It was odd and hyperactive the way he just kept swishing it around like a hyperactive kid with a stick fOr long minutes while we knew what was going to happen and he didn’t.
But I expect cops to know the difference between an air gun? And a real gun. plus didn’t they try to get a better look and talk before they just shot him on the word of an unknown random non expert? they had already decided I think. seems like they could have done a bunch of better things.
toy guns and air guns should not look that similar to real ones and we also need laws real ones can’t look like toy ones.
Police acted crazy. I got the impression from earlier stories that the caller was malicious but now I think he just didn’t know anything about guns.
JDM
@Botsplainer: “Yet this guy gets to walk around outside Tennessee schools in body armor and with a loaded rifle.
It’s a shame no parent has beaten him to death with his own rifle. It would be a public service.”
Spray paint his face brown and call the cops; he won’t be around tomorrow.
greennotGreen
@Gvg: I don’t know anything about guns, but I know Walmart sells them. If I had been uncomfortable about a Walmart shopper’s behavior with something he clearly could have picked up at Walmart (as opposed, say, to a bazooka,) I would have asked Walmart management to deal with it.
Hal
As long as this stuff happens the majority of the time to non-whites there won’t be any changes. The opinions of white people matter more, and as a result, their experiences matter more in changing the narrative. If white people were regularly shot, beaten up, harassed and arrested for the most trivial things, then we would see massive changes in this country.
David in NY
@Baud: Yes. The appellate court can simply reinstate a verdict already rendered by the jury (why many judges wait ’til post-verdict to throw out charges).
The prosecution can’t appeal a jury’s not guilty verdict because the result would be to require a new trial (in violation of the double jeopardy clause, which forbids being tried twice for the same crime) or simply to supplant the defendant’s right to a jury trial with the verdict of judges. But here, the defendant has had his jury trial, been found guilty, and the trial judge has vacated that finding. The appellate court can reinstate the jury’s verdict without impinging on either the defendant’s right to a trial by jury or his rights under the double jeopardy clause.
toschek
@BGinCHI: Taxpayers don’t directly pay for these settlements, just FYI. Settlements are almost never are paid for out of the general fund. Cities and their agencies, the police being only one example, pay insurance for precisely these reasons. That isn’t to say that having a surly, petty and violent police department won’t drive the premiums for those policies up … and yes *those* funds could be better spent on a lot of other things!
Betty Cracker
@Gvg: I had a similar impression when I watched it. The whole thing is odd. Why was the gun laying there unpackaged? Why did the guy pick it up and wander around the store with it, casually swinging it around?
I can understand why the caller was alarmed enough to dial 911; I might have done the same thing if I saw a guy walking around a store casually swinging what looks like a real gun. But the caller appears to have lied or at least exaggerated when he said the guy pointed the gun at the kids who briefly walked into the surveillance video frame.
It’s impossible (for me, at least) to tell if the cops shot before or after the guy dropped the gun. If they gave him any warning at all, it was a nanosecond, not enough time to react. Toy guns and BB guns shouldn’t look so much like the real thing.
sfHeath
@Gvg: He lived in an open-carry state. The kind of state where white folks with military-grade weapons with extended magazines walk into Chipotle. When I see somebody walking around downtown with a huge rifle over their shoulder, I turn around and calmly put as much distance as possible between me and that person, while shaking my head that our country has come to this.
But John Crawford was black. No open-carry for you! Not even of a toy gun! Can’t let the black folk think they’ve got the same rights as us white folk.
Please, can they at least put those cops on desk duty for some indefinite time?
El Caganer
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I’d say those Ferguson cops are just demonstrating truth in advertising.
Mart
@Laertes: Trying to say that my friends and neighbors think it is OK for a cop to fire at an un-armed black kid as long as he is only trying to graze him. I am not saying this has anything to do with officer training. It is just white people work so hard to blame the black victim. He was running away, the officer had to shoot him. He was holding a BB Gun, the officer had to shoot him. Etc.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Mart: No. People who have never worked with firearms assume that the stuff they see in movies about shooting the gun out of someone’s hand or shooting them in the leg is reasonable. For a trained sniper, yes. For a good shot in the military, no. For a person who simply meets minimum qualification standard for the military or law enforcement, such a thing isn’t even worth talking about.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
But resembling the real thing is a major part of their appeal to ammosexuals. It’s kind of like the way that some sex toys are molded off actual genitals; it enhances the fantasy feeling of having access to the real thing.
AxelFoley
Because, Cole, you’ve been white in America all your life. And former GOP, to boot.
That’s why.
Fred
That guy was clearly having too much fun. He had it commin’.
Fred
I just watched the video of John Crawford. It is awful. The man who made the 911 call is just making shit up as he talks to the operator. He is watching what we see on the screen and is inventing a whole different scene and relaying it to the operator. It’s like a nightmare.
NorthLeft12
I watched the video of the cop who had his conviction overturned in Maryland. The most telling part of the news report was the final few lines where the reporter said that the police have reviewed their procedures with dealing with student celebrations since that event and have had no incidents or issues since then.
Imagine that? Possible explanations for this success;
1. The Maryland basketball team has not won an important home game since then.
2. The police are dealing with the students in a respectful and sane manner.
3. The students are terrified of doing anything to incite a violent response from the police.
My money is on # 3.
BobS
@Fred: I just watched the video for the first time. There’s several times that the single camera loses Crawford behind the stacks — you don’t know for certain whether the 911 caller is “making shit up” or reporting in good faith what he thinks he’s seeing from a distance (the unreliability of so-called eyewitnesses is well-known). What I also noticed is that the aisles Crawford was walking through emptied of other shoppers, suggesting other people besides the 911 caller may have also felt in danger.
brantl
There is a ridiculous bias in favor of policemen at work in this country, even when the facts are obvious.
NorthLeft12
Jayzus, Mary, and Joseph! Watching that video of Mr. Crawford being murdered has pretty much solidified my decision to never enter the US of A ever again.
And it sounds like those cops won’t even be charged or disciplined.
That was just awful.
Rob Bush
@John Cole:
Once again, James Harrison gets punished for doing the same stuff everyone else in the League does.
Li
@Laertes: Well, the movies, and more civilized countries than ours.
Really, the idea that hitting someone on the leg is some sort of trick shot is absurd. The average leg is eight inches wide, which is bigger than a pistol range target, and those targets move too!
Mnemosyne
@Li:
Yes, but pistol range targets don’t have a large, important artery inside them at the widest part of the target. You can kill someone by shooting them in the leg even if you don’t mean to.
ETA: What I don’t understand is what happened to, “Drop your weapon and put your hands up!” And then waiting for three goddamned seconds to see if the guy does.
catbirdman
First, why is Walmart making it possible for someone to walk in, pick up what looks like a real rifle off the shelf, and walk around the store? That practice has to stop, and I hope they pay out the nose for their liability. Second, why would anyone, of any color, think it’s responsible or safe to do that? In my mind, John Crawford is indistinguishable from the open-carry morons who walk around with their guns visible in public. Yes, it’s racist that he was murdered, and the police should clearly be placed on trial for this and all the other times they’ve killed and injured people without sufficient cause, but this is just one of the myriad “unfortunate accidents” taking place all the time due to idiots walking around casually brandishing their weaponry.
April
You don’t have to be black to be gunned down for breathing.
http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2014/sep/20/tommy/
(Hope this link works, damn iPad)
This story and the Wal mart shooting make me believe that cops can become hit men for 911 callers. The callers make claims that rile up the police then the police come in primed to shoot to kill no matter what they encounter. From the link, what was to stop a neighbor from arguing with the victim for using his phone and making noise, then calling cops to report men arguing, then providing “witness” that the victim did have something in his hand to make the shooting look justified? Just how are we supposed to survive in this police state, where being tipsy in your own yard allows you to get blown away by cops for holding a phone and not understanding which of the shouted orders you are supposed to follow? Way to get rid of a noisy neighbor, permanently.
Again, I ask, what could you do if you were tipsy in your own damn yard and confused by five police pointing guns and yelling at you? How are you supposed to survive such an encounter? Ever anger a neighbor? He may call a police hit squad on you!
Brutusettu
If only that Walmart had real time video someplace and an intercom where they could deescalate the situation of a toy gun in a store.
And at least investigate if there was a very recently someone else that opened up a toy gun package and place that there.
Plus the 911 caller that seems to have given some very inaccurate information about the victim pointing the toy at people.
Paul in KY
@Mart: I agree that the police never seem to say ‘drop the gun or we will kill you right now’ (which is what they are going to do). Some of these crazy people might drop it right then, if it was phrased that way (IMO).
ConstitutitionalReset
In Virginia, Judge Woodward would have perpetrated a “Resisting the execution of the laws under the color of its authority” that being Va18.2-481(5) “statutory “Treason”. The Judges and ALL officers of the court in Virginia are customary daily perpetrators of that crime.
Under the rule of law it matters not one bit that they choose to unlawfully raise the ‘ Uniform Commercial Code’ above the Constitutions and applicable statutes , treating every person as a chattel owned by the state subject to the mere presumption of an officer of the court whenever they find it convenient.
That each and every one of them compound their individual legion of crimes with Va18.2-111 “Embezzlement” off the law and VA18.2-482 “Misprision of Treason” such that they become accessories before-the-fact participants in each such cluster of felonies perpetrated by ANY member of their guild.
There is no statute of limitations or bound of Constitutional official office to shield them from the truth and their eventual prosecution and conviction. That our temporal grand juries are unlawfully and criminally made ineffective in raising these prosecutions makes no difference.
Each of their unavoidable deaths will not even save them from prosecution.
As each of their corporeal articles of incorporation fails along with the delegation of authority, freedom-of-action and privacy-autonomy derived from their incorporation the fullness-of-truth will naturally engulf each of them as it will each of all of us.
Each of them will have their legion of felonies “tested as with fire” even if if they ultimately rely upon their relationship with Jesus to save their souls from self inflicted extinction.
When all that they ever did or thought their person to be returns to ” ALL that ever was” they each will not be equipped to experience the “fullness of truth” as the ‘Glory of God” so they will by default experience it as the “Fires of Hell”.
This portion related to actions rather than soul cannot escape what portion of redemption God has delegated to the people of a state and that the people in turn have delegated to “the office of the Governor”.
If a state Governor ignores the weight of that authority AND the duty incumbent to it then that Governor and the peoples’crimes that would best have been handled with pardon will be subject to the “Fires of Hell”. I offer Bob McDonnell as a prime example.
The whole batch of waste and suffering could have been minimized so beautifully with pardon under the virtue of parole oath. It is just the most practical solution – no one is getting off-the hook.
The cost to our society of letting the Governors ignore their duty to pardon ( on the virtue of Parole Oath ) when they rightly can is more that we can rationally bear.