The Myth of Systemic Racism

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...why was the jogger shot?...

Speaking from memory... a confluence or events... a string of recent robberies in the neighborhood... someone saw the jogger entering a building under construction, leaving a few minutes later... two white guys, one retired investigator and former police officer and his son, attempted a citizen arrest... the jogger got into a fight, tried to grab the rifle and ... was shot.

Full details at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Ahmaud_Arbery

[JoeKitchen]

Why wouldn't a white jogger have a criminal record?

And is it ok for an ex-cop to shoot someone who has a criminal record, even if the ex-cop doesn't know that? Even if the jogger isn't doing anything illegal?

In the reports I read at the time, they said that he had looked in on a house construction site, something I've done myself several times.

Are "plantation rules" still in effect in Georgia?   

Actually there was no justification for the shooting, and anyone who says otherwise is either playing a game or does not know the law.  I realize this is not you. 

None of the three was a current officer of the law, so they only had the authority of citizen's arrest.  In order to exercise a citizen's arrest, you need to personally witness a crime in progress and immediately act to arrest that person.  As a citizen, you are neither allowed to arrest someone after the fact nor are you allowed to arrest someone based on what another person witnessed.  The latter is what appears to have happened. 

On top of that, no crime was committed.  He ran through a construction site that was open and not clearly marked with no trespassing signs.  That is not a crime. 

This too, should be an open and shut case, so long as they are not over charged. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Why wouldn't a white jogger have a criminal record?...

Statistical probability. And whites with criminal records do not jog. That's a yuppie thing.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Actually there was no justification for the shooting, and anyone who says otherwise is either playing a game or does not know the law.  I realize this is not you...

Just to be clear, nothing that I said so far about the case shall be interpreted as a justification for the shooting.

[texshooter]

But in this case, it was a police officer doing his duty during an arrest.  He was using what seems to be standard police practice to restrain the perpertrator.  If the cop's action was too long and led to the death of the perpetrator, espoecially if it turns out he died of something other than strangulation, that in itself would be an accident, maybe negligence, but not criminal.  I think that's going to be the main point of the defence at trial.  So the cop gets off and the City of Minneapolis pays millions to the family for negligence, a civil and not a criminal act.

Not so fast.  You are forgetting three tiny details:  the video, the video, and the video.  I predict the jury will convict the cop of 2nd degree murder because the video is just too disturbing.  The jurors will not see incompetence, they will see cruelty.  And cruelty is close enough to intention.  And intention equals murder.  His goose is cooked.

[faberryman]

Speaking from memory... a confluence or events... a string of recent robberies in the neighborhood... someone saw the jogger entering a building under construction, leaving a few minutes later... two white guys, one retired investigator and former police officer and his son, attempted a citizen arrest... the jogger got into a fight, tried to grab the rifle and ... was shot.

Full details at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Ahmaud_Arbery

Is the text here something you wrote or are you quoting someone else? It is not from the Wikipedia entry you link to?

[HSakols]

This must Go!!!!

[LesPalenik]

This must Go!!!!

can you elaborate?
Another suggestion: instead of opening so many new threads you might want to delete them and insert the combined content into one common aggregated thread.
 

[JoeKitchen]

Not so fast.  You are forgetting three tiny details:  the video, the video, and the video.  I predict the jury will convict the cop of 2nd degree murder because the video is just too disturbing.  The jurors will not see incompetence, they will see cruelty.  And cruelty is close enough to intention.  And intention equals murder.  His goose is cooked.

Although I hope you are right, there have been too many cases where this did not happen. 

I believe there is a great argument that if Zimmerman was charged with manslaughter he would be in jail today!

[HSakols]

Your representation of black people and a hispanic mayor are not honored on this site.  Stand up for Racism!!! 

[Chris Kern]

The quote machine here is not including the things you quoted from the statutes. One of the things you included but is ommitted in the quote of your post, is this:

"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 . . "

Actually, that phrase is included in the section of the statute I quoted; please take another look.

How do you prove "evincing a depraved mind"? That is apparently the problem the commentator was referring to.

The same way you prove a state-of-mind, which is an element in every criminal prosecution even if it isn't an explicit requirement of the language of the statute,* and, for that matter, in many civil actions (e.g., fraud): the prosecutor/plaintiff introduces evidence to persuade the trier of fact (a jury or, in a bench trial, the judge) to infer that the requisite state-of-mind was present.

―――
*I'm not going to try to offer a detailed explanation here, but look up mens rea and scienter.

[HSakols]

Yeah, the comment on this thread are Ok.  People are just expressing themselves.  WTF!!!   

[John Camp]

Actually, that phrase is included in the section of the statute I quoted; please take another look.

The same way you prove a state-of-mind, which is an element in every criminal prosecution even if it isn't an explicit requirement of the language of the statute* and, for that matter, in many civil actions (e.g., fraud): the prosecutor/plaintiff introduces evidence to persuade the trier of fact (a jury or, in a bench trial, the judge) to infer that the requisite state-of-mind was present.

―――
*I'm not going to try to offer a detailed explanation here, but look up mens rea and scienter.

What I was saying was that your quotation of the statute didn't come through when I quoted your post, so I had to copy and paste. I was explaining that problem to other readers. Our quote machine apparently thinks that material was quoted from somewhere else on this tread, so did not pick it up.

 I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know about the evincing a depraved mind thing, but that's what CNN's legal analyst said was the problem with the statute, that is not present in other 3rd degree statutes in other states that have them. I would think both "evincing" and "depraved" would be a problem. How do you evince something -- when you looked at that cop and what he was doing, he looked both calm and almost bored, even though he knew he was being recorded with a video camera. But, as I said, I'm not a lawyer, although the woman who made this claim is a former federal prosecutor in Minnesota and was apparently familiar with problems with that particular statute.

[Chris Kern]

What I was saying was that your quotation of the statute didn't come through when I quoted your post, so I had to copy and paste.

Yup, sorry: I misread your comment about the forum's quoting mechanism.

The rest of my response, and my earlier post, stands.  I don't see any inherent problem proving the elements of the Minnesota statute.

[JoeKitchen]

Your representation of black people and a hispanic mayor are not honored on this site.  Stand up for Racism!!!

Once again, you are conflating me with another poster. 

I never spoke about the sherif nor made nefarious comments on any type of people.  I largely talk in abstract political policy referencing studies to show my point.  I do get heated with others over politics, but who doesn't. 

Not to mention the point of the post you responded to I am fully agreeing the officer should go to jail, but feel overcharging him will lead to his acquittal.  I don't want to see this, and would like to see an appropriate charge, not virtue signaling on the part of the DA by overcharging him. 

If he gets off by being overcharged (like Zimmerman), instead of us admitting that the DA made a bad decision and holding the DA responsible, it will just resort to the same old same old political discussion as before. 

[BernardLanguillier]

I am impressed by the strength of the reaction of many republicans against the measures proposed by Trump to deal with the civil unrest.

His mention of "domination of streets" using federal forces, his decision to remove by force peaceful protestors for the sake of a photo op with him holding a bible,... are just a completely shameful and a clear threat for democracy.

And this is without mentioning his total lack of empathy, his lack of attempts to unite the country,...

Regards,
Bernard

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Is the text here something you wrote or are you quoting someone else? It is not from the Wikipedia entry you link to?

I wrote the text. Which part you object to?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Your representation of black people and a hispanic mayor are not honored on this site.  Stand up for Racism!!! 

What is my representation of black people? The statistic I quoted? Are stats now racist too? Or is it too hard for you to process inconvenient truths?

Btw, I think you meant to say “stand up against racism,” no?

[Alan Klein]

Come on now Alan.  I usually give the benefit of the doubt to police officers, but this is clearly manslaughter.  Perhaps not murder, but I just cant see anyone thinking this is not at least manslaughter. 

I only saw about ten seconds of a cop with his knee on a guy's neck who was on the ground.  I also saw a few seconds of the man walking around cuffed.  These weren't enough for me to draw a conclusion about anything and certainly nothing about the other three cops.  I also saw a photo on three cops holding down the perpetrator and another cop standing around.  So what?  Cops hold down perpetrators all the time.  Often it takes multiple cops to do that.   Maybe you saw more?  Someone here said that the coroner said he died of some cardiac arrest, that he was on powerful and dangerous Fentanyl and other drugs.  If he didn't die of asphyxiation, then how did the cop kill him?  Maybe the stress of being arrested with all those drugs in him caused him to OD.  There are just too many unknowns right now and frankly a rush to judgment because of the politics of it.  Why don't we just string all four of them up right now and get it over with?

[Alan Klein]

What has the bag and its price and brand have anything to do with anything? This is not reporting, but opinion/editorial/bias/envy.

+1.  That's the first thing I thought when I heard it on one of the cable channels. Fake news.  Next thing we'll learn is Ivanka wears dresses that costs thousands of dollars and sends her kids to private school.  They must be guilty of something.