Really, I don't even have words for this case. The officer is found not guilty, the fucking dickless police don't release this footage until after the trial, and another black man, a father, is left dead and a family broken because America refuses to accept that their is racial struggles and police brutality still rampant in their society.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/it-broke-me-the-daily-show-host-trevor-noahs-emotional-reaction-to-philando-castile-dashcam-video (http://www.thedailybeast.com/it-broke-me-the-daily-show-host-trevor-noahs-emotional-reaction-to-philando-castile-dashcam-video)
QuoteOn Friday, Officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted of second-degree manslaughter charges and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm in the shooting death of Philando Castile back on July 6 in St. Anthony, Minnesota.
Castile, a black man who was beloved by the children at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in nearby Saint Paul, where he worked as a cafeteria supervisorâ€"“He remembered their names. He remembered who couldn’t have milk. He knew what they could have to eat and what they couldn’t,†a teacher at the school told TIMEâ€"was in the car with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter when he was shot down by Yanez. Reynolds captured the aftermath on Facebook Live, in a streaming video that saw her pleading with police as Castile lay bloodied in the vehicle.
Yanez was acquitted in the shooting death of Castile despite the existence of audio and a dashcam video where Castile can be heard calmly informing the officer that he had a firearm on his personâ€"which he had a license to carryâ€"and that he was “not pulling it out,†a plea echoed by Reynolds, only to have Yanez scream “DON’T PULL IT OUT!†before firing seven shots at Castile, with five of them hitting him, and two of the bullets entering his heart. On Wednesday, the dashcam video of Castile’s death was released.
“Honestly, I thought that I felt all that I could feel about this storyâ€"until I got home, and I watched a newly-released video,†said host Trevor Noah on The Daily Show Wednesday night. “And if you’ve already watched this video, you don’t have to watch it again. I wouldn’t say anyone has to watch this video. But if you haven’t seen it, it is graphic, and you probably should watch it. And we’re going to play it for you now.â€
“I wont lie to you: when I watched this video, it broke me. It just… it broke me,†said Noah, clearly distraught. “You see so many of these videos and you start to get numb, but this one? Seeing the childâ€"that little girlâ€"getting out of the car after watching a man get killed, it broke my heart into little pieces. I thought of every joke people make about, ‘Oh, the most confusing day in the ‘hood is Father’s Day. People don’t know where their parents are. Ha-ha. Black dads.’ That’s a black dad that’s gone. That’s a child that grows up not knowing what it’s like to have somebody in their life.â€
“You know what’s the most painful thing? For years, people said that there’s a simple solution to a police shooting: just give the police body cameras, film everything, and then there will be no question about what happened,†Noah continued. “Black people have been saying for years: just give us an indictment. Just an indictment. Just get us in front of a jury of our peersâ€"of our follow citizens. We’ll show them the video, the evidence, and they will see it, and then justice will be served. And black people finally get there, and it’s like… what? Nothing?â€
“You hear the stories but you watch that andâ€"forget race, are we all watching the same video? The video where a law-abiding man followed the officer’s instructions to the letter of the law, and then was killed regardless? People watched that video and then voted to acquit?â€
“It’s one thing to have the system against youâ€"the district attorneys, the police unions, the courtsâ€"that’s one thing. But when a jury of your peersâ€"your communityâ€"sees this evidence and then decides that even this is self-defense? That is truly depressing. Because what they’re basically saying is, in America it is officially reasonable to be afraid of a person just because we are black. And that’s the truth of what we saw with this verdict.â€
And he hits on something very poignant here; it's not so much the cops that are racist, it's the police force as an organization. I think we have a hard time separating the two as distinct entities.
Unfortunately, manipulation of evidence before, during and after trial seems to be standard with the authorities. Putting the facts, all the facts, before the jury, seems to be injurious to the judiciary.
I saw the video on TV again today. The sequence of events was insane. The policeman was clearly guilty of murder. Castile made no action or threat that can be discerned. He advised the officer that he had a legal weapon in the car, and seems to have made no move towards it.
This has got to stop.
The policeman was apparently afraid of a black man with a gun. So when that black man who acknowledged he had a legal gun in the car reached for his wallet for his drivers license, as instructed, the policeman decided he was reaching for his gun. And emptied his own gun into Castile.
This has got to stop.
When I get stopped, I don't move, and don't talk. And I don't expect to survive the encounter anyway. So far I have ... at least I haven't been asked yet to get on my knees and give the cop a blow job ;-( This won't stop, because the US isn't what it claims to be, it is a plantation, filled with slaves.
Current law and attitudes about police (and black men) set an extremely high bar for convicting an officer for any shooting. If an officer says "I feared for my life so I acted to end the threat" he's basically safe from conviction. Even the Shooting of Walter Scott (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Walter_Scott), the most obvious (recent) case of a bad shoot, didn't result in the officer being convicted (yet) because it only takes 1 juror buying his story and at least 1/12th of people will, apparently, believe anything a cop tells them.
Quote from: Poison Tree on June 25, 2017, 11:04:46 AM
Current law and attitudes about police (and black men) set an extremely high bar for convicting an officer for any shooting. If an officer says "I feared for my life so I acted to end the threat" he's basically safe from conviction. Even the Shooting of Walter Scott (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Walter_Scott), the most obvious (recent) case of a bad shoot, didn't result in the officer being convicted (yet) because it only takes 1 juror buying his story and at least 1/12th of people will, apparently, believe anything a cop tells them.
The jury system isn't sacred, and it is imperfect. Some law requires decision by a judge only. Would you be more comfortable with that? Also some laws require binding arbitration by a panel of judges instead of a lone judge (think of it as a small jury not of peers, but of actual experts).
Quote from: Baruch on June 25, 2017, 02:28:39 PM
Also some laws require binding arbitration by a panel of judges instead of a lone judge (think of it as a small jury not of peers, but of actual experts).
We elect judges in these here parts
It's open season on innocent black men in America, as a result of racist juries, corrupt judges and a poisonous police system that rewards police brutality by giving rogue cops vacations and cushy desk jobs instead of firing them.
Quote from: Atheon on June 26, 2017, 06:04:53 AM
It's open season on innocent black men in America, as a result of racist juries, corrupt judges and a poisonous police system that rewards police brutality by giving rogue cops vacations and cushy desk jobs instead of firing them.
Been true since Jamestown colony. Did you just get the memo? And no human is innocent ... not that I want to wack people because of universal disability of general ape-shit-ness.
And yes, rogue cops should be fired. But you are naive if you think this is rogue ... all humans, in uniform or out, are dangerous. All human organizations, all communication between humans ... is conspiracy.
Quote from: Poison Tree on June 25, 2017, 09:50:34 PM
We elect judges in these here parts
This does happen in many parts of the US. Not all judges but some. Good example why democracy must end. Regular folks have no justification for electing anyone.
Cops can kill anyone they want to kill, and just claim they were scared. They'll be seen a heroes!
I'm always very polite to them, but that may not save me if one of them gets a wild hair up his butt, so I just try to have as few interactions with them as possible.
Quote from: Unbeliever on June 26, 2017, 04:08:22 PM
Cops can kill anyone they want to kill, and just claim they were scared. They'll be seen a heroes!
I'm always very polite to them, but that may not save me if one of them gets a wild hair up his butt, so I just try to have as few interactions with them as possible.
If you are a pretty Black girl in Texas, and you look helpless, you might end up hung (suicided) in your cell, after whatever entertainment ...
Citizens, of any kind, belief, or color should not have to be afraid of the police. Something has gone terribly wrong. Police shouldn't be "afraid" of citizens maintaining their rights. If they are, they are in the wrong job.
I'm not against the police generally. We need them. But when they protect their own when their own have clearly crossed the line into murder is not right and should not be blindly supported.
The police MUST begin to distinguish among themselves the bullies vs the peacekeepers internally. Otherwise, there is going to be some outside push to change the automatic internal support habit.
Quote from: Cavebear on June 29, 2017, 04:22:12 AM
Citizens, of any kind, belief, or color should not have to be afraid of the police. Something has gone terribly wrong. Police shouldn't be "afraid" of citizens maintaining their rights. If they are, they are in the wrong job.
I'm not against the police generally. We need them. But when they protect their own when their own have clearly crossed the line into murder is not right and should not be blindly supported.
The police MUST begin to distinguish among themselves the bullies vs the peacekeepers internally. Otherwise, there is going to be some outside push to change the automatic internal support habit.
Back in the day, per Walter Cronkite ... the police were not your friend. This changed after WW II. But it seems we are slipping back into an earlier era. The police were invented in England, to protect the monarchy from the little people.
Truly sickening.
I thought cop involved in this would be convicted by jury 100% just by the initial videos that were released.
Quote from: Sylar on June 30, 2017, 06:20:01 PM
Truly sickening.
I thought cop involved in this would be convicted by jury 100% just by the initial videos that were released.
I have given up on juries. The smartest people know how to get out of them (myself included). The dumb half are left. Of those, half wouldn't convict "one of their own" even if they witnessed the event and had no doubts. Almost half could reason their way out of a wet paper bag, and all it takes is one obstinate fool to deadlock a jury. I am amazed that anyone gets convicted of anything.
It depends on whether the prosecutors really wants a conviction. They have to live and work with the rest of the cops.
The problem is ... idealism is all well and good, but it doesn't relate to reality ;-(
Quote from: Unbeliever on July 03, 2017, 09:23:59 PM
It depends on whether the prosecutors really wants a conviction. They have to live and work with the rest of the cops.
No, even when the prosecutors want a conviction, they can't get one. Jury-nullification is too common. It is possible we need professional jurors.
Quote from: Cavebear on July 06, 2017, 04:38:55 AM
No, even when the prosecutors want a conviction, they can't get one. Jury-nullification is too common. It is possible we need professional jurors.
Those are called judges. Will you volunteer to the the hanging judge of Ft Smith Arkansas?