Tony Shelton
BS Detector, Esquire
This is not a "bad cop" post. This post is to discuss freedom.
What has happened in our country when are are no longer free to mind our own business?
From the story below (if you click on the link) , it looks like at least one of the officers was truly sorry for what happened. At least in this case they had the balls to admit they were wrong.
But an innocent man is dead for it.
Shot 41 times for sitting on his front step and running inside when four big guys in plainclothes and an unmarked car ran at him with guns drawn. That's right, shot 41 times, in the entry to his apartment.
This might very well be the most honest police investigation of itself I've ever seen. No mysterious "gun" showed up next to the body, the officers admitted they were wrong. But they were still acquitted. But his family was awarded 3 million in a settlement. That's 3 million of your tax dollars, new Yorkers. Paid for the mistake of 3 men and an illegal system.
So in this case we now drill down to the crux of the problem. Now we can go deeper than the "few bad apples" that we hear about and maybe some of you guys will understand that we are in CONSTANT DANGER from a government entity that has completely gone rogue.
The assumption here is the officers are probably decent guys. They think they are doing society a service.
Yet they have been taught that they are free to operate outside the law to "get the job done".
The first thing in this case is they had no right thinking they should be able to walk up to this man and interrogate him. If he doesn't want to "stop" or "put his hands up" he is free to leave. Unless he's being detained, in which case they have violated the fourth amendment by unlawfully detaining a law abiding citizen with no evidence that a crime has been committed. That is the entire reason for the fourth amendment. A man minding their own business should be left alone. Especially on his own property, and being a renter, the stoop of his apartment IS in fact his property.
These cops have been taught to roam the streets looking for rights to violate under the guise of keeping the streets safe.
They could have just as easily observed him from a distance, LEGALLY, and eventually the man would have walked back into his apartment.....ALIVE. If they wanted to question him they could have approached him respectfully, like a human being, and he probably wouldn't have minded talking to them at all.
There's a reason we have the bill of rights. They are not just some old documents that don't mean anything in this modern society. They are the foundation of a country and a republic democracy that lasted over 200 years before it committed suicide beginning 40 or so years ago.
But cops are taught to be forceful and scare the sh#t out of people to get them to submit. They are also taught that everyone who doesn't submit is fit for arrest.
I bet you would be surprised that an unlawful detainment was determined in 1900 to be a valid reason to resist arrest, even to the point of defending yourself within reason. http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/177/529/case.html
Anyway, Here's the guy's story I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I'd like to hear some comments on it. I'm not looking for fights here. I just want to know what you guys think.
Mr. Diallo, 22, worked as a peddler on 14th Street in lower Manhattan, selling videotapes, socks, gloves and other items from a spot on the sidewalk. Slightly built and genial, he was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. He worked 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, taking the subway from the apartment went on Wheeler Avenue, which he shared with a friend and two cousins.
He had returned home around midnight on the night of the shooting and discussed a utility bill with one of his roommates. The roommate went to bed and Mr. Diallo, for reasons that are not known, went downstairs to the vestibule of the building.
At about 12:40 a.m., the four officers, all members of the Street Crime Unit, were patrolling in an unmarked car and dressed in street clothes when they turned down Wheeler Avenue. The unit had been established to patrol high-crime areas in an effort to prevent robberies, rapes, murders and assaults.
Officer Carroll was the first to notice Mr. Diallo on the stoop of the building. He testified that Mr. Diallo was acting suspiciously, peering out from the stoop, then ''slinking'' back. Mr. Diallo, Officer Carroll said, fit the general description of a serial rapist who had last struck about a year earlier. But he acknowledged on cross-examination that he could not see Mr. Diallo well enough even to determine his race.
Officer Carroll said he also suspected that Mr. Diallo might have been a lookout for a push-in robber. In any case, he told his partners he wanted to question Mr. Diallo.
On cross-examination, he acknowledged that he never considered that Mr. Diallo might have had a legitimate reason for being where he was, or that he might have lived in the building. And Officer Carroll and the other officers acknowledged that they never considered the situation from Mr. Diallo's point of view.
Mr. Diallo might have been frightened, Mr. Warner said, by the sight of a car driving slowly down his deserted street in the middle of the night, and by ''four big men getting out of a car with guns.''
While acknowledging that they had made a mistake, the officers said Mr. Diallo was largely to blame for his death. He did not respond to their commands to stop, they said, and did not keep his hands in sight. Instead he ran into the vestibule of his building and began digging in his pocket, they said, and then turned toward the officers with something in his right hand. They said they thought it was a gun and began shooting, setting off a chaotic hail of ricocheting bullets and muzzle flashes that made it seem as if they were in a firefight.
When Mr. Diallo finally slumped to the floor, his wallet fell out of his right hand. There had been no gun.
In his closing argument, Mr. Warner suggested that Mr. Diallo may simply have been reaching for his wallet to hand it over to what he thought was a gang of robbers. Or perhaps, Mr. Warner said, he was trying to show the officers his identification. The officers' snap judgment about Mr. Diallo when they first saw him from their car, and their failure to think through the situation, showed a recklessness and complete lack of concern for Mr. Diallo's life that made them culpable for his death, Mr. Warner asserted.
''Amadou Diallo was unarmed, doing nothing wrong, and he was minding his own business,'' Mr. Warner said. ''In the mindset they had, that man was doomed from the minute they saw him.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/26/n...uitted-all-charges.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
What has happened in our country when are are no longer free to mind our own business?
From the story below (if you click on the link) , it looks like at least one of the officers was truly sorry for what happened. At least in this case they had the balls to admit they were wrong.
But an innocent man is dead for it.
Shot 41 times for sitting on his front step and running inside when four big guys in plainclothes and an unmarked car ran at him with guns drawn. That's right, shot 41 times, in the entry to his apartment.
This might very well be the most honest police investigation of itself I've ever seen. No mysterious "gun" showed up next to the body, the officers admitted they were wrong. But they were still acquitted. But his family was awarded 3 million in a settlement. That's 3 million of your tax dollars, new Yorkers. Paid for the mistake of 3 men and an illegal system.
So in this case we now drill down to the crux of the problem. Now we can go deeper than the "few bad apples" that we hear about and maybe some of you guys will understand that we are in CONSTANT DANGER from a government entity that has completely gone rogue.
The assumption here is the officers are probably decent guys. They think they are doing society a service.
Yet they have been taught that they are free to operate outside the law to "get the job done".
The first thing in this case is they had no right thinking they should be able to walk up to this man and interrogate him. If he doesn't want to "stop" or "put his hands up" he is free to leave. Unless he's being detained, in which case they have violated the fourth amendment by unlawfully detaining a law abiding citizen with no evidence that a crime has been committed. That is the entire reason for the fourth amendment. A man minding their own business should be left alone. Especially on his own property, and being a renter, the stoop of his apartment IS in fact his property.
These cops have been taught to roam the streets looking for rights to violate under the guise of keeping the streets safe.
They could have just as easily observed him from a distance, LEGALLY, and eventually the man would have walked back into his apartment.....ALIVE. If they wanted to question him they could have approached him respectfully, like a human being, and he probably wouldn't have minded talking to them at all.
There's a reason we have the bill of rights. They are not just some old documents that don't mean anything in this modern society. They are the foundation of a country and a republic democracy that lasted over 200 years before it committed suicide beginning 40 or so years ago.
But cops are taught to be forceful and scare the sh#t out of people to get them to submit. They are also taught that everyone who doesn't submit is fit for arrest.
I bet you would be surprised that an unlawful detainment was determined in 1900 to be a valid reason to resist arrest, even to the point of defending yourself within reason. http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/177/529/case.html
Anyway, Here's the guy's story I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I'd like to hear some comments on it. I'm not looking for fights here. I just want to know what you guys think.
Mr. Diallo, 22, worked as a peddler on 14th Street in lower Manhattan, selling videotapes, socks, gloves and other items from a spot on the sidewalk. Slightly built and genial, he was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. He worked 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, taking the subway from the apartment went on Wheeler Avenue, which he shared with a friend and two cousins.
He had returned home around midnight on the night of the shooting and discussed a utility bill with one of his roommates. The roommate went to bed and Mr. Diallo, for reasons that are not known, went downstairs to the vestibule of the building.
At about 12:40 a.m., the four officers, all members of the Street Crime Unit, were patrolling in an unmarked car and dressed in street clothes when they turned down Wheeler Avenue. The unit had been established to patrol high-crime areas in an effort to prevent robberies, rapes, murders and assaults.
Officer Carroll was the first to notice Mr. Diallo on the stoop of the building. He testified that Mr. Diallo was acting suspiciously, peering out from the stoop, then ''slinking'' back. Mr. Diallo, Officer Carroll said, fit the general description of a serial rapist who had last struck about a year earlier. But he acknowledged on cross-examination that he could not see Mr. Diallo well enough even to determine his race.
Officer Carroll said he also suspected that Mr. Diallo might have been a lookout for a push-in robber. In any case, he told his partners he wanted to question Mr. Diallo.
On cross-examination, he acknowledged that he never considered that Mr. Diallo might have had a legitimate reason for being where he was, or that he might have lived in the building. And Officer Carroll and the other officers acknowledged that they never considered the situation from Mr. Diallo's point of view.
Mr. Diallo might have been frightened, Mr. Warner said, by the sight of a car driving slowly down his deserted street in the middle of the night, and by ''four big men getting out of a car with guns.''
While acknowledging that they had made a mistake, the officers said Mr. Diallo was largely to blame for his death. He did not respond to their commands to stop, they said, and did not keep his hands in sight. Instead he ran into the vestibule of his building and began digging in his pocket, they said, and then turned toward the officers with something in his right hand. They said they thought it was a gun and began shooting, setting off a chaotic hail of ricocheting bullets and muzzle flashes that made it seem as if they were in a firefight.
When Mr. Diallo finally slumped to the floor, his wallet fell out of his right hand. There had been no gun.
In his closing argument, Mr. Warner suggested that Mr. Diallo may simply have been reaching for his wallet to hand it over to what he thought was a gang of robbers. Or perhaps, Mr. Warner said, he was trying to show the officers his identification. The officers' snap judgment about Mr. Diallo when they first saw him from their car, and their failure to think through the situation, showed a recklessness and complete lack of concern for Mr. Diallo's life that made them culpable for his death, Mr. Warner asserted.
''Amadou Diallo was unarmed, doing nothing wrong, and he was minding his own business,'' Mr. Warner said. ''In the mindset they had, that man was doomed from the minute they saw him.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/26/n...uitted-all-charges.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
