Below is my column in The Hill on the Wright shooting and the continuing prejudicial statements made by political figures. The shooting appears to be an accidental case of “weapon confusion,” which we have previously discussed on this blog. Yet, politicians are declaring the shooting to be an intentional racist act as rioting continues to rage in various cities.
Here is the column:
Minnesota is once more reeling from an all too familiar pattern of a police shooting leading to protests and riots. The shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on Sunday was a horror shown in a continual slow motion loop on every news channel. Much remains unknown about this seemingly senseless killing. Finding those answers takes faith and fealty to the legal system that is based on fairness and due process. However, many political leaders have again decided that due process is a liability.
When Brooklyn Center City Manager Curt Boganey said a full investigation would be conducted and due process afforded to any accused officers, he was fired. Soon after the shooting, and before any underlying facts were established, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz denounced “another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement” and made a connection to the trial of police officer Derek Chauvin, occurring a few miles away.
Due process is not a dirty word or a dog whistle. Boganey was trying to do what Walz was unwilling to do and respect the rule of law. When reporters asked Boganey if he would fire the officers involved with the shooting, he stated, “If I were to answer that question, I would be contradicting what I said a moment ago, which is to say that all employees are entitled to due process and, after due process, discipline will be determined. If I were to say anything else, I would be contradicting the very idea of due process.” Officials showed this contradiction he feared by firing him.
It is possible that the shooting was accidental. In the video, the officer is heard yelling “taser, taser, taser” before she swears and says “Holy S**t I just shot him.” We have seen many cases of officers confusing tasers with service weapons in struggles. There have been design and training changes to address these tragedies. The shape and color of tasers were changed to reduce the “weapon confusion” incidents. Although some departments have experimented with different tasers, most still believe tasers shaped like guns offer the best tactical use. They have tried training, utility belt placement, and other means to avoid weapon confusion.
But in dangerous adrenaline driven encounters, split second mistakes still occur. One of the most infamous cases of weapon confusion occurred in 2009. Oscar Grant was on the ground in a prone position when Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle told colleagues he was going to taser him. Mehserle then shot Grant in the back with his service weapon, and he was later found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Weapon confusion research often discusses the work of the psychologist Alphonse Chapanis, who was called by the military to look at the problem of pilots retracting their landing gear after landing their bombers. Despite pilots being courtmartialed for the mistake, he found that the levers for the landing gear and flaps were not only identical but located near each other. The shooting of Grant marks the same problem. The video showed Mehserle moving his thumb over his weapon. His service weapon did not have a thumb safety but his taser did. This was evidence that Mehserle thought he pulled the taser before firing the fatal round.
These weapon confusion cases are all tragic and involve all races and genders. In many cases, the use of the tasers would have been deemed reasonable. The same may be true in the incident with Wright, who was shown resisting arrest and attempting to flee. Most jurisdictions would consider use of a taser to be warranted, although doing that would be dangerous in a situation with someone who is driving a vehicle or who might be deemed excessive during a minor traffic stop.
That brings us back to due process. We do not know yet if use of a taser could be viewed as reasonable or if weapon confusion was involved with Brooklyn Center. Police chief Tim Gannon denied news reports that Wright was stopped for having too many air fresheners hanging from his rearview mirror. Gannon insisted the stop was based on expired license plates, but concerns remain about the possibility of racial profiling.
The impact could also be felt in Minneapolis. Some of us voiced concerns over the trial court decision to try Chauvin in the same city where George Floyd was killed and riots raged. So today new riots are happening after another death of an African American under dubious circumstances, and the trial judge has refused to move and protect the jury from prejudicial news coverage of the Brooklyn Center shooting incident.
Political leaders in Minneapolis have acted in ways which could prejudice the Chauvin trial. They have referred to the death of Floyd as murder and awarded his family a national record settlement of $27 million. Rather than waiting to do so until after a verdict, the city almost derailed the trial with potential prejudicial news of the settlement. Further, the comments that Walz made about Chauvin were considered so prejudicial that nine police groups asked him to stop talking about the trial.
Now with the shooting of Wright, politicians again are discarding restraint. Representative Rashida Tlaib declared that this “was not an accident” and decried “policing in our country” as “intentionally racist” and “government funded murder.” Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said, “It comes at a hard time because we are still mourning George Floyd, and we are still waiting for justice for George Floyd.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey denounced the “cruelty” of an “officer involved shooting while we are simultaneously adjudicating at a trial yet another officer involved killing.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared on Twitter that this “was not a random, disconnected ‘accident’ – it was the repeated outcome of an indefensible system that grants impunity for state violence.”
Boganey shows that defending due process is now a precarious choice in these times, one few politicians are willing to make. The contradictions he sought to avoid are the rallying cries of those in power. Unfortunately, just as due process once defined us before, the disregard of due process now may define us in these tragedies. We can grieve such losses and demand answers without presuming facts or prejudicing cases.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
Any politician or activist who publicly claims that this was an intentional, racist shooting, without any evidence, is guilty of inciting a riot.
Politicians appear to be willing to tell a lie that psychologically harms their black constituents, for political advantage. That’s poor character. This rhetoric is causing black people anguish…and it’s all a lie. DOJ statistics disprove the accusation that cops are hunting black people. And this tragic case has not produced any evidence, to date, of either intentional or racist motivation.
Black people are being played. Their hurt and anger is being fanned and used. They are being pointed like a weapon. Looting, burning, destroying businesses barely hanging on during a pandemic. Agitating to defund police, and then suffering skyrocketing crimes. Employers closing up and jobs drying up. It’s politician-caused misery. Lord help these politicians if the black community wises up to their actions, looks around at their bombed out smoking rubble neighborhoods, and realizes they’ve been had.
That actual facts are bad enough – an accidental shooting due to grabbing lethal rather than non lethal.
“to call Wright “African-American” is a bit of a stretch”
No, it isn’t. Presumably he self-identified as African American.
“Wright was actually mixed-race …”
Many if not most African Americans are mixed race. Are you aware of the history of assigning race?
“The irony is that a white woman was charged for killing a black man in Minneapolis and a black man was let off for killing a white woman in DC”
It’s not ironic at all. The two situations are very different. Some shootings are justified and some aren’t.
You got it all wrong.
They called him Af-Freakin’ American.
Every person in the world is a freakin’ American-in-waiting (not an actual American but foreign hyphenates)…waiting for their fair share of communist “free stuff” – free generational welfare, free forced busing, free affirmative action, free “fair housing,” free “non-discrimination,” free “hate crime” laws, free quotas, free “education” (as if), free WIC, TANF, SNAP, HAMP, HARP, HUD, HHS, Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare, free “union wages,” free rent control, free minimum wage, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
A-Freakin’ Amedica ben beddy beddy gooood to me, mon!
America is going to have to square this circle: Republican House politician in Kansas, all lit up, drives the wrong way, doesn’t pull over initially and then when he does talks about how he’d like to fight the cop who pulled him over…, and he lives to be shamed in the media, knowing he’s not in imminent danger despite having just been an imminent threat on the road. Black guy panics when pulled over for expired tags, hops back in his car, gets shot by white cop who panicked, drives away, crashes and then dies at the scene…
What we have here is a flawed model of policing being proved repeatedly on the streets of the U.S.
EB
That guy could just as easily have been white.
This wasn’t racial.
The female cop just made a huge mistake.
A tragedy for all involved.
But again: Don’t resist arrest.
You’d think after George Floyd and all the other fatal incidents, citizens would understand that.
I get what you’re saying. I think it might not factor in that there is plenty of reason to be of color and be terrified of what might happen upon getting pulled over and then making a questionable choice and/or panicking. It’s the responsibility of the cop, and police training in particular, to factor in this reality. It is not an equal playing field. Let’s put that chucklehead from Kansas in black skin and then see what happens.
EB
No doubt Wright had reason to be concerned and it had nothing to do with his color. The 3 officers managed to stop his vehicle and get him out of his car without pulling a weapon and shooting him. It wasn’t until it sunk in that he was being detained that his concerns became a reality. He had violated his bail agreement for having an illegal weapon. And he already knew why he was out on bail in the first place. There’s no way he was concerned some racist cop was going to shoot him. I would say two cops failed that day; 1. the cop that decided to cuff Wright next to his open door, rather than at the rear of the car. 2. the cop that mistook her firearm for her taser.
No matter what he was concerned about, his skin color, his outstanding warrants, whatever…, people try to get away form time to time when confronted by the police. Police aren’t unfamiliar with this, nor do the vast majority think trying to run should translate into an instantaneous death sentence. Plenty of methods in their training to defuse the situation, but clearly those have lost favor with a lot of cops in comparison to ones that drop the hammer. As the saying goes: when you think you’re a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. It’s my opinion that while this mentality has always existed in certain large factions within police departments, things really amped up in this respect post 9/11. Funny what institutionalized torture practice can do to training protocol. But it is the job of police training to steer clear of this, not try to justify it. Sure you could say it happens across the board — but it happens more to people of color, simple statistical reality bears this out.
It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to having to work around certain constraints…, in my coaching days when having to break up fights involving guys much bigger than I am I’d full on come in from behind and launch into a rear naked choke to restrain the bigger more aggresive kid. Or I’d shoulder hook them and kick out their knees from behind to gain leverage. Both of those tactics have totally been outlawed in schools these days. I’d maintain both tactics can be done peacefully if intentions are good and that it’s not the tactics themselves but much more the intent involved. And therein lies the problem with much policing these days…, they too often go zero to sixty immediately. Certainly happened in this case, even if there was a mistaken gun/taser situation.
Look, many people who ordinarily are good drivers have driven drunk and killed someone. They are held responsible for it (unless they have enough money to buy their way out of it). Suffice it to say, the problems existing on the edges in our culture are problematic. And ignoring them isn’t the answer.
EB
Good post. However this situation did not go from zero to sixty immediately. And the officers weren’t the one’s responsible for it getting to sixty. Wright’s problems began in December of 2019. He alone is responsible for the warrant for his arrest. He is responsible for expired tags on his car. He is responsible for resisting arrest and getting back into his vehicle. I saw a video of a women recently that was stopped outside a convenience store. The officer was calm, the woman jumped back into her vehicle, grabbed a gun and shot him, then sped off. Black woman, white officer. Didn’t make the regular news. These officers would have known Wright’s history with a gun. When he jumps back into the vehicle, that’s when it gets to sixty immediately. Hell, he may have been thinking he could get to sixty, literally, before they could figuratively. Regardless, it was Wright that made the fateful decision to test how well these officers have been trained to operate under extreme stress. Reminds me of that old driver’s education saying, Don’t be dead right.
Ollie is spot on about this. This was a tragic accident made more likely by Daunte’s long train of very immature (or disturbed) decisions. I feel a lot of sympathy for the lady police officer. After 25 years, she didn’t get up that day to kill somebody.
Yet, like someone driving drunk, she did. And it was her own actions that did it. Hell, she was training other officers during that stop. Trying to handcuff someone next to an open car door. Not at all what they’re trained to do. And I’ve come to learn that this blog is about the single last place on the planet to be able to be openminded…, but hey there’s a cop being tried for murder for killing a guy who’d been handcuffed for quite awhile just down the street. If you are of color, practicality absolutely has to tell you that when you get handcuffed in traffic stops your odds for surviving that encounter go way down even if you do everything that team of cops says. This. Is. Reality. And it is such despite whatever white point of view you have about how to behave in this situation. Do you actually not think that police aren’t trained to do this in the safest possible way and routinely choose to send more of a message in their on the street tactics. I’m a white guy and was beaten with a phone book by a Denver cop when I was in high school…, so it’s not out of the realm of my imagination. But whatever happened to me would be X 10 for any of my black friends. And guess what…, the phone book thing isn’t ‘taught at the academy’ at least not publicly.
I actually find this morbidly humorous to be speaking of this when the extremes are so evident, right in our faces in fact. A bunch of white people kicked the windows out at the Capitol and most will never be arrested. And yet, here’s a guy of color in Minneapolis suburbia who would be extremely remiss not to be scared of what would happen if he submitted to a bunch of agro cops cuffing him on the street when 10 miles away a cop is step by step being revealed as a murderer for a situation quite similar to the one he found himself in. It does not matter what his arrest record was previous to that. It does not matter what his outstanding warrants were. He was clearly terrified. How do you know? Well watch the tape. Try to reason how scared that guy was by trying to run when he was so nailed. It doesn’t make sense if your reality isn’t his.. Do you actually not think these cops have learned a much less confrontational way to handle this situation, and do you not think it’s their responsibility to know what might be affecting the people they’re handcuffing and that someone who runs shouldn’t be killed for it on the street? But maybe you think it’s justified. At which point any further discussion isn’t warranted. People were legally lynched in Kentucky in the ’50’s, not that long ago relatively speaking. Clearly white people have been okay with random killings of blacks as a way of life for most of this nation’s history.
It actually takes work to not see these circumstances, but this blog, and it’s topics of discussion routinely train that sort of egocentrism and cultural blindness. Not sure I can stomach much more of it, honestly.
EB
543 words, Bug. Your keyboard must be melting down. I guess I’m flattered you would waste so many heartbeats on my opinion.
Have a good night, Bug. You’ve earned it 🙂
“but it happens more to people of color, simple statistical reality bears this out.”
Whoa, Bug. More in what sense? More frequently? Disproportionately more frequently? In the commission of a violent crime? Accidental shootings? I’ll bet like for like, it’s not that different for people of color.
Start with the fact if you’re black you’re 20 times more likely to be pulled over by cops. Black to white population isn’t balanced so this exponentially increases the odds. Now you go do your research. No doubt you’ll be horrified to find how much more likely it is you’ll be killed by cops. Or go to jail. But hey, I don’t want to take your fun of becoming educated to these realities from you. Hint: you’ll never find out what you have to on Fox news.
EB
Bug, if a policeman is in two different areas, one where there is no crime and one where there is a lot of crime daily, don’t you think that the police officer will pull more people over in the area of crime? Alternatively do you think that makes the police biased towards the high crime area and therefore should arrest honest people doing nothing wrong in the low crime area to make up for a difference in the numbers?
SM
Allan, Bug is quite exasperated tonight for some reason. Anonymous the Stupid does such a poor job, Bug is exhausted cleaning up after him.
Diogenes, Anonymous the Stupid is a complete failure at everything he does. At least Bug can create a bit of interest even if it is fictional.
+10
EB:
“What we have here is a flawed model of policing being proved repeatedly on the streets of the U.S.”
******************************
Yeah cops are monolithic so what happens to one driver happens to every driver based on race no matter which department, state or area of the country. And while we’re at it let’s ignore every uneventful, unreported on racially mixed stop performed thousands of times every day in the country.
Do you read what you write or is it all stream of consciousness?
“Do you read what you write or is it all stream of consciousness?”
Funny. My thoughts exactly when I read every one of your racist and misogynistic posts. Just curious…, can you read anything without running it through the filter of your limitations? I mean, can any of us really? But yours are so out there for all to see…
For the sake of clarity let’s see what I didn’t say:
-that cops are monolithic
-that all pullovers are the same (20% more likely for someone of color to be pulled over when their proportional representation of the population is moving toward 20% of the total population, not there yet though and, either way, a huge skew in pullover rate)
-take your pick of what to digest in terms of different tactics police use when pulling over people of color versus whites (which is what my original post was about, but no, you have to go and prove that you’d be right at home hanging out with that chucklehead in Kansas).
-No, I haven’t ignored every uneventful pullover, I just highlighted what happens at the edges. But those edges expose rather sizable weakness in tactics don’t they, even if just the ambulance chasing realm is addressed, which in theory you should be familiar with since it is your domain, no? How do actually win a case? Do you screen out the clear racism cases that arrive on your doorstep? I’m going to guess there’s a vibe there that kind of channels those cases away from you, but I could be wrong. Not being such a misogynistic racist could probably help your business, but with you it’s like ‘where to start???’
A plus for reading my post entirely through your mental limitations though. Rock on, big Mess. You’ve got that one covered.
EB
Thanks for pulling the racist/mysoginist card, proving definitively you have nothing rational or interesting to say. But hey an “A” for invective and revelatory, though unwitting, self-deprecation. You’re nothing if not consistent. Oh and cops pulling more of any group proves either discrimination or that the subject group commits more offenses. You can read the New Jersey state police sponsored study (that was quickly shoved under a rug) if you want your narrative rejected and your mind blown. My guess is contrary evidence glows of your quack back but others might benefit. https://www.city-journal.org/html/racial-profiling-myth-debunked-12244.html
“Flows off”
And thanks for injecting racial profiling into the mix when I haven’t. A worthy discussion on its own, no doubt. But what we’re discussing has to do with what happens once someone is pulled over rather than why they’re pulled over.
Talk about being predictable, given your predilection for not addressing subject matter and instead shifting to charged questions that you *think* you’d like to answer, I’ve got couple of questions, Big Messy…, first, of course, is do you actually know you’re actively mimicking the distraction techniques employed by Fox news? For them, it’s pure disingenuous strategy. They actively plan their attacks around the strategy, knowing full well it’s a strategy to be used on a gullible populace. Allan, for instance, has no idea he’s just playing follow the leader, he does it just because it gives him an identity he doesn’t independently have. With you, I’m quite perplexed whether you’re acting out of sheer mesmerism and captualation to the rhetorical sources you admire or whether you’re being disingenuous and sitting back, rubbing your hands together and thinking that no one can spot your obviously dishonest motivations?
I guess my other questioning line is more simple…, other lawyers must regularly eat your lunch, don’t they?
EB
“And thanks for injecting racial profiling into the mix when I haven’t. A worthy discussion on its own, no doubt. But what we’re discussing has to do with what happens once someone is pulled over rather than why they’re pulled over.”
(…)
” other lawyers must regularly eat your lunch, don’t they?”
***********************
Yeah like you didn’t say this: “that all pullovers are the same (20% more likely for someone of color to be pulled over when their proportional representation of the population is moving toward 20% of the total population, not there yet though and, either way, a huge skew in pullover rate).”
Must be that stream of unconscious as S.Meyer said.
Oh and as for the “other lawyers,” they voted me to the Trial Lawyers Board of Governors, Richmond Bar Judiciary Committee (recommending judges to the General Assembly), the Lewis Powell Inns of Court and of course, a “av” rating at Martindale Hubbell, Best Lawyers in America recognition for insurance litigation, MIllion Dollar Advocates Club and the many awards and client referrals.
So yeah, it’s been a real feast for them.
“Allan, for instance, has no idea he’s just playing follow the leader, he does it just because it gives him an identity he doesn’t independently have. “
Bug, it is quite hard to follow Fox as a leader especially when one doesn’t follow Fox News. Moreover, the different shows have different takes and ideas. You seem to know more about Fox than I do. However, you follow the left no matter what channel you turn to and we all know you and they have been proven wrong over and over again.
However, none of that matters for we have had debates and you could not hold your own. In fact when faced with reality you ran away and even refused to reappear when you were reminded of the discussion.
You draw your conclusions and then make up the facts to support the erroneous conclusion. One doesn’t have to follow anyone to show how wrong you are. All one has to do is provide the facts or the statistics. You are ignorant of both.
Regarding the question put to the Bug: “Do you read what you write or is it all stream of consciousness?”
It is more likely a stream of unconsciousness.
Oh Allan you so smart.
EB
Thank you Bug. I’ll accept that as a compliment since it is nice to be in agreement once in awhile.
SM
Yep, better word.
First, to call Wright “African-American” is a bit of a stretch and to consider racism is as well. Wright was actually mixed-race and light-skinned. As for politicians,that’s just it – they’re politicians and they don’t give a flying flip what they say. They’re just looking to score political points. The irony is that a white woman was charged for killing a black man in Minneapolis and a black man was let off for killing a white woman in DC – and the media pushed one and ignored the other.
George Floyd’s family received a record-breaking $27 million settlement from Minneapolis. Will Wright’s family only get $13.5 million because he was 1/2 white? The white woman who was shot point blank and killed by the black cop in D.C. was an Army veteran with two kids. They get nothing. And the cop wasn’t even charged.
And the name of the cop who murdered Ashli Babbit has never been made public.
“The white woman who was shot point blank and killed by the black cop in D.C. was an Army veteran with two kids.”
She was in the midst of committing a felony. She was breaking into the Speaker’s Lobby while members of Congress and staff were still on the floor of the House. That cop’s job was to protect them. He shot her in the shoulder. Potter shot Wright in the chest.
Babbitt was shot in the neck.
Not according to the DOJ: “An officer inside the Speaker’s Lobby fired one round from his service pistol, striking Ms. Babbitt in the left shoulder …”
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/department-justice-closes-investigation-death-ashli-babbitt
Don’t like the DOJ? Try the DC Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Francisco Diaz o: “Cause of death — gunshot wound to the left anterior shoulder.”
I trust that they know the details better than you do.
Because an armed male cop really needs to shoot a 35 year-old woman to defend himself, right? If he’s that much of a coward and/or weakling, he has no business being a cop. And why hasn’t his name been disclosed? Doesn’t the public have a right to know who this weasel is?
He was defending the House members and staff who were still on the House floor, which is his job.
If Trump had been on the House floor and the Secret Service had shot someone trying to climb through the broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby, would you condemn them too?
Do we remember last summer and a mob tried to rush the Whitehouse? A few of the rioters started to scale the Whitehouse fence and the only reason the stopped is because the secret service personnel started to draw their weapons. I sense the capital building didn’t have the same level of security as the Whitehouse. It should.
“She was in the midst of committing a felony.”
In essence this Anonymous is saying that if one without a weapon is committing a felony a police officer has the right to shoot them dead.
This was posted as a reply to you –
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/04/14/politicians-again-choose-politics-over-process-in-the-wright-shooting/#comment-2081173
“Due process is not a dirty word or a dog whistle. “
The left doesn’t believe in due process. In fact should someone consider utilizing due process the left riots. When they riot that tells left wing officials to do as the mob tells them and not do what is right. That type of foolishness reaches the blog and the blog is filled up with silliness telling everyone that due process and rule of law is some type of white nationalist propaganda despite the fact that most intelligent people of all races cherish due process and rule of law.
“Politicians Again Choose Politics Over Process In The Wright Shooting”
– Professor Turley
______________
Of course, politicians choose politics.
The legislative and executive branches were expected to exceed the law and to then be corrected by the Constitution through its personification, the judicial branch and Supreme Court.
Politicians are known and understood to engage in politics and they licitly constitute two branches of the U.S. government. Politicians are supposed and intended, however, to be rigidly constrained by the Constitution and Bill of Rights through the function of the third branch of government, the judicial branch. The judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court, is supposed, intended and sworn to support and assure strict adherence to the “manifest tenor” of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the judicial branch has no power to act politically or to legislate, to “interpret” legislation, to modify legislation or to modify the Constitution or Bill of Rights. The judicial branch may merely uphold or strike down strictly per the “manifest tenor” of the law and the Constitution. The singular American failure has been and continues to be the Supreme Court and the remainder of the judicial branch.
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax ONLY for “…general Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for “individual” or “specific” welfare, redistribution of wealth or charity. The same article provides Congress the power to regulate ONLY money, the “flow” of commerce among states and land and naval Forces. Additionally, the 5th Amendment right to private property is not qualified by the Constitution and is, therefore, absolute, allowing Congress no power to claim or exercise dominion over private property, the sole exception being the full and, again, unqualified “taking” of property under the principle of eminent domain.
Government exists to provide maximal freedom to individuals while it is severely limited and restricted to merely facilitating the said maximal freedom of individuals through the provision of security and infrastructure.
The entire communistic American welfare state is unconstitutional, including but not limited to, affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, rent control, social services, forced busing, minimum wage, utility subsidies, WIC, TANF, SNAP, HAMP, HARP, TARP, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto 59 years after the adoption of the Constitution because none of the principles of the Communist Manifesto were in the Constitution. Had the principles of the Communist Manifesto been in the Constitution, Karl Marx would have had no reason to write the Communist Manifesto. The principles of the Communist Manifesto were not in the Constitution then and the principles of the Communist Manifesto are not in the Constitution now.
It wasn’t racist. The dude trying to evade arrest could just as easily have been some white-trash, methed-out mullethead making a desperate dash.
The female cop got rattled and screwed the pooch.
She’s gonna get sued and maybe go to jail.
That police department is gonna get sued for millions.
But the question is: IF the kid hadn’t tried to bolt, would he still be alive?
The blame is 50/50.
The lady cop blew it, simple as that.
In an earlier life I was an assistant state’s attorney and public defender. Got to know a lot of frequent flyers (i.e. defendants, but I am being redundant), patrol officers, detectives, judges, etc., so I have an opinion based on experience and observation. If you are the type to have frequent run ins with law enforcement and are a bit unruly while doing so, you probably want to get arrested by a physically tough, male officer. It was more common for females to panic and get sloppy (or scared) because they were simply unable to physically restrain an arrestee who didn’t want to co-operate. That’s not PC but happened to be true. I am skeptical of much of what the MSM says (particularly if it deals with issues having a racial angle) but my guess is that something similar happened in this situation. Another unfortunate, unintended consequence of egalitarianism.
antonio
In the video there’s a large black male cop in the background. Why didn’t he step-in to help restrain Wright? Didn’t any of the other cops notice she was pointing her gun and not her taser? It seems sloppy and lack of teamwork all the way around. At least with George Floyd, it was Chauvin who took the lead in holding him down. He didn’t stand back and make let little Hmong cop deal with it by himself. He would have had to use a firearm, because there’s no way that small cop could have controlled someone the size and muscle mass of Floyd. An obvious training issue is that all cops on the scene need to step-up and help one another.
What if the law permits officers to use potentially deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect? Could the officer’s utterance be construed as errant and her use of force adjudicated as intentional?
What if the driver had driven away and the police officer was caught by her uniform and dragged to her death? At what point is she allowed to shoot or tase the driver? Does he have to get the car in gear first. Does the car have to be moving. Does she have to count 3,Mississippi first? Say pretty please, stop resisting?
David Brailsford, the irrelevant “what if’s “ are just that, irrelevant. An experienced cop screwed up and will now face the consequences.
This goes to show mindless adherence to training can backfire. She did everything correctly, except pulled a gun instead of a taser. She wasn’t thinking at all she was being purely reflexive. The proof is her sudden realization that she shot him instead of tasing him. That wasn’t “split second thinking”. It was mindless reaction according to training.
He didn’t flee until after he shot her. Prior to that, he only resisted arrest, but didn’t attempt to flee. So it’s not a case of “us[ing] potentially deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect.”
Of course he was attempting to flee.
He resisted arrest and got behind the wheel of his car and did he have it started before she shot him?
Don’t resist arrest. Simple as that.
The blame in this as 50/50.
They both made fatal mistakes.
“Of course he was attempting to flee.”
AFTER she shot him.
Learn the difference between resisting arrest (which he did prior to being shot) and evading arrest (fleeing, which he did after she shot him).
“Don’t resist arrest. Simple as that.”
I agree.
But if someone is going to talk about “us[ing] potentially deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect,” describe it accurately, as he wasn’t fleeing prior to being shot. Simple as that.
Baloney, he was fleeing the moment he shook off the cop and the handcuffs and got behind the wheel of his car.
He was fleeing.
Just like this dude, for Pete’s sake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoxRmwaLBOQ
Female doing a male’s job here. Talked to old FBI friend of mine who remarked that in 50% of the wrongful discharge civil rights cases they investigated, a female officer is involved though they make up only about 13% of the universe of cops. Sorry but psychologically they tend to panic more in life-threatening situations than men do because of the physical mismatch. Were men so mismatched with potential perps I’m sure the result would be similar, but it’s not. Fear causes obvious mistakes and that’s why the training/experience of this officer doesn’t matter. She liable criminally and civilly, I believe based on what we heard from the admittedly biased news.
Unfortunately, this is accurate. A real life story: my brother in law is a sergeant in the LAPD. That organization has lowered its entrance requirements significantly. In a routine stop where a perpetrator turned out to have a list of indiscretions as long as your or my arm on the record, a five foot two and ninety pound female officer that pulled him over, he being over six feet and over 200 pounds, was simply cold cocked, knocking her unconscious with a single blow, and the perp ran off never to be seen again. Just like that. Nature doesn’t care about our feelings, and that will remain the case all the way to the day the sun goes supernova.
James, you being up a good point. Why are police departments hiding these people who clearly are not physically qualified for the job. What about cops who are clearly too fat to run more than a few dozen feet? Their physical limitations seem to be a strong incentive to use deadly force more often in order to compensate for physical limitations such as weight, height, or strength.
*bring. *hiring.
At one time there were height requirements to he hired as a cop in most jurisdictions. One had to be 6’. I believe that was the case with the FBI as well. But as a result of lawsuits from minority groups representing males who tend to be shorter (Asians and Hispanics), the height requirements were eliminated as not necessary to perform the job. Yet studies have shown that smaller males (and women) tend to resort to pulling their weapons far more frequently in order to even their odds against a larger perp. But we’re not going back to the days of the stereotypical big Irish cop who could use his size and affability to deescalate most physical confrontations. So no, it’s not just women. Cops want to survive a confrontation with a perp who is resisting or fighting them, and fear leads to panic and panic results in confusion in split-second decisions. There is a reason that rational people don’t fight or resist a cop, especially a small or nervous one.
@mespo727272
Ditto! Ran into this sort of thing when I was an assistant state’s attorney and public defender. A 140 lb female officer is much more likely to panic when subduing a large, unruly male suspect.
Maybe we’ll create heaven on earth when there are no more police around. What could possibly go wrong?
antonio
“in 50% of the wrongful discharge civil rights cases they investigated, a female officer is involved”
If these are wrongful discharge cases, that could mean that women are wrongfully discharged more often than men due to sexism on the force.
That female cop had two big, burly male cops by her side.
Was there need for panic?
How did he get loose in the first place after they had their hands on him?
Sloppy police work all around?
Couldn’t they just have let him go and then nabbed him at his house?
The female cop resigned and so did the chief of police, I think.
But don’t get me wrong: That guy shouldn’t have bolted.
The blame is 50/50 here.
Who was breaking the law and who was trying to enforce the law?
I can’t imagine that lady cop is sleeping too well right now.
Twenty six years experience and then make a mistake like that?
You must have meant to post your reply to someone else, Ben, as it has nothing to do with my response to what mespo727272 wrote.
Anony, it was discharge of a firearm to clarify.
According to the AP, “No one tracks these [accidental] shootings nationwide,” so where did your FBI friend get his statistics?
https://apnews.com/article/009ac6cf0a174a58d88d9d01308aedd6
He was one of the agents that investigated some of the incidents and, btw, the Bureau keeps its own nonpublic stats.
Mespo, the tool of a police officer is a gun. For the surgeon it is a scalpel, and for a nurse it is a medication. Errors occur and for all three death can be the result. How are they different and if purely an error, without any other problem attached, why is the Police officer subject to a manslaughter trial while the surgeon and nurse are not?
Well the surgeon is subject to battery for an unauthorized touching during a procedure. The cop made a conscious decision to shoot something and when the stakes are this high, I suspect manslaughter will be proven as unavoidable accident usually won’t wash given the immense training cops and surgeons both get about the risks of their actions.
The cop who shot weight is being charged with manslaughter. This is the correct outcome of such an event. Turley has mentioned that previous instances of “confusion” have ended up with similar charges. It may be a mistake or an accident. It still has serious consequences.
I think it is fine for her to be charged due to this grave mistake. However, she deserves a fair trial.
Chauvin does too. He’s not getting one. They both are entitled to changes of venue.
In “wokespeak” the only reason these individuals were killed was “white supremacy”. And all right thinking people know that “white supremacists” do not deserve due process along with other things such as freedom of speech, association, etc….
antonio
In “antoniospeak,” you like to put beliefs in the minds of people you disagree with.
@anonymous
Only in your imagination. Leftists are the ones pushing speech controls in today’s USA and Western world. And they commonly call anyone slightly to the right of Mitt Ronmey a “White Supremacist”. They even blame “White Supremacy” for criminal attacks where no white person is even around.
antonio
I’m a leftist, antonio, and contrary to your claim, I absolutely think that white supremacists DO “deserve due process along with other things such as freedom of speech, association, etc.” They have constitutional rights just like everyone else in the US. But you’d rather lie about me and others on the left just because you disagree with our politics.
Do you consider yourself patriotic? Then do what’s good for the country and choose to be truthful even when you disagree with someone.
Anonymous, who is saying she shouldn’t get a fair trial?
How is chauvin not getting a fair trial? I’ve been following the Chauvin trial and have seen nothing that constitutes an unfair trial.
Officers are taught to put their service weapon on their dominant side–i.e., if you are right-handed, it goes on the right side–and the taser on the non-dominant side. A taser and handgun do not have the same feel, either. Someone with 24 + years of experience also doesn’t panic when a suspect tries to flee, either. Common sense tells you not to get out a gun unless you are intending to use it. Here, the black suspect was not holding a weapon. The warrant was for a misdemeanor. There is no excuse for this killing. That cop needs to be brought to justice.
The racism aspect comes into play due to the fact that when black suspects are stopped, the handguns always come out. That is racial profiling. This wouldn’t have happened to a white, suburban bottle blondie.
” fact that when black suspects are stopped, the handguns always come out.” That is not a fact. Using always in a situation that has no set parameters such as 2+2=4 is a weak argument.
White suburban bottle blonds don’t fight the cops and try to flee. They have the brains to know that fighting a cop doesn’t end well.
Bottle blondies not only don’t have any brains or sense, they proudly display their stupidity and conformity with the male fascination with young children and strippers on their heads. Think Ivanka, Lara, Tiffany and Stormy.
This is a foolish overgeneralization on your part. Some bottle blondes are stupid, and some are smart.
They’re smart enough to marry well and live in the suburbs…..hahaha.
You are a bigot.
Nat:
Leave Stormy alone! She’s an artist!
Turley isn’t completely off base here, but he still makes an excuse.
“ Most jurisdictions would consider use of a taser to be warranted, although doing that would be dangerous in a situation with someone who is driving a vehicle or who might be deemed excessive during a minor traffic stop.”
Whright wasn’t driving. He was attempting to get back into his car. In such situations it is reasonable to use a taser. Obviously a gun was used instead.
“ We do not know yet if use of a taser could be viewed as reasonable or if weapon confusion was involved with Brooklyn Center. Police chief Tim Gannon denied news reports that Wright was stopped for having too many air fresheners hanging from his rearview mirror.”
The reason for the stop is correct, however as most police officers are trained to do, look for any other violations, the air freshener was an additional charge. It wasn’t until Wrigh’s misdemeanor warrant came up that he attempted to get back in his car. The officer clearly intended to use the taser but mistakenly used a gun.
Turley mentions other instances of mistaken use of weapons. What they all do have in common is the fact that the officers were still charged with manslaughter. It may be a mistake or accident, but there are still consequences. Any cop receives, allegedly, substantial training so those mistakes don’t happen. Ultimately the cop is still responsible for her actions.
Wright died because a 25 year veteran pulled the wrong weapon.
The biggest problem still is that these kinds of preventable incidents keep occurring. Either training is not adequate enough or police officers are mindlessly acting too quick on making decisions.
Due Process is fundamental to a constitutional democracy. It is not only the mob violence in the streets, but the mob mentality of some elected officials, that simulate the ethic at work in “Lord of the Flies”, that will destroy it.
Any loss of life is a sad event. But to use such as political hay is reprehensible. I think this passage from Spencer fits, even though it is about legislation: “Representatives are unconscientious enough to vote for Bills which they believe to be wrong in principle, because party-needs and regard for the next election demand it. And thus a vicious policy is strengthened even by those who see its viciousness” (Herbert Spencer, Man versus the State, 1884)
A bit scary how quickly the US is unraveling on so many fronts. Rule of law is a joke, and so is the bill of rights and the constitution. We are witnessing a live view of how societies place their faith in the Marxist form of rule. Sad times for libertarian minded people.
Here is a thought. Let’s try teaching citizens not to resist police and attempt to escape. When you do that, there are far less chances of being accidently killed because of “weapon confusion”. I can not ever recall the case of a suspect fighting with the police and the police suddenly telling them, “OK, your free to go”
Here is another thought. Let’s try teaching people not to engage in criminal behavior, including white collar criminals like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Charles Kushner, Bernie Madoff, Jack Abramoff, …
Hey Anonymous, do us all a favor and look up non-sequitur. It is easy to argue against Madoff but much harder to argue against someone saying “don’t flee the cops”.
PS. Tell us Anonymous, would you rather be on a street late at night with Daunte Wright coming towards you and your family or Roger Stone approaching?
PSS. Since you are so adamantly against guns what would you do with a guy like Wright who allegedly has a warrant out for a gun crime?
Hullbobby, how do you tell if someone who is walking towards you at night has a warrant for anything?
Roger stone who would be very out of place on a sidewalk would be more of a concern than Wright. Have you seen Roger stone? The man dressed like a nut job, top hat and all. Wright wouldn’t be out of place.
You’re insinuating that because Wright is black he’s bound to be dangerous, it’s the very definition of a racist stereotype.
Congratulations, you’ve just demonstrated exactly why these incidents become what they are.
It’s a stereotype, but not a racist stereotype. It’s a common sense reaction to reality. When you have 6% of the U.S. population (black males) committing more than 50% of violent crimes, only a fool would not be uneasy seeing a black male approaching them in the dark. Even Jesse Jackson acknowledged feeling fearful of young black males on the street. Unless you want to commit “suicide by black” I suggest you don’t walk around the inner city at night. Regardless of what your woke white liberal professors told you.
It is no longer safe to walk around midtown Manhattan in middle of the day.
@TIN
I wish more s@@tlibs would believe their white liberal professors and walk around in the inner city at night. Hey, there may be an unfortunate, close encounter with “diversity” but at least they weren’t racist. And that is what is most important.
antonio
Hey hullbobby, do us a favor and look up “non sequitur” yourself, since what I posted wasn’t a non sequitur.
We should all be able to say “criminal behavior is wrong AND you shouldn’t flee cops.” Can you join me in saying that?
Between Daunte Wright and Roger Stone, I consider Stone more dangerous. If you don’t, OK, it’s a matter of opinion, and people often have different opinions.
“PSS. Since you are so adamantly against guns …”
Why are you lying about me? I’m not adamantly against guns. I simply want them regulated in the same way as some other constitutional rights (like abortion: waiting periods, mandated lectures) and other potentially dangerous objects (like cars: licensing, regsitration, and insurance).
“Let’s try teaching citizens not to resist police…” Uh, this took place in Minneapolis!!! You think this guy hadn’t heard of George Floyd and what happened to him when he resisted arrest? Some people are simply unteachable. Sorry, but there’s dumb, and then there’s dumber.
Agreed. If you haven’t yet learned that resisting arrest is wrong and stupid and can lead to consequences – you are unteachable.
The kid may have been whacked on something and/or not too bright and/or he just panicked and didn’t want to be handcuffed and go to jail.
But still: Don’t resist arrest.
It never ends well and just makes things worse.
That lady cop was just trying to do a very unpleasant job and she screwed the pooch.
David Brailsford, resisting arrest has many definitions. One can simply be pulling your arm away from an officer trying to get ahold of you to actively fighting it. Using a taser is required only when multiple attempts are unsuccessful and the person needed to be arrested needs to be subdued. Not at the first instance.
Being a veteran with 25 years experience doesn’t excuse the mistake and it’s consequences. What people seem to be focusing on is blaming Wright instead of equally laying blame on the officer. Some may argue she was just doing her job. But that job involves knowing what you are doing.
The biggest irony in her predicament is that she was there training an officer. She made a mistake that should garner serious consequences.
I fully agree that the officer made a huge mistake and there should be consequences. However, the person that was shot did not just pull his hands away. If the person that was shot had just followed simple commands, he would have had a much smaller chance of putting himself in the position of being accidentally shot.
David Brailsford, simple commands are not enough. Officers seem to have the expectation that commands are going to be obeyed immediately and without question.
Officers have the burden of making difficult determinations under stressful instances. She was experienced. She should have known her commands were useless, but had to issue them anyway. Tasering him would have been the next logical step. The reasonable step. But she screwed up. The moment she screwed up anything about commands is pointless. The responsibility for the mistakes rest solely on her. Not Wright.
The liability here is 51/49 with the weight of it on Wright.
If he had not resisted arrest and tried to flee, there would have been no chance for the female officer to make a mistake.
She did not shoot him intentionally. It was a mistake.
His resisting arrest was deliberate.
He bears the weight of the fault.
Obey the law and he’d still be alive and wouldn’t have stressed an experienced officer into making a mistake.
“Here is a thought. Let’s try teaching citizens not to resist police and attempt to escape”
HOLLYWOOD has been teaching this very bad idea for two generations at least. Both in movies and tv.
Because, they want to incite the “underclass” and “urban youths.”
Incitement of them, will lead to chaos. Chaos, leads to tyranny.
And who wants tyranny?
Global capital, the billionaires, they want it. That’s who.
And Hollywood is their handmaiden.
Don’t be too mad at the rioters. Be mad at who set them in motion!
Listen to these politicians squeal in outrage if their rights or privileges are curtailed.