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Should the Mob Be Appeased, Even Without Evidence?
Monday’s Los Angeles Times features a story on the recent police shootings in Tulsa and Charlotte. Running under the headline “How two police shootings of black men sent Tulsa and Charlotte in different directions,” the article appears to endorse the notion that police officers involved in controversial shootings should be criminally charged as quickly as possible in order to avoid rioting.
“In Tulsa, Okla., on Thursday,” the story says, “a group of 50 demonstrators was preparing to march when people suddenly started cheering. ‘Have some ice cream!’ activist Shay White told demonstrators from a microphone. The officer who shot Terence Crutcher had just been charged with manslaughter. White told everyone to go home to rest, and the crowd quickly obliged.”
In the next paragraph, the article describes how protesters in Charlotte were preparing to take over a highway when “police in riot gear hit them with tear gas.” The reader is led to believe that the district attorney in Tulsa had acted wisely in charging Officer Betty Jo Shelby in the shooting death of Terence Crutcher because in doing so a riot had been averted. But in Charlotte, the story implies, all of that rioting and tear gas might not have occurred had prosecutors appeased the mob by serving up the officer who shot Crutcher.
This is troubling for a number of reasons, not least of which is the implication that the criminal justice system should be a vehicle to assuage the heated passions of protesters. Prosecutors are ethically bound to bring charges only when they believe that a jury can be convinced of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Perhaps Tulsa County DA Steve Kunzweiler came to such a conclusion, but I will be surprised if Officer Shelby is ever convicted of manslaughter, or of anything else. Which is not to say her shooting of Crutcher is clearly justifiable, but neither is it, at least based on what we’ve been told so far, clearly unjustifiable.
But in Charlotte, there were no such ambiguities. Police saw Keith Scott with a gun as he got into his car and ordered him several times to drop it. In defiance of those commands, he got out of the car holding the gun and, as anyone could have predicted, was shot when he again refused to drop it. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – in this incident to suggest any wrongdoing on the part of the officer who shot him. Still, as the Times story implies, there are those who would have that officer thrust into the maelstrom of the criminal justice system for the sake of appeasing those who refuse to believe that it was Scott’s decisions and conduct that led to his death.
I have a new piece up over at PJ Media on this subject, and as always I welcome feedback from the Ricochetti and the relief it provides from the toxic commentary that inevitably follows my posts on the other site.
Published in General
What does that prove? Who doesn’t have a criminal record, a restraining order, a traumatic brain injury and a 9mm in an ankle holster these days? Sheesh.
I have no idea whether or not the Tulsa cop is criminally culpable but if prosecutors do start charging cops simply to lower the odds of a riot then I can see an awful lot of cops making damn sure they, Sgt Schultz like, “know nothing! see nothing!”.
Even if you don’t think the picture clearly shows a gun in his hand, an ankle holster wouldn’t normally be visible. Most likely, he had just drawn from it so his pant leg was still riding up over the holster.
How would you like to be the recruiting officer for…well, any police department in American these days?
Body cams have a very limited field of view as do journalists, politicians, advocacy groups, as well as the outrage and virtue merchants on social media. The rush to judgement must be accomplished quickly before facts are found that may destroy a narrative, not that facts ever really matter to the mob. We have gun free zones and fact free zones, as well as thousands upon thousands of law enforcement experts that have never worked the streets much less spent anytime taking law classes in a police academy.
You’ll like this, Doug:
In the New York Times (July 26, 2016) there was a piece entitled “Female Officers Save Lives.”
“Studies show that female officers are significantly less likely to be involved in instances of excessive force or police brutality. Policewomen are also one-third to one-fourth as likely to to fire their weapons, probably saving many lives. In New York and Los Angeles, policewomen commit roughly 5 percent of shootings, while making up just under 20 % of sworn officers.”
Correlation…causality…what’s wrong with this picture?
So an officer that fires his weapon to save his own life, or the life of another officer or citizen isn’t saving lives?