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A Tale of Two Police Officers
The first Police Officer is a 26-year veteran of the department, with an excellent record. This Police Officer made a traffic stop, of a vehicle with expired license tabs. When the Officer ran the plates through the criminal justice database, the Officer discovered that the driver of the vehicle had an outstanding arrest warrant for assault, and carrying a firearm. The Officer then got out of the squad car to speak with the driver. A few minutes later, after the driver had worked himself loose from the handcuffs being applied, and gotten back into the vehicle to flee, the Police Officer shot him with her gun, while shouting “I’ll tase you, I’ll tase you!” This Officer will be charged with second-degree manslaughter. This Officer’s name and photo is all over the news, everywhere, and riots, burning, and looting are occurring all over the country, in support of the criminal victim.
The second Police Officer was present at a “riot” (also described in all of the Press as an “armed insurrection”). The Officer, in the middle of a crowd of trespassers, shot and killed a “rioter”, while said rioter was standing near a window. The person who was killed was a Veteran, with no criminal record of any kind, and was not engaging in any kind of destruction, nor was the person armed with any kind of weapon. Due to “lack of sufficient evidence”, this Police Officer will not be charged with any crime. This Officer has not been identified in the press, and no riots, looting, or burning are taking place in support of the innocent victim.
Do you need much more evidence that there are two classes of Police Officers in America these days? The 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota Police Department resigned, along with the chief of police; her picture is all over the press, the criminal victim is being idolized by the Black Lives Matter Marxist supporters, and cities are being burned and looted in support of the criminal, Daunte Wright.
The Capitol Police Officer who shot the innocent demonstrator in Washington DC on January 6 has not in any way been identified in the media, and will not be charged with any crime for shooting to death the innocent Veteran, Ashli Babbitt. The Officer obviously has the full support of the Democrats who now run the “Justice” Department, or he would have been identified before this. The Officer must be kept from the opprobrium from conservatives, that would come forth if he were identified.
More of this kind of thing is coming, as the BLM ruins cities all over America the minute a police officer shoots any black criminal for any reason. Most of these kinds of shootings are also taking place in large cities run by…you guessed it…Democrats. With no consequences, no pushback by the poor black citizens who are mostly the ones victimized by the welfare state. Those people keep electing the governments who have kept them in poverty for decades. With the mostly-white City Councils calling for “defunding the police”, those poor blacks are calling for more police presence in their neighborhoods, not less. This situation cannot end well.
[originally posted at RushBabe49.com]
Published in Policing
You said:
The second Police Officer was present at a “riot” (also described in all of the Press as an “armed insurrection”). The Officer, in the middle of a crowd of trespassers, shot and killed a “rioter”, while said rioter was standing near a window. The person who was killed was a Veteran, with no criminal record of any kind, and was not engaging in any kind of destruction, nor was the person armed with any kind of weapon. Due to “lack of sufficient evidence”, this Police Officer will not be charged with any crime. This Officer has not been identified in the press, and no riots, looting, or burning are taking place in support of the innocent victim.
Let’s tease this apart. The rioter was massed outside of an entrance to a secured non-public portion of the House of Representatives. She wasn’t just “standing there,” she was part of the mob seeking to bully their way in. You say that she was not engaging in any kind of destruction. No. She was part of the mob who were working on shattering a window to gain access. To call her a “victim” is the height of hyperbole and minimization.
I agree with you that the 26 year officer should not have been charged.
Let’s tease it further. An unarmed woman was shot and killed. We do have a video that gives no indication that she presented an imminent threat to the unknown shooter. It is true that she was attempting to enter the lobby through a window, but had not yet done so. It is also clear that other officers were behind her and within about six feet of her. In the absence of any report on the incident over the course of four months, quibbling about whether she is a “victim” is emblematic of minimization.
I’m with Gary on this one. Here in Texas, breaking in through a window is grounds for getting shot. I do think the MN cop should have been charged. She should be convicted and get no jail time. If a doctor grabbed the wrong medicine and injected a lethal dose, that would be manslaughter too, right?
I’m led to believe that this sort of situation is precisely why in many states the Attorney General is an elected position, so that their prosecution decisions can be made independently from the government’s agenda and priorities.
As if that ever really happens! All the WA AG has done for the last four years is sue the Trump administration. I think he’s really bereft, now that Trump is gone.
RushBabe, Gary, and Hoyacon: I disagree with your characterization of the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. She was not just standing there. She was attempting to climb in through an already broken window, at the entrance to the last lobby before the House chamber itself. The entrance (including the window) had been smashed at an earlier stage in the riot. She was wearing a backpack, so there was no way to know whether or not she was armed, and a possibility that she was carrying a bomb. In the circumstances, I think that the cop was justified in shooting her.
I do agree that the difference in public and media reaction to the killers of Ms. Babbitt and Duante Wright is very disturbing.
Why didn’t the other cops within easy grabbing distance, grab her? Let alone not being given any warning, such as “get down or I’ll shoot!”
While I think the right outcome was probably reached in the two cases (Minnesota cop charged, Capitol police not) this post is absolutely correct that there are two separate standards here which can be seen by everything surrounding the incidents.
In the Minnesota case, the City Manager was fired for suggesting the cop involved deserved due process. One of the city councilpersons who voted for the firing acknowledged the city manager was correct but she feared the mob. In other words, the threat that the Democrats would unleash their paramilitary wing carried the day. As the post notes we won’t see rioters protesting the failure to bring charges in the DC case.
In the Minnesota case, criminal charges were filed three days after the incident and we know every detail of the police officer’s life. In the DC case it took three months under secretive proceedings to announce no charges would be filed and we still don’t have a clue about anything, including the name, of the officer who fired the shot. The Biden Regime and Woke state AGs have been very clear that they do not believe due process and equal protection of the laws apply to all Americans but rather are dependent upon which racial category a particular American falls into – they also believe due process and equal protection apply to non-citizens but this is another story
I think the Capitol police would have been justified if they had to shoot 10 people to prevent entry to the building that day but the reality is this entire scenario would have been different if the situation had been that Trump won the election and a BLM/antifa mob stormed the building on January 6. We would have been told the event was “mostly peaceful” and, in fact, justified in light of the reelection of the fascist Trump. Can you imagine the uproar if an unarmed black woman had been shot and killed by a Capitol police officer? We’d know every detail about the shooter within 24 hours and we’d have nationwide protests and riots while being told those were also “mostly peaceful”.
There’s a lot of “privilege” going on but it is not “white”.
Another disturbing fact; in MN when the city manager said the policewoman deserved “due process”, he was fired.
Face it folks. The dream is over. There are different standards of justice.
Edited to add: After I posted, I noticed @gumbymark has already raised this issue.
I’m sorry. But the bolded statement made me literally laugh out loud.
If one of my nieces or nephews said that, my reply would be: so what?
I’ve worked at sights, guarding the big toys. Signs all over saying “Deadly Force Authorized” Apart from that there are rules governing the use of deadly force. The signs don’t authorize shooting a backpack wearing house wife climbing climbing through a window. I am dismayed by the big brains who think she had coming. Might as well have shot herself, I think the MN policewoman will come to wish she had shot herself.
I think that the officer who shot Duante Wright, Kimberly Ann Potter, was properly charged. This may seem odd, as I am usually at the pro-cop end of this type of discussion.
In pertinent part, the Minnesota second-degree manslaughter statute provides (link here, emphasis added):
Minnesota case law may clarify this further, but the fundamental standard appears to be “culpable negligence.” I think that this applies to Potter’s shooting of Wright.
According to media accounts, the cop’s supervisor, and the video, it appears that Potter contends that she intended to use her taser, but somehow erroneously had her gun in her hand. It’s hard to see how that’s not negligent. Her significant experience, as a 26-year police veteran, actually works against her defense on this issue. Maybe, just maybe, this might be excusable as a “rookie mistake,” but Potter was no rookie.
I think that Potter’s defense will be difficult. She might be able to argue that the circumstances justified the use of deadly force against Wright, but this is somewhat inconsistent with her own apparent decision to use the taser. I say “somewhat inconsistent” because I think that there is a category of situations in which a cop is justified in using deadly force, but might choose not to. It’s a tough argument for Potter to make in these circumstances.
According to this story by a local CBS affiliate, a person convicted of second-degree manslaughter in Minnesota, with no priors, would generally receive a sentence of 4 years.
I think the law as written and as should be normally interpreted, would apply to a regular person who is not involved with a criminal who has a felony warrant, attempting to evade arrest. And a regular person who might likely have only one weapon, if that.
Before Tasers existed, shooting a fleeing felon would not have been elevated to this level, and if the gun rather than Taser was accidentally used, maybe because the other hand was unavailable or something, it doesn’t seem justified to me to elevate it in that way. Okay for a non-felon traffic stop, where shooting with a gun would not be justified unless the suspect became more violent. But that’s not the case here. Maybe cops should be trained to say “stop or I’ll shoot” whether they mean “shoot” with a Taser or with a regular gun. That way they can’t be accused of being “wrong.”
Also, how well do you think a cop is going to do, in prison? Especially a woman.
And with those “women’s” prisons now admitting biological men.
Okay.
I appreciate the general thrust of this piece, that there are two standards being applied here and that the press and establishment opinion-shapers are complicit in the hypocrisy. I’ll make a couple of the same criticisms as have some others here: the event in D.C. was in fact a riot, scare-quotes not required; the woman who was killed was not “innocent,” she was participating in a crime. The fact that the victim was a veteran does not, in my opinion, redound to her credit: she of all people should have shown respect for the security of the Capitol and for the authority of those defending it.
While it isn’t obvious that either victim should have died, only one of the two shootings — that in D.C. — appears to be a premeditated act. I think the reasoning behind the decision to kill the victim should be made clear, as well as any non-lethal options that might have been available, whether normal procedures were followed, etc. I have little confidence in the Capitol Police department’s interest in adequately policing their own, particularly given the theater surrounding the riot. I believe we have been lied to about the nature of the riot and think the characterization of it as an “insurrection” is absurd. I think the nation deserves details and answers about every death and serious injury that occurred. That information has not been forthcoming.
I think Officer Potter, the woman who apparently shot and killed a suspect by accident, was wise to leave the force. We all make mistakes, but this is the kind of mistake that mustn’t be repeated. I feel sorry for her, given that she seems to have been a good officer who liked her job, but that doesn’t excuse this kind of error. (On the other hand, I’d accept her having a desk job.)
As for the riots in protest of the shooting: they are lynch mobs. These people are acting like barbarians, with the encouragement of a press that is as corrupt as any of the other participants in this sorry spectacle.
I’m sorry, attend a riot, expect to get shot. Riots involve the lack of civilization.
And she wasn’t just standing there, she was in a group that was trying to break down a barrier and she was climbing up over the barrier.
Tragic, but she was rioting. She got a prize.
Capitol Hill Police officers are not subject to FOIA requests. Should that change, probably. When I look back at Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Fast and Furious I’m not surprised at the lack of transparency from Federal LE.
More on the warrant for Daunte Wright from the Daily Mail
Wright was on the road to oblivion. He ran once before, and he tried it a second time. Due to a mistake from a police officer he found oblivion. Enter stupid contests and win stupid prizes. I don’t buy into the BS from the family that he was a good person.
Ashli Babbitt put herself in a situation that she had no control over. When you see barricaded doors, and furniture blocking doors and the windows on either side of doors, unless you built the barricade you should probably assume someone doesn’t want you on the other side of the barricade. Should the investigative report be made public? My answer is yes.
I was having trouble understanding how a veteran police officer could mistake a pistol for a taser, and thought her supervisor was just making that up as a cover. But I saw a video this morning purporting to show her yelling at the offender as he was trying to escape, “I’m going to Tase you! I’m going to Tase you!” So, apparently she did not intent to shoot him.
No matter how long a cop has been on the force, it’s – hopefully – not like they have been tasing and/or shooting people on a regular basis, and therefore would instantly recognize the difference in weight between pistol and Taser, etc. And even if she did, I think cops are justified in shooting a fleeing felon like that, so her only “mistake” was in announcing that she had intended to Tase him. Once again, they should simply say “shoot” to avoid that issue, and it might also make the fleeing felon more likely to stop than if they think they might be able to evade a Taser or something.
Agreed there. But for that situation, I still think criminal charges and a possible prison term, are overdoing it. And would probably make it impossible for her to have a desk job, either.
No big deal, but, for the record, let’s look at what I wrote.
I’ll stand by that version. Babbitt was attempting to enter the lobby through a breach and she was only “part way” at the time of the shooting.
The predominant factor here is that, to my knowledge, there has been no explanation related to policy/procedure by the Capitol Police. To me, it is clear from the video that deadly force was not yet warranted based on the standards with which I’m familiar. If the Capitol Police are authorized to use further discretion in the use of deadly force, it’s incumbent upon the higher ups to explain that. So far, this isn’t even a modified limited hang out.
Maybe the Capitol Cop thought the pistol was a taser.
Double standard. Local police are being prevented from using any kind of effective force, required to de-escalate, denied use of tear gas, defunded, and harassed continuously while trying to do their jobs. Capitol police are given free rein to shoot unarmed civilians. I am unclear as to what restrictions, if any, are placed on Capitol police.
In my state, “police reform” means police handcuffed while criminals are released with few consequences.
I’m beginning to think that you are Cleese.
There was no coordinated plan to defend the Capitol. Capitol Hill officers have made the claim that there were no radio transmissions from command staff, and other supervisors during the riot. Officers became isolated, and had no way to know what was going on, or if they could get any help.
The Congressional hearings are more of a Cover Your A** investigation. The answer has become to hire more officers, and spend more money. One thing that stands out is a recommendation to create a mounted unit. That’s great, and at one time might have been effective until rioters come armed with bear spray, as well as IED’s, and lasers. The other proposal was to mandate twice a year firearms qualification. With the money provided Capitol Hill officer’s they should be qualifying quarterly.
The truth is when you patrol about 70 acres you are not getting any real police experience at the street cop, or supervisor level. Putting officers at what I call the bike rack barricades without real batons, or grenadiers that can fire impact munitions, or chemical agents is just stupid. Hand to hand combat is not going to work.
The Ministry of Silly Wokes?
Yes.
When local police departments are being reduced to hand-to-hand combat, with criminals who are better armed than they are.
I endorse Jerry’s detailed description of the death of Ashli Babbitt.