Black Lives Matter. Still

In this case, they caught the person responsible:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/07/serial-killer-khalil-wheeler-weaver-sentenced/

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In case you didn’t see, Rob posted about that same killer/case on the main site:

Another tragedy of shoddy police work when the crime involves violence against WOC and/or sex workers. :rage:

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This thread starts out horrifying and only goes down from there.

Should we take odds on how many of the four out of eleven kids arrested were Black?

Spoiler alert: it was all of them.

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image

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Angry Star Trek GIF

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For fuck sake. That story is seemingly endless horror.
Imprisoning children because a 10 year old thought they were in the group that saw a 6 year old hit another kid?! That is so beyond fucked up

This part, though:

In August 2000 — less than three months after the story was published — Rutherford County elected Davenport to the newly created job of juvenile court judge. Her opponent, a major in the sheriff’s department, was later charged with sex crimes against minors and, in a plea deal, got probation. Davenport has not had another opponent since.

20 years of imprisoning children and bragging about it, and not once has someone run against Donna Davenport for the job?

and the people who decide whether to charge children with a crime in that county don’t have to have any legal training.

From issuing warrants to setting bail to conducting probable cause hearings, Rutherford County’s judicial commissioners can take on tasks that traditionally fall to judges or prosecutors — without needing the legal training of either.

Rutherford County opens the job to anyone with a Tennessee driver’s license and a high school diploma, supplemented by some college-level course work or vocational training and some office work.

The 2 high school grads with no legal training that approved arresting the children in this story have both since been re-appointed to their job

Wonder Years Reaction GIF

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The fact that TPTB in this case are bringing in money for the county is why they’re still there (along with who she’s been targeting all those years). Too bad no one has caught them taking bribes, because that brought down judges who profited from locking up children in other states. Even then, there has to be some motivation to take disciplinary action or prosecute, and the expansion of the for-profit detention operation doesn’t make that seem likely.

Racism always makes a terrible situation for children that much worse, and Rutherford County’s minority population isn’t large enough to counter that in a very red state. It’s a national disgrace, and a problem taking far too long to resolve:

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Why did I click on your links? I was drinking too much as it was. There is something about the combination of the smallness of the modern world which lets us see how the same racist bullshit chokes the whole country and the bigness of the modern world which makes it seem unchangeable that leads me to perpetually oscillate between hope and despair gripping a glass of whiskey to brace for each curve

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I said the same thing when I read the ProPublic piece before dinner. Adding a drink didn’t make it go down any easier. :wine_glass:

I see now where I made my mistake…time to switch gears. :tumbler_glass:

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I read the proPublica article before I left work. Its safer that way because some people could read that or the end of your link …

Zakiya Reddy-Cherif, a Black mother in Philadelphia whose teenage son has been incarcerated throughout the pandemic, has not been allowed to visit him the whole time, she said.
If he does get out, she just wants to hug him and smell his skin, she said, adding, “I know that’s crazy, but I’m a mom.”
“But whenever I go to the courthouse, everybody there looks like me and everybody’s son looks like my son,” she said. “So no, I can’t say that I am hopeful.”

and not open the liquor cabinet, but me …
source

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This seems like the kind of thing that should kick in the FBI and DOJ to issue a consent decree and shut their shit down until they prove that they’ve cleaned it up. But it may be such a small operation that it isn’t on their radar. That process is geared towards big city departments like Chicago or LAPD, not Rutherpodunk, TN. Which is a shame, because it us just as important.

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Another case of a cop claiming fear led them to shoot someone in the back - repeatedly:

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JFC… :rage:

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Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President Jerome A. Dix said in a statement Friday night that the officers asked for compliance and offered to “assist” Owensby when they were told he is paraplegic. He said the motorist “continued to be verbally noncompliant,” thus escalating the officers’ response.
“The officers followed the law, their training, and department policies and procedures,” he said. “Sometimes the arrest of noncompliant individuals is not pretty, but is a necessary part of law enforcement to maintain public safety, which is one of the fundamental ideologies of our society.”

Dangerous paraplegics chasing people down in the streets…

Will Smith Reaction GIF

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And all this for the heinous crime of window tint.

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But we know it’s not about the tint of the windows…

Arrested Development Flirt GIF

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Yeah, this part

He said the motorist “continued to be verbally noncompliant,” thus escalating the officers’ response.

Smacks of, “see what he made them do?!?”

And pray tell, dear union, if maintaining public safety is such a goal, why the fvck aren’t all the officers, everywhere, vaccinated yet?

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“Despite officers’ lawful orders, he illegally remaind paraplegic and suffered the just consequence of his defiance.” About right? Yup, thought so.

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