Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/01/killer-cop-amber-guyger-convic.html
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Honestly surprised by the outcome, but glad of it.
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I am genuinely surprised. When the judge allowed the jury to consider castle doctrine as a defense, I thought for sure she was getting off.
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I 100% figured the jury would go for her crocodile tears. Sometimes I love being wrong.
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I’m always surprised when a cop gets convicted. It’s rare that one is brought to trial, and rarer that a conviction happens.
This was one of those cases where, if she wasn’t convicted, it basically means cops would have a blank check to kill black men. I mean, the guy was sitting in his living room, eating ice cream.
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I can’t seem to find it now, but wasn’t there some spectre of her previously knowing the victim? As in bought weed from him or something?
ETA: It was speculation based on the weird details in the case:
Yelling “Let me In” when you live alone?
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I seem to recall something like that, too – like maybe they had dated at some point?
ETA: Ninja’ed by the edit function!
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/01/cop-found-guilty-of-murdering.html
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Yeah, it seems like this was a perfect storm of an over tired officer making a mistake and then compounding it by going from 0 to 60 instead of de-escalating the encounter which would have lead to a realization she is in the wrong place.
I have to say I am shocked she is being held accountable, but good. Even if it was mistake, it cost someone their life and there needs to be consequences.
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By all means, good! The convict had been engaging in bad behavior for a police officer, didn’t bother to take her eyes off her mobile device to see she was on the wrong floor and at the wrong door when she opened it and walked in. She didn’t even bother to take notice the door mat was a different color than the one in front of hers. Justice has been carried out.
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The jury got this right, IMO.
I’m horrified the judge allowed the stand-your-ground defense. How the hell can you “stand your ground” when you barge into someone else’s home? It sets an awful precedent.
But the jury got this one right.
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The success of a stand-your-ground defense to me would imply that you can kill someone as long as you reasonably believe you have the right to kill someone, even if you actually don’t. That’s a scary precedent to set, so fuck that judge for allowing the possibility…
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Jeez, what does it say about these times, when this can count as good news? No, I take that back. Good news would be if the chief of police were forced out, the entire department audited, and every officer re-qualified in firarms training.
There is a single quantum of solace to be found, in discovering a threshold where cops can finally be called to account. But it needs to be far more stringent than this. By a long shot.
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It’s about fucking time.
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So rare that I believe the last 3 that actually got convicted are a Muslim cop (Minneapolis), an Asian cop (New York), and a female cop (Dallas). See a pattern?
Not at all saying these three shouldn’t have been convicted, but selective prosecution and punishment is the bigger institutional and systemic crime.
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Stand your ground in most states intentionally has a lot of “believe”, like believe you are in danger, or the other person is committing a felony, or even believe the land is public (stand your ground in some states also works in public parks and such). So while “believe you are in your own home when in fact you are in the home of the guy you are shooting” might actually have some legal basis, I sure am glad the jury either decided “that law is screwed up, forget it”, or “yeah, no way she thought she was in her home”.
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Good, but it isn’t lost on me that the rare instances of a killer or crooked cop getting a conviction always seem to be women or minorities.
Shocker: sentence is community service.
I’m wrong, mercifully:
Not sure how ten years stacks up to the usual sentence for home invasion/murder in TX, but it’s definitely something. I’m hearing rumors of an appeal, however.
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Could precedence play a role? Are we going to absolve every person that walks into the wrong apartment and kill someone?
I am shocked. Happy, gratified, but shocked
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