huh. How does this not apply to Guantanamo?
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again… rarely if ever enforced…
Supposedly this applies to non-citizens as well, but this doesn’t seem to change much for migrants either.
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Chauvin is just the sacrificial lamb, as far as I can tell.
He fucked up just slightly too hard so the other cops have to disown him in order to keep up with their only slightly less brutal activities.
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Totally agree. However, it’s still unprecedented how they are turning on him and that cuts to the heart of how Qualified Immunity functions. It’s entirely precedent-based, so if they manage to set a precedent for excessive force prosecution it will make headway to rendering it moot.
Edited for clarity.
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I think the flood gates were opened when they disowned Mohamed Noor. It was easier since Noor wasn’t white but he was still a cop and as such his partner tried to cover for him until the investigators were able to tease out the lie which was pretty easy to be quite honest. None the less, this is all a culmination of years of abuses it seems. It’s sad how hard it is to get this stuff done. There’s been far more brutal murders over the years by cops but I guess it was one too many in recent history for folks to accept it. The protests showed that.
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Yeah, spot on. No one expects that there will never be violent cops; the profession just attracts a lot of people with bad intentions. The systemic problem rests in their wagon-circling self-protection at all costs. A few instances of situations that are so dire that even the most corrupt agencies can’t defend them will cause the whole house of cards to collapse. There will definitely be moves to shield them legislatively, but the Thin Blue Line is and has been the primary issue.
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We’ll see what happens by this time next year. I honestly think once Chauvin is sentenced and public reaction has calmed down it’ll go, right back to brunch time.
I very much hope this is a turning point. That would be so cool.
But I doubt it. People are too focused on everything “going back to normal” and a year ago, normal was tolerating a mass shooting atbleast once a week.
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Just gotta keep them…
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In the very least, we’ve seen turning points in CO and now NM with regards to holding cops accountable.
We’ve seen what happened with recreational weed. Colorado first (thanks to the voters, not ultra-lame Dem Gov Hickenlooper), others followed. I just hope national reform on qualified immunity moves faster than marijuana reform.
Literally, lives are at stake.
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You haven’t been paying attention then. NM’s Governor, Legislature, both Senators, and two out of three US Representatives are all Democrats. It might make a difference that NM is minority-Anglo, too.
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Thats true, not up on all of NM politics.
Just the other day it was pointed out how freakishly close NM is to KS. I was like - no way - how have I not realized this before. I guess I just don’t think about the SW corner of KS much.
Yup. A bit over an hour of Oklahoma between Clayton and Elkhart. Beautiful drive along the old Santa Fe Trail, and all in all quicker if you’re going from central NM to WV (as we did for a wedding ten years ago.)
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I actually think the cold calmness of this murder might be what finally tipped the scale. I think it’s easy for a lot of people to see a stressful standoff and quick shooting and kind of justify the horrible acts. (Not me, mind you. The cops are almost always the ones bringing the stress, so fuck ‘em.)
But watching someone calmly murder a prone man over several minutes while bystanders plea for mercy…
Several things have changed for the better since the protests last summer. Take heart. And like @zzzz mentioned, keep the pressure on!
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