I am not suggesting that the shooters hit the police by mistake. I am suggesting that an (entirely hypothetical) white supremacist attack could target police at a BLM event in order to discredit BLM and further inflame racial tension.
Is that the most likely scenario? No. I’d call it extremely far-fetched if it wasn’t for the above-mentioned eyewitness report.
But, at present, we have no reliable information on who did this or why, and plenty of recent history to suggest that waiting a couple of hours is a wise thing to do. We’ve already had one black man falsely accused tonight; waiting an hour or two for the release of information hurts nobody and may prevent further harm.
Ummmm, you need to listen to the press conference…
“The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers. The suspect stated that he was not affiliated with any groups and he stated that he did this alone.”
Dallas police chief David Brown
I don’t know, maybe we got the news in Dallas before you did.
On the other hand, they’re an organized group present in every town, and they have more force multipliers and better communication than we do. On the other other hand, we can rein in their authority, though they will remain authoritarians because that is who is drawn to the executive branch.
Did you RTFA? This is something said by a former attorney general of civil rights. Now, someone like that might be biased, but then again so might you and I don’t know you from Adam. What reasons do I have to trust your legal analysis over that of …someone who at the least has some kind of law degree? (I mean, maybe you do have a law degree and have even worked as a defense attorney or something, but I don’t know that, do I?)
Also, there are some aspects of your comment that make me suspect that your opinion is “utter nonsense” rather than that of the expert cited in the linked article.
For one, you seem to ignore that when it comes to criminal trials, what one can prove is relevant, not what is actually true. So it might be actually true that a policeman committed second degree murder, but impossible to prove because he can always claim that his intention was self defense. (Note that this is almost certainly why we’re discussing a law about depriving people of their rights instead of discussing laws about murder or theft.)
Secondly, you seem to ignore that police departments often defend their own, covering up evidence and corroborating possibly falsified stories. (This is probably why we’re discussing a federal law – because this is about instances where only the federal government is in a position to investigate and bring anything to trial.)
I’m sure I can find other aspects of this that your comment doesn’t really treat effectively, but I’m curious how you’d respond to the foregoing.
It’s amazing how frequently these things malfunction in the presence of brutality/murders/harassment. Some depts are also actively pushing to restrict access to footage under public info requests.
The sad part is that by most reports, the Dallas PD chief has actively been reigning in abuses, revisiting dept policies, and firing bad cops.
Thank you and @renke for the links. I read another story about Chicago PD messing with their dashcams, and I’m happy to note that, at the very least, some officers are being disciplined for defeating those devices:
Except if he was treated as a normal human, rather than a law-enforcement Uebermensch, his claims of intent would fall upon deaf ears, just like the claims of every other murderer who has claimed self-defense throughout history. Civil rights prosecution of murderers is a band-aid that cannot provide proper justice. Perhaps it is better that injustice be so plain and clear so that we may see it and fix it properly.
It is a matter of willingness, not position. State prosecutors are unwilling, they have access to the same evidence and jury pool as the Feds.
OK, but I feel like you are nitpicking my word choices instead of engaging with my overall point, which is that maybe the legal expert is correct that this change to the wording of a federal law would make it easier to bring law-breaking police to justice, contrary to the large amount of scorn heaped on that idea by the commenter to whom I replied.
I wasn’t arguing that changes to police and DA culture that allow normal non-federal investigations and prosecutions isn’t preferable. Just that it might not be ridiculous to suppose that the claim made in the linked article is true.
