Policing
August 12, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
It isn’t fun to keep addressing claims that policing in America is racist. But the left keeps peddling this lie, and Democratic presidential candidates have joined in, so I feel the need to keep countering it. Fortunately, Heather Mac Donald does the heavy lifting. I just have to link to her articles and do a little summarizing. Heather’s latest is called “Why ‘policing is racist’ is such a poisonous lie.”
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July 12, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Montgomery County, Maryland, where I live, is looking for a new police commissioner. There is an obvious candidate for the job — Marcus Jones, the acting commissioner and 34-year veteran of the force. Jones comes highly recommended by both the previous police commissioner, who has retired, and the County’s longtime State’s Attorney. Not only that, he’s African-American. But there’s a problem. Montgomery County has moved from left-liberal to flat out
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June 9, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Arriving on the tenth floor of the Hennepin County Government Center for the sentencing of Mohamed Noor on Friday morning, one could see that Somali supporters of the defendant constituted the vast majority of those turning out. The line of Somali supporters going through tenth floor security for the hearing was so long at 8:30, a half hour before the hearing, that I was asked to go to another floor
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June 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
This morning’s sentencing hearing in the case of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor was an emotionally devastating affair. Cameras in the courtroom captured much of the drama in the victim impact statements, the defendant’s statement to the court, and Judge Quaintance’s pronouncement of conviction and sentence. The Star Tribune has a decent narrative account here. I have embedded all the videos I could find from the hearing below. I
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June 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Following an emotionally devastating hearing including victim impact statements and a related video of the victim’s family and friends, Hennepin County District Judge Quaintance sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor to 150 months in prison for the third-degree murder of Justine Ruszczyk (Damond). Judge Quaintance rejected the defendant’s arguments in favor a dispositional or durational departure as unsupported by any relevant legal argument. She specifically rejected the therapeutic options
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June 7, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor for killing Justine Ruszczyk (Damond) is set for this morning at 9:00 a.m. before Judge Kathryn Quaintance. Minnesota operates under a set of sentencing guidelines that indicate presumptive sentences for a given conviction. (The current sentencing guidelines and commentary are accessible here.) Noor’s presumptive sentence for third-degree murder is about 12.5 years. Noor’s attorneys have asked for a sentence including no
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May 23, 2019 — John Hinderaker
This video was in the New York Post. I saw it at Althouse. It shows a shooting of a suspect by a police officer in San Diego last year. The police officer is being approached on a street by a man who swings a four-foot chain. The officer tries to get the man to drop the chain. Ann’s comment is apt: “[I]t’s astounding how long the cop walks backward, warning
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May 16, 2019 — John Hinderaker
There was a time in my early adulthood when many believed that American cities would soon become uninhabitable. New York City was the prototype: crime and social decay had made the city a dystopia. Many expected New York to collapse, and other cities to follow. It didn’t happen, because New York’s officials–most notably Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton, although others were involved–adopted the philosophy of Broken Windows
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May 15, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I normally don’t suggest that Power Line readers vote for a Democrat. If I have ever done so, I’ve purged it from my memory. However, voting for a Democrat is something that readers who are registered to vote in Arlington County, Virginia should consider. The race in question is the Democratic primary contest for Commonwealth’s Attorney. The Democrat worthy of support is the incumbent, Theo Stamos. The primary is “open”
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May 12, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times went in pursuit of the racial angle in the case against former Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor for the July 2017 killing of Justine Ruszczyk in John Eligon’s “A Black Officer, a White Woman, a Rare Murder Conviction. Is It ‘Hypocrisy,’ or Justice?” The premise of Eligon’s story is that Noor was somehow the victim of racial prejudice. Although the premise of the story is framed
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May 5, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and plaintiff’s attorney Bob Bennett held press conferences on Friday following the announcement of the city’s record-breaking $20 million settlement of the civil lawsuit brought by Justine’s family. Bennett represents the family in the civil lawsuit. Having listened to both press conferences on YouTube, I wrote about the settlement yesterday morning in “Minneapolis pays up.” In that post, by the way, I linked to the
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May 4, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Justine’s family filed a civil lawsuit against former Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor, Minneapolis Police Officer Matthew Harrity, the Minneapolis Police Chief and the City of Minneapolis in federal court here this past July. On Thursday evening the city settled the case for $20 million, $2 million of which the family will donate to a Minneapolis Foundation fund to “fight gun violence in the city,” as the Star Tribune puts
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May 2, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Here are a few notes on the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor that ended in his conviction for murder and manslaughter on Tuesday: Judge Kathryn Quaintance Judge Quaintance is a former prosecutor; her rulings at trial tended to favor the prosecution. The defense sought to introduce evidence of the effects of “trauma” on the perception of Officers Harrity and Noor. She demanded that such testimony be based
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May 1, 2019 — Scott Johnson
I have a few stray thoughts on the trial of former Minneapolis Police Mohamed Noor that I may collect in a subsequent post. For the moment, however, I would like to direct interested readers to KARE11 reporter Lou Raguse’s interview with one of the Noor jurors. Lou’s interview is posted here. If you followed the trial through my series, these comments from the juror may ring a bell: I think
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April 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
As of 3:36 this afternoon we received notice that the jury has reached a verdict in the case against Mohamed Noor. Having returned so soon — following ten hours of deliberation — in a case with three charges, I thought the jury was likely to have arrived at a verdict of acquittal. On the contrary, however, while Noor was acquitted of the second-degree murder charge, the jury convicted Noor of
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April 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The prosecution briefly called its two experts back to the stand on rebuttal. Prosecutor Amy Sweasy and defense counsel Tom Plunkett made their closing arguments. Judge Quaintance instructed the jury. Without a break for lunch, Judge Quaintance then told the jury at 2:00 p.m. that the case is in their hands. Sequestered for deliberations, the jury now considers the two murder and one manslaughter charge against Mohamed Noor. The Star
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April 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The prosecution concluded its cross-examination of Mohamed Noor. The defense called its expert witness on police practices, Emanuel Kapelsohn and called two fact witnesses — neighbors of Justine — to testify to the noise they heard in the alley (formerly a “slap,” now characterized as a “loud bang”) preceding the shot in the alley behind their houses on the evening of July 15, 2017. The defense rested its case with
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