Policing
June 10, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I have posted five previous editions of footnotes to our coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. This edition bears on the pending case against Chauvin’s three former colleagues as well. My purpose here is to provide background on the legal issues for those who seek to understand them. Readers who think they know all they need to know about these cases are invited
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June 9, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Adam Smith said, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” He meant that a nation can withstand a great deal of incompetent governance and misguided policies. Smith was right. There’s less ruin in a city, though, and that brings us to Baltimore Bryan Preston of PJ Media reports that business owners in Baltimore’s Fells Point area are threatening to withhold tax payments if the city doesn’t respond
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June 3, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Buckhead is a well-to-do district in Atlanta with around 86,000 residents. It has not been exempt from Atlanta’s crime wave (homicides in Atlanta are up 59 percent from this time last year, when the city ended up with its highest total in two decades). One new Buckhead resident was victimized by break-ins to her vehicles twice within a period of a few weeks. Then, there was a shootout on her
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June 1, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The wave of violent crime in America is so pronounced that the mainstream media can’t help but report it. But that doesn’t mean the media must mention some obvious reasons why the nation might be experiencing the surge of violence. This weekend, the Washington Post featured two stories on the the crime wave. This one focused on crime in Prince Georges County, Maryland, a predominantly black county just outside of
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May 30, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Last week we had the “Shootout from George Floyd Square” broadcast live from Minneapolis. The video looks like a scene from a dark comedy. I think of it as the shootout at the not OK corral. It was in any event the perfect way to commemorate the anarchy and lawlessness Minneapolis has experienced in the year since George Floyd’s death. Patrick Coolican was a reporter who wrote (with Stephen Montemayor)
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May 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
A year after George Floyd’s death the AP’s Philip Crowther reported live from Minneapolis’s George Floyd Square when a shootout befitting a war zone broke out. The AP reports in its “one year after” story (omitted from the AP’s Morning Wire email): Associated Press video from 38th Street and Chicago Avenue — informally known as George Floyd Square — showed people running for cover as shots rang out. Police said
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May 24, 2021 — Scott Johnson
When it comes to leading from behind, Minneapolis’s Star Tribune is in a class with Barack Obama, if not by itself. While the city has descended into an epidemic of lawlessness over the past year, the Star Tribune has kept its institutional voice decidedly muffled. After a weekend from hell, the Star Tribune now speaks up in the editorial “Seeking a cease-fire on our city streets.” Subhead: “The ‘both-and’ approach
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May 20, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Jack Cashill asks in a May 18 American Spectator column “Why Has the Right Let the Floyd Cops Fry?” Subhead: “If they don’t speak up, no one will.” I want to respond briefly in this post for readers who may be interested in the specific subject Cashill takes up. Cashill’s column is based on the May 12 motion filed by counsel for Tou Thao (one of the four officers charged
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May 15, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Police officers in various jurisdictions are being disciplined, and even fired, for expressing negative views about the BLM movement and protests. Here, from the Washington Times, are a few examples: Two policewomen in New Jersey were fired [in one case] or demoted [in the other] for calling BLM protesters “terrorists”. . . . Another law enforcement officer recently got in trouble for his online response to basketball great LeBron James’s
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May 10, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Like so many big American cities, New York is experiencing an enormous increase in violent crime. Last year, the city’s murder rate rose by 47 percent, to a total of 468 people killed. So far this year, it has risen by 17 percent. What happened last year that might have caused the spike in murders and other violent crimes? One thing that happened was anti-police activism on a large scale,
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May 9, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I have posted three previous editions of footnotes to our coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. My purpose here is to provide background on the legal issues in the case for those who seek to understand them. I post these footnotes in the form of bullet points and differentiate facts and law from (my) opinion. Previous editions are included below under May 5,
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May 8, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The Star Tribune drew on the work of three reporters and its collaboration with “Frontline” (through its Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) for Andy Mannix’s story on the federal indictment of Derek Chauvin and his three former colleagues on federal civil rights charges in the death of George Floyd. With all hands on deck, I thought
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May 7, 2021 — Scott Johnson
A federal grand jury has handed up indictments of Derek Chauvin and his three former colleagues for violating George Floyd’s civil rights. I inferred from the leak underlying Andy Mannix’s April 29 Star Tribune story that the federal civil rights investigation was originally undertaken as a backstop to the state criminal prosecution of the officers in the event that Chauvin and his former colleagues were acquitted, but such is not
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May 6, 2021 — John Hinderaker
…of a police officer. The threat to the officer unfolds with stunning rapidity. His response is incredibly fast and effective. And he he as the presence of mind not to fire at the second guy who could easily have been perceived as another threat. But of course this won’t be considered newsworthy: But what does LeBron think? https://t.co/N88LbX58ug — Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) May 5, 2021 Another Twitter comment: “Gonna be
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May 5, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Garrett Rolfe, the Atlanta police officer who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks last summer, has been reinstated to his job, apparently with back pay. The Atlanta Civil Service Board reinstated Rolfe. It stated: Due to the City’s failure to comply with several provisions of the Code and the information received during witnesses’ testimony, the Board concludes the Appellant was not afforded his right to due process The Board’s findings of
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May 5, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Last year, the homicide count in Washington, D.C. reached a 36-year high. So far this year, D.C. homicides are up 38 percent from the same time last year. During the past weekend alone, at least 11 people were shot in D.C. Three of them died. D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser says she will respond by pouring extra police officers into six historically crime-ridden neighborhoods. The idea is to head off violence.
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May 5, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I have posted two previous editions of footnotes to our coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. My purpose here is to provide background on the legal issues in the case for those who seek to understand them. If you are certain that the issues constitute nothing more than a smokescreen for a predetermined outcome, these footnotes are not for you. I post these
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