Walter Katz used to poke me for not being radical enough. He was a criminal defense lawyer, a public defender, and thought I tended to be too moderate in my views. We both argued for police and law reform, but he took a harder line than I did and he let me know it. Fair enough. Walter went on to become the independent police auditor for San Jose, and later for Chicago following the Laquan McDonald murder.

Walter was left. Now he’s not.

Take note: This is how the police “reform” crowd prevents real change. They poo-poo anything that isn’t a meaningless fig leaf pre-approved by them as “unproven” — as though the way police behave now is “proven.” https://t.co/9kPvYA8HA5

— David Menschel (@davidminpdx) June 6, 2020

The Mayor of Minneapolis, former civil rights lawyer Jacob Frey, swept into office in 2018 with the blue wave of reform, ardent voice against the cops who killed George Floyd, does the walk of shame after he refuses to commit to “defund police.” Continue reading →

Mara Liasson, who has spent 35 years as a national correspondent for National Public Radio, presented a problem.

What to do about NPR’s national political correspondent Mara Liasson?

This is a regular issue raised by some NPR listeners who object to Liasson’s second role as a contributor to Fox News. They say that she, like Fox, tilts to the right.

“Would you please consider letting Mara Liasson go?” wrote listener Michael Duba in what is typical of the several complaints that come in almost every time Liasson does a story. “Her affiliation with the Tea Party channel and willingness to just go along with whatever is said by others on the fake news shows she appears on has ruined whatever small remaining shreds of credibility she had left.”

Continue reading →

In trying to snidely sneak in his snarky rejoinder, Jake managed to almost raise a point without ever touching anything of substance. But because I like Jake and don’t want him to be sad or unvalidated, the least I can do is help him down the path of cogency right up to the point where the path is blocked by a fence. Chesterton’s fence.

https://twitter.com/lisabendermpls/status/1268644819628224513

This was the “second part of the Minneapolis city council plans” that, as Jake snarked, I ignored. Their plan isn’t just to shutter the precincts, fire the cops, lay down their weapons, for that would be anarchy and that would be nuts. No, they are serious people, and their plan is to “replace it with a transformative new model of public safety.” Continue reading →

I can’t recall who said it, but the resignation of 57 Buffalo police officers following the suspension without pay of two cops who pushed a 75-year-old protester, Martin Gugino, backward to the ground, was an opportunity. If they found what was done to not be cause for suspension, then it was an opportunity to replace them with 57 good cops.

It wasn’t just the push. It was the utter lack of reason for it. It was the failure to render aid upon seeing the harm caused, the head whipping against the pavement, the blood spilling from his ear. It was about the lie told afterward, that he “tripped,” revealed as such by the video. And it was one of too many videos to ignore. The two cops, unnamed, were suspended and that was too much for the other members of their unit to take. Continue reading →

Back in the Fault Lines days, my mean-ass editor tasked me with a weekly assignment called The Friday Fail. It was my job to comb the internet for the most spectacular failures of the criminal justice system and send the top five to the readership to vote on which was the greatest failure of them all.

Yours truly is a touch tired this week from work and life developments, so I’m dipping into the Friday Fail archives to bring the SJ readership a new guessing game. All of these but are former Friday Fail contestants. I’m not making any of this up. Continue reading →

First, the New York Times had the audacity to publish an insipid op-ed by a United States Senator on a matter of huge public importance at the moment. The editorial page editor defended the decision to publish diverse views. But a spokesperson, who has obviously never read an op-ed by Roxane Gay, subsequently announced that it was a big mistake.

The Times issued a statement saying the essay fell short of the newspaper’s standards.

What that means isn’t clear. They claimed it was “rushed,” which is pretty much how op-eds work, but there were no typos. A wag might question what “standards” they’re referring to, but it’s not as if this statement were issued by the newspaper of record where they used words that minimally explained what they hell they mean, so they can be forgiven their trespasses. Well, this one, anyway. Continue reading →

Decisions made in the heat of passion aren’t always the best decisions. Some might even say they are usually the worst decisions, as there is a bone in our head that precludes thought when passions run high. While passion has generally become a social driver over the past few years, it’s overwhelmed many in the past ten days. And when I predicted that “Defund Police” will gain no traction, I may have been wrong because the idea is idiotic. I failed to take into account passion.

The Los Angeles city council has introduced a bill to reduce police funding by $150 million. Continue reading →

The junior Senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, has an op-ed in the New York Times defending the use of force to quell protests, riots and looting. If only we could listen in on James Bennett’s discussing the decision to publish it.

JB: You’re not going to believe this, but Tom Cotton actually sent us an op-ed to defend Trump!
Random Editorial Board Person: Holy shit! Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!!!
JB: This will make their heads explode! We’ll get a gazillion hits. Ad revs will go through the roof!
Random Editorial Board Person: Holy shit! Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!!!
JB: Of course, our readers will be outraged and blame us for giving this asshole a platform, but who cares? Love or hate, they’ll read, and we can pretend we’re being fair to all points of view! That will shut Trump up with his whining.
Random Editorial Board Person: Holy shit! Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!!!

Continue reading →

Black lives matter. It’s a subset of all lives matter, but it’s worthy of being separated from the greater statement because of two things.

1. Police shoot and kill black men in significant disproportion to their percentage of the population.
2. Police shoot and kill innocent/unarmed black men in significant disproportion to their percentage of the population.

These are separate things, and separate problems. But as too often happens, most people fail to appreciate the nature of the problems and conflate them with a simplistic myth that’s not at all accurate. This has been made clear in the belief that prisons are full of only black and Hispanic men, while white guys walk free. Again, the problem is disproportion, not that white men aren’t arrested, convicted and imprisoned. They are, just not nearly as disproportionately as black men. Continue reading →

Following the complaint charging former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin with a dubious count of murder in the third degree, the state attorney general, Keith Ellison assumed control of the prosecution and a new complaint issued increasing the top count to Murder 2.

Why this was done is curious on two levels. The only difference in the net result upon conviction would be an increase the maximum sentence from 25 years to 40 years, which would seem to conflict with the cries to reform sentences and reduce mass incarceration. But more to the point, the primary distinction seems to be symbolic, that second degree murder feels more serious than third, and that would come closer to sating the demand for blood. Continue reading →