ELEMENTS OF THE WHOLE TRUTH: What the NewsHour offered last night!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2020

Storyline all the way down:
As a matter of policy, could Officers Brosnan and Rolfe have exercised discretion that night?

Instead of attempting to arrest the late Rayshard Brooks, could they have issued a summons and driven him home, while impounding his car? Under the "protocols" of the Atlanta Police Department, would they have been allowed to do that?

We've been asking that question because it quickly became part of the discussion of this latest police shooting. More specifically, many people—in comment threads and on TV—began asserting that the offices could, and should, have done so.

Also, that the officers would have exercised such discretion had Brooks belonged to a different "race."

For the record, that's the way we'd like to see many more matters handled. We'd prefer to see fewer arrests, or at least fewer instant arrests—although we do understand that Mothers Against Drink Driving spent decades persuading pundits to stop treating DUIs as a "minor offense."

In theory, a DUI is a serious offense. That widely accepted judgment has quickly given way in the face of this latest incident, which has carried its own mandated claims.

That said, rational discourse tends to fly in the face of such terrible incidents. (To the extent that such discourse ever existed at all.) Just consider what happened last night on the PBS NewsHour, the brightest show in all the land.

Judy Woodruff discussed this matter with a pair of guests. Her first question went to Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown Law School and an MSNBC legal analyst.

Woodruff seemed to want to know if an arrest had been required. The first exchange went like this:
WOODRUFF (6/16/20): Hello to both of you. Thank you so much for being here...

And my question to you is, could this have been headed off from the very beginning? Did the police, coming across a man sitting in his car who had fallen asleep, did they end up—did they have to arrest him?

Paul Butler, I'm going to come to you first.

BUTLER: So, Judy, we see the first 25 minutes of the encounter is civil. At first, the officer who responds says, why don't you just take your car from the driveway to the parking lot and sleep it off? That's effective policing.

But later, when the officer who ends up killing Mr. Brooks shows up, Mr. Brooks says, if you're concerned about my driving, my sister lives two blocks away. I can just walk to her house and leave the car there.

That also is effective policing. The cops don't have to arrest everyone.
Public safety is about keeping people safe. But too often, especially with African-American suspects, the resort is always to arrest. And, sometimes, it leads to these tragic consequences.
For the record, the picture Butler painted may have been somewhat unclear. It would have been good policing, he said, had Brooks been allowed to "just walk to [his sister's] house and leave the car there."

Presumably, that meant that Brooks should have been allowed to walk to the sister's house, with the car being left on the Wendy's parking lot. Extemporaneous speech is often jumbled, but this point was somewhat unclear.

It's clear, however, that Butler thought that's what the two officers should, and could, have done. He also quickly suggested that they would have done that had Brooks been "white"—that their decision to make an arrest was based on Brooks' perceived "race."

Meanwhile, a basic factual question:

Did Brooks really have a sister who lived two blocks away? Although the statement is often repeated, we've seen no one ask or answer that question. Almost surely, we never will.

The most obvious questions don't always occur to our upper-end journalists. But when Woodruff turned to her other guest, a very strange thing occurred.

Woodruff's second guest was David Thomas, a retired police officer and a professor of criminal science at Florida Gulf Coast University. Amazingly, Thomas was disinclined to agree with Butler!

Woodruf's second guest thought her first guest was wrong! This created a dynamic you will virtually never see on pro-liberal corporate cable:
WOODRUFF (continuing directly): David Thomas, let me ask you about that moment when police made the decision not to just let it go, that, instead, they decide—they did give him a test of whether he had been driving under the influence, and then made the decision to arrest him.

Did they have a choice to say, "You can go?"

THOMAS: The problem with making that choice or having that choice, or using discretion, what actually happens in that process is, if I let him go, there's nothing to keep him from returning to that vehicle and driving it.

And he's impaired.
So, because of that, the police do nothing, and if he kills somebody, then the police are going to be held liable for that. So, it's a double-edged sword.

In most instances, I have seen this happen, where people—officers have done this, and the person comes back, takes the car, and they drive off that. And so then that leads into a chase. And it's a mess.

So, the reality is, I think that, as much as I would like to say, "Don't make the arrest," I don't think you have much of a choice, because the officers are responsible.
Thomas disagreed with Butler! Under current arrangements, you will never see such a thing on pseudo-progressive "cable news," where bookings are almost always done to ensure total agreement with prevailing scripts.

Woodruff had a difference of opinion on her hands! When she gave Butler a chance to respond, she received a peculiar response:
WOODRUFF (continuing directly): Paul Butler, what about that, that the officers were faced with a decision about what to do about what they found there?

BUTLER: The reality is, police officers always exercise discretion.

Most cops will tell you they certainly don't arrest everybody who they have probable cause to arrest. So, it's about commonsense judgment. The officer could have said, "If I see you in this car, I'm going to lock you up."

But, again, Mr. Brooks said, all I have to do is walk two blocks away. We know from the evidence that police officers exercise their discretion not to arrest all the time, and white people are—disproportionately get the benefit of those decisions not to arrest. African-American people and Hispanic people disproportionately get locked up.
Butler's non-response response strikes us as little short of astonishing, except as a classic example of the way modern discourse works.

Thomas had raised a blindingly obvious point. If the officers had decided to let Brooks walk away, he could have returned to the Wendy's lot, driven away while still impaired and proceeded to kill someone.

According to Butler, the officers should have warned Brooks that he'd get arrested if they saw him back in his car. Butler then returned to an approved messaging point, in which he implied that the officers' decision to make an arrest had been based on Brooks' race.

Except for those who love storyline, Butler's response strikes us as astounding. They should have given Brooks a warning. They should have assumed that this would keep him from driving his car away!

That prescription makes zero sense. That said, Butler's comments often strike us that way on corporate cable, where no one is expected to make any sense, just so long as what they say adheres to approved storylines.

Here at this site, we know nothing about criminal law or about policing. But starting Monday, even we understood an obvious point—presumably, Brooks' car would have to be impounded if no arrest was made.

This thought didn't seem to occur to the Georgetown law professor! Meanwhile, though Woodruff never seemed to notice—upper end moderators rarely do—neither Butler nor Thomas seemed to have answered her question.

Woodruff had asked if the officers could have made the choice to release Brooks without arrest. Both guests seemed to assume that they could have made that decision under department protocols, but no one was ever directly asked.

Under department protocols, could the officer have released Brooks? Or did department protocols require a DUI arrest?

On Monday night, William Bratton seemed to say that Atlanta protocols required an arrest. We have no idea if that is true—and most likely, we never will.

As we've been noting for twenty-two years at this site, this is the way the discourse works at the upper ends of our establishment press corps. To our mind, Butler's presentation made astoundingly little sense—except in the all-important way he kept Returning to Narrative.

In the NewsHour's next segment, John Yang interviewed Andrea Ritchie, "a researcher at Barnard College and an attorney representing people involved in police violence." No other guest was interviewed. Viewers would hear what Ritchie said, and they'd hear nothing else.

Barring possible pushback from Yang, no one would offer additional aspects of what might be called "the whole truth." Viewers would hear Ritchie's perspective and they'd hear nothing else.

In this segment, the topic was the shooting death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville back in March. Taylor, a wholly innocent person, lost her life during a multiply-bungled, middle of the night "no-knock" police raid.

For reasons we'll detail by the end of the week, this was one of the worst interviews ever performed on TV. With respect to storyline, suffice to say that the first exchange went like this:
YANG (6/16/20): Earlier in the show, just before this segment, we heard a discussion about Rayshard Brooks' case in Atlanta. This happened on Friday. Already, that officer has been fired. There's talk of criminal charges against him.

Breonna Taylor was killed three months ago. The officers are still on the force. They're on this administrative reassignment. And as far as we know publicly, the investigation has had very little movement, very little public movement. What do you make of that difference?

RITCHIE: I definitely think that it has to do with how we see and understand state violence and who it impacts and how it's impacted.

I think it also has to do with the jurisdiction. It's long past time for those officers to be fired. And it's long past time for her family to receive the reparations and healing that they're owed and deserved.

I think part of it is about how we understand state violence. I think our understanding of state violence is shaped by the experiences of black men like Rayshard, who are perceived to be the sort of quintessential targets from the time of lynching to the time of the present, and that the experiences of women, of gender-based violence, are kind of shaped by our understanding of white women experiencing domestic violence in the home.

And, as a result, black women who experience both state and violence in the home are left out of both narratives, and we literally don't see them, even when the violence is happening to them in front of us...
Why hadn't the officers in Louisville been charged? Imaginably, Yang's question was geared to trigger a certain prevailing narrative. As it turned out, Ritchie was ready to serve.

Before the interview was done, Ritchie had possibly given viewers a certain impression. She had possibly given the impression that no one is killed in no-knock raids except an array of black women. Below, you see Yang's second question and Ritchie's response:
YANG: Louisville has banned—in reaction to this, banned no-knock warrants. They called it Breonna's Law. How effective do you think that will be?

RITCHIE: I think it's good that we're stepping back to look at how those police officers came to be at her door and looking to interrupt one of the mechanisms that has resulted in her death and also in the death of—I can name five other black women killed by no-knock warrants, Tarika Wilson, Kathryn Johnston, Alberta Spruill, Aiyana Stanley-Jones.

So, there's many—this is not the first time. And so I think that stopping no-knock warrants is important, and that we need to recognize that increasing the time that folks have to respond to 15 or 30 seconds or a minute, imagine someone backing on your door in the middle of the night. That's not enough time to understand what's going on either.

So, we need to maybe step further back and ask ourselves, why are people showing up at—police officers, armed police officers, showing up on people's doors to serve no-knock or short-knock warrants?

And I think then we need to look at the war on drugs, which is where those warrants came from and what brought those officers to Breonna's door that night. And we need to rethink our approach to that in a way that we are taking an approach to saving lives not, taking them, in this way, as Breonna Taylor's was taken.
We also think it'a a good idea that no-knock raids are being questioned. That said, we were struck by Ritchie's list of previous victims, and of the pleasing misimpression this interview might have conveyed.

Why haven't the Louisville officers been fired? Because they were sent to perform a no-knock raid based on a legal warrant, and because Taylor's boyfriend (understandably) fired at them when they entered the apartment, it isn't entirely clear that these officers did something wrong.

These small aspects of the whole truth were never voiced last night, though Ritchie mentioned historical lynchings a few strides out of the gate.

When she was rather fuzzily asked whether she thinks "Breonna's Law" will be effective, she didn't attempt to answer the question. Quickly, though, she listed other victims of no-knock raids, all of whom were black women.

This is messaging all the way down. This is messaging in the absence of the simple, elementary facts which help constitute "the whole truth." It's also abysmal work by the lofty NewsHour, a TV show which has long been branded as the brightest such show in the land.

We'll have more on no-knock raids in Friday's report. By then, we'll have returned to what Jelani Cobb somewhat surprisingly said:
"One other point that I have been making a lot, I have been making all the time, is that... people have the perception that this is a black and brown problem."
That's what Cobb said last Wednesday night. Could last night's NewsHour help us see where people might get that perception?

For better or worse, this is the way our discourse has worked at its highest level for a very long time. This brings us to something we decided to check while reading a somewhat novelized essay in The Atlantic.

The essay was written by Wesley Lowery, though he himself called it a "story." Recently, Lowery said the "core value" of our news orgs needs to be "the truth."

Tomorrow: Lowery in Minnesota

59 comments:

  1. "Did Brooks really have a sister who lived two blocks away?"

    Dear Bob, the 27 y.o. Saint Rayshard Brooks had managed, in the course of his short life, to get himself arrested for:

    obstructing an officer, family battery violence, possessing weapons during a crime, receiving stolen property, felony cruelty to children, interfering with custody, false imprisonment, snatching his children without permission from the mother, and battery.

    I don't see how the officers, if they checked his record prior to the incident (by checking the plates, for example), would believe anything he said.

    In all likelihood Saint Rayshard was a lowlife, and quite dangerous. And in all likelihood the officers knew it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All Lives Matter.

      Delete
    2. I assumed you looked up Brook's record or read it some where. I guess you could blame Bob for not knowing that. On the other hand you left out as to whether there were trials. Did he serve time. I am by no means an attorney but generally speaking you can't use a defendants past history of arrests. As for letting Brooks go. True we do not know if he had a sister. The cops or Brooks could have called the sister. The cops could have kept the keys and have Brooks come back for the keys in the morning. I would say the police did a pretty bad job of it which which led to Brooks being shot. One other thing we don't know is if Brooks took the keys with him. If the keys were in the car, they could have taken the keys.

      Delete
    3. Actually, the webpage I copied it from ( https://www.yc.news/2020/06/15/rayshard-brooks-own-family-accused-him-of-cruelty-to-children-family-battery-beatings/ ) says "Brooks was convicted of several crimes — including", and then the list I copied.

      Every entry on the list on the webpage is a link to what looks like a court record.

      I clicked a few of them, they look legit. But I thought I'd still call them "arrests" not "convictions", just to be on the safe side, y'know.

      If you care to investigate further, go ahead.

      Delete
    4. Oh, here's a new one on that site:
      https://www.yc.news/2020/06/17/atlanta-cop-who-shot-rayshard-brooks-to-stand-atrial-charged-with-wendys-shooting-death/

      with more details:
      Your Content readers were first to know that charges to which Brooks pleaded guilty and for which he was still on probation dated back to August 2014 when he was convicted on four counts – False Imprisonment, Simple Battery/Family, Battery Simple and Felony Cruelty/Cruelty to Children.

      He was tried in Clayton County and sentenced to seven years on the first count, with one year in prison and six on probation and 12 months for each of the other three counts, sentences to be served concurrently.

      His sentence was revised, and he was sent back to prison for 12 months in July 2016 when he violated the terms of his probation.

      Delete
    5. Brooks is so controversial.
      I love him because he told it like it was.

      Delete
  2. It would have taken less than three seconds for the fleeing violent criminal Saint Brooks to turn around, or hide, tase the officer, take his gun and murder him. Or carjack and beat a pregnant woman like Saint George Floyd did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All Lives Matter.

      Delete
    2. 12:20,
      Is that how long it took you?
      Or does Saint Brooks have the almost super-human strength and quickness that the police believe all black people have?

      Delete
    3. Exactly 12:24. The left would like us to focus only on black lives, in this case Brooks, a violent criminal, instead of the officers' lives and the lives of all of those Brooks endangers. Blue lives matter. All lives matter.

      Delete
    4. Blue lives matter no more than Saint Brooks'.
      Don't go all wobbly on us now.

      Delete
    5. A colorful scamp like Brooks had a way more material life than some anodyne cops whose lives are so boring, the news doesn't even mention anything about them.

      Delete
  3. Rashid Brimmage, a career criminal with more than 100 arrests to his name, was busted for cruelly shoving a 92-year-old woman into a Manhattan fire hydrant — leaving his victim too scared to walk alone in her own neighborhood.

    Brimmage, Floyd, and Brooks appear to enjoy victimizing women and children. These are the heroes of the left. They focus their energies on defending them and whitewashing reality. The women and children can rot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Brimmage, Floyd, and Brooks appear to enjoy victimizing women and children."

      Then they should be cops. It's a get out of jail free card.

      Delete
    2. Obviously, in your Liberal Paradise they will be.

      Delete
    3. It's no causing the deaths of over 110,000 Americans by ignoring a viral pandemic, crashing the nation's economy (with over 40 million newly unemployed in less than 4 months), and fomenting a race war by protecting murderous cops, but what these men did is still wrong.

      Delete
    4. Thank God Trump is in office during this pandemic and not a hapless thug protecting Democrat. We would have 2-10 million dead from coronavirus alone and no economic recovery.

      Delete
    5. 2:00,
      More like all 7 trillion of us would be dead, amirite?

      Delete
    6. It twas fomented. The race war. It was fomented and it was fomented good. By evil forces. More evil than you know.

      Delete
  4. Well said. People just think that the Police are just waiting around looking for someone to shoot.
    You know, Policemen would like to go back to their families in one piece.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fortunately for the police, "good guy with a gun" is just a marketing term.

      Delete
  5. Somerby quotes Cobb, but there is an ellipsis:

    “One other point that I have been making a lot, I have been making all the time, is that... people have the perception that this is a black and brown problem."

    Here is Cobb’s full sentence, the part Somerby omitted highlighted:
    “one other point that I have been making a lot, I have been making all the time, is that one of the reasons that this problem has been allowed to persist is that people have the perception that this is a black and brown problem.”

    This is an important aspect of what Cobb is saying. He is saying that, as long as it is seen as primarily a problem affecting black and brown people, nothing will change. This indicates his belief that there is either a lack of concern or an outright bias in our society against black and brown people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Hmm... To me, he's pointing out that as long as it's framed as an ethnocentric crusade, it is perceived as a vacuous drivel of some sickos with persecution complex.

      Delete
    3. Mao,
      Cool.
      It's no wonder no one pays attention to your scribblings.

      Delete
  6. “Could last night's NewsHour help us see where people might get that perception?”

    Somerby described a News Hour segment with Paul Butler and David Thomas. They talked about an issue, and there was civil disagreement.

    That sounds like a discussion, rather than an attempt to create a perception.

    He also mentions former police chief William Bratton, who is more apt to defend the police, who appeared by himself to talk with Brian Williams. Was the lack of a guest with an opposing viewpoint an attempt by Williams to create a perception?

    He also mentions Cobb, who appeared on MSNBC to offer what Somerby considers an important viewpoint. Cobb is an MSNBC political analyst, so he appears fairly often.

    Somerby isn’t making a convincing case here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "That sounds like a discussion"

      Meh. There can be no discussion with dembots and wokies. They are not susceptible to reason. Their skulls are impenetrable.

      I've tried it, many times.

      Sometimes (rarely) one can have brief meaningful exchange with a wokie, but it always, always quickly deteriorates. The wokie flies off the handle and starts replying with a word-salad. No dialogue, no discussion.

      But they are okay for entertainment.

      Delete
    2. You still like bagels, Mao?

      Delete
  7. There was a white person killed in Louisville earlier that week by a no knock raid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What can I tell you other than "shoot cops"?

      Delete
  8. “We'd prefer to see fewer arrests, or at least fewer instant arrests”

    That said, that Taylor guy made some really good points about why Brooks should have been arrested.

    Somerby would prefer fewer arrests in the abstract. But when it comes to specific cases, he can’t be bothered to defend his preference.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey Bob, dear, we here are waiting with great anticipation for John Bolton to be elevated to the status of Thy God.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How could Bolton be They God?
      Thy God is the veterans charity Trump stole from.

      Delete
  10. Why does Somerby automatically assume that Brooks was lying about his sister's house being two blocks away?

    Automatic suspicion is one of the crosses that black and brown people must bear, whereas white people tend to be believed about such things. I am surprised that Somerby wouldn't question his own automatic reaction in this situation. Until more white people do question their automatic reactions, we are going to keep having racist 911 calls made on black people doing innocent things.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He doesn't assume Brooks was lying. He's asking why reporters simply assume Brooks was telling the truth. Reporters used to operate by the maxim, "if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out."

      Delete
    2. Reporters are reporting what Brooks said at the scene. That doesn’t mean they are assuming anything about the truth or falsity of his statement. The question under discussion is what the cops could or should have done after Brooks made that statement.

      Delete
    3. If Brooks is telling the truth, then the cops had a viable option besides arresting him. If Brooks is making up a story to get out of a DUI arrest, then they didn't. Kinda a matter of life and death, as it turns out.

      Delete
    4. @4:40 Automatic suspicion is one of the crosses that people with long rap sheets must bear.

      Delete
    5. deadrat, the cops on the scene could have checked out Brooks’ story. If the sister lived nearby, then that presented them with an option. At this point, it is no longer a matter of life and death whether reporters find out the truth; Brooks is dead. Are you dense?

      Delete
    6. Am I dense? Often. Why do you ask?

      But even I understand that Brooks is dead. If Brooks was telling the truth, then we have confirmation of a viable course of action that the police should have considered. Always useful to know, even if in hindsight.

      Delete
    7. Here is where bias creeps in. Reporters who are eager to show that Brooks was a liar, might track down the sister's house. Somerby urged that approach. Why would a reporter want to prove such a thing? To exonerate the police? To show that black people cannot be trusted? To create the impression that Brooks got what he deserved, being a lying ex-con scumbag?

      This isn't about police learning and hindsight. It is about real-time bias in presentation of what happened to one black man. Demonizing him is part of the ritual when you want to exonerate cops. Somerby engages in this tactic by complaining that the press is trying to whitewash the victim. Even though even the most hardened criminal doesn't deserve to be shot in the back for sleeping in a car or trying to avoid being tasered.

      Delete
    8. Someone keeps claiming that no one reads this blog. I doubt that is true. For one thing, Kevin Drum obviously reads it. I read it -- so that is two of us. This blog has a legacy from the days when Somerby wrote useful and interesting things. Since he has become a bigot, he has been attracting more attention among right-wing readers, attracting Cecelia and Leroy and AC/MA and a whole bunch of nameless people who applaud police killings and write inflammatory liberal-trolling one-liners. We never used to have such readers here when Somerby was a more believable liberal.

      Delete
    9. anon 9:35, so I'm a "right-wing" reader. And here I thought I was a "Dembot." (and Leroy? you seemingly are insane. Cecilia - I think she's a republican, though she seems to be relatively reasonable.) For your info, if ever in my 50 years of voting I ever voted for a Republican, I don't recall it. I give logic and common sense a priority however, something pretty foreign to you (and unfortunately, is more and more the case with certain "liberals).

      Delete
    10. Don't worry, you're still a dembot. Just not one of the scripted, paid bots.

      Or are you? Who the hell knows, these days...

      Delete
    11. Here is where bias creeps in. Reporters who are eager to show that Brooks was a liar….

      Or reporters eager to show that Brooks was telling the truth. Or reporters eager to determine the facts without an eagerness to support either side.

      Why would a reporter want to prove such a thing? To exonerate the police?

      Or to indict them for failing to follow up on a reasonable alternate action.

      To show that black people cannot be trusted?

      Or to show that cops distrust black people even when they’re telling the truth.

      As always, TDH is all about the discussion, including the one on MSNBC about whether the cops even were permitted to do anything but arrest Brooks. And as always, you’re lying about what TDH wrote.

      Delete
    12. Someone keeps claiming that no one reads this blog.

      That’s me. The claim is supposed to be somewhat facetious because the blog has commenters on its content, including me, and we all have to be readers. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know what to comment about.

      You know, it just ruins it for me if I have to explain these things. Could you try being a little less literal minded, just for my sake?

      Kevin Drum obviously reads it.

      Over at Mother Jones Drum has referenced Somerby five times in the last year, but hey! maybe he’s a faithful reader.

      I read it -- so that is two of us.

      You, another Anonymous Ignoramus? No, I’m pretty sure you count as nobody.

      Since he has become a bigot,….

      You mean since you decided to make TDH’s point for him about tribal behavior?

      We never used to have such readers here when Somerby was a more believable liberal.

      I think Mao has been around for about three years, and I don’t remember so many spell casters and Bombay packers and movers from back in the day. But I’m pretty sure there have always been numpties like you.

      Delete
    13. Mao, Thanks for the reassurance that I'm still a Dembot. Good of you to mention, though shouldn't you be cowering in dread over the imminent threat to our national security, about to be caused by the publication of Bolton's sure to be a best-seller epic?

      Delete
    14. Thank you for your concern, dear dembot, but I'm not really into national security.

      As you may have noticed -- or should have noticed? -- we are here to observe, marvel at, and comment on the degradation of your liberal media and liberal establishment in general.

      Delete
  11. If someone is so drunk that they cannot drive and they pull off the road to sleep it off, but they are so drunk they don't realize they are in the drive through lane, aren't they trying to avoid drunk driving and wasn't it a responsible act to be parked and sleeping instead of driving. I do not understand why anyone would assume that a person who has done this is going to start driving again. If they were going to do that, they would have been stopped in progress on the way to their home (or the sister's house two blocks away) and not be sleeping in the car.

    So all of this discussion about what a hazard a drunk driver is, strikes me as moot since this guy was obviously NOT driving at all. He was sleeping. It seems to me that is why these two officers handled the call badly -- they took a peacefully sleeping guy and escalated the situation into one where he might be chased into his car and back onto the road, endangering others.

    I can see giving someone a ticket for blocking the drive through, but he was sleeping and not driving drunk. Depending on laws about sleeping in semi-public (he was on private property of Wendy's), he could perhaps be charged with something, but you cannot arrest someone for drunk driving when they demonstrably are not driving at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So all of this discussion about what a hazard a drunk driver is, strikes me as moot since this guy was obviously NOT driving at all. He was sleeping. … [Y]ou cannot arrest someone for drunk driving when they demonstrably are not driving at all.

      It strikes you as moot since it never struck you as a good idea to check out the law. In most states, you may be lawfully arrested for drunk driving if you are in actual control of your vehicle, even if you’re not driving at the time of the arrest.. Some states (California is one, if I recall) require proof of actual operation on the road, but not Georgia.

      Delete
    2. Did you check this as carefully as you did the charging document for Chauvin before launching into a tirade against Keith Ellison?

      Delete
    3. I made an error in assuming that intent to kill was required in the Chauvin indictment. I was wrong; the indictment only requires intent to inflict great bodily harm. This is the fourth admission I've made about the error in this forum. Please let me know how many more you require.

      Tirade?

      Yes, I checked Georgia law. Did you bother to check to see whether I had?

      Delete
    4. Checking law is no big deal for you if you are a lawyer. There is no special virtue in it. Expecting non-lawyers to "check the law" on a blog strikes me as something you wouldn't want to do, if you were a lawyer, since it might tend to put lawyers out of business.

      To save yourself time, why not just write: "I'm a lawyer and you're not, ha ha ha."

      If you come from California, you might tend to assume that the enlightened laws in effect there might also exist in other states. Foolish assumption. Is it actually the case in Georgia that you can be arrested for walking drunk down the street, because you might be able to get in a car and drive drunk? Could you check Georgia law for me and find out?

      Delete
    5. Is it actually the case in Georgia that you can be arrested for walking drunk down the street, because you might be able to get in a car and drive drunk?

      Probably not for drunk driving, since walking down the street doesn’t constitute actual control of a vehicle or the reasonable assumption that you drove to the place where you’re walking. But I am not a lawyer.

      Could you check Georgia law for me and find out?

      Nope. Could constitute unlicensed practice of law. You’re better off going to Georgia, walking while drunk, and seeing if you can get yourself arrested.

      And when I say “you’re better off,” I mean that I’m better off.

      Delete
  12. Van Jones on CNN: "In other words, we do not know why the Atlanta police officer chose to shoot a man who was running away from him. But we can guess why that man chose to run, in the first place. Brooks didn't want to lose his liberty."

    They don't even try. The fact that the man fired a taser at the police officer might be a reason why the police fired his gun? Otherwise, Van Jones informs us the victim ran away because he was on probation and would have gone back to prison, a good point.

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is a horrifying video. it shows how bad things can get in a matter of seconds. The police might use this sort of video for training purposes.

    Warning- this is grim.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mcall.com/news/police/mc-nws-route-33-state-police-trooper-shooting-video-released-20180706-story.html%3foutputType=amp

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We all know this tune.
      Sing it along with me: "That police officer was no angel."
      Ahhh. The sweet sweet sound.

      Delete
  14. EFFECTIVE LOVE SPELL TO GET EX HUSBAND/BOYFRIEND OR EX WIFE/GIRLFRIEND AND CURE HERPES AND INFERTILITY THAT WORKS WITHIN 24 HOURS.

     Contact Dr. Odunga at odungaspelltemple@gmail.com OR Whats App/CALL +2348167159012

    I got my ex husband back to me and also got fertile and gave birth to twin girls after 12 years of marriage.
    When I came online last year, I saw a testimony about Doctor ODUNGA and how he has been helping people with marriage issues and I decided to contact him. We spoke on email at odungaspelltemple@gmail.com and later he gave me his WhatsApp number which is +2348167159012. He assured me he would help me get my ex husband back after 3 years of no contact. Doctor Odunga is the best spell caster I must say. My husband called me after 24 hours of contact. The third day, I received natural herbs for fertility and after using it, I became fertile and conceived. I and my husband reconnected, had sex and I was pregnant. Presently I am happy to say I am the mother of twin girls and this is ALL THANKS TO DOCTOR ODUNGA. I came online to say this If you need help, I believe you are saved with this man.  

    Contact his email at odungaspelltemple@gmail.com

     OR Whats App/Call +2348167159012 and you too will give a testimony too to help others

    ReplyDelete
  15. LOTTO, lottery,jackpot.
    Hello all my viewers, I am very happy for sharing this great testimonies,The best thing that has ever happened in my life is how I win the lottery euro million mega jackpot. I am a Woman who believe that one day I will win the lottery. finally my dreams came through when I email believelovespelltemple@gmail.com and tell him I need the lottery numbers. I have spend so much money on ticket just to make sure I win. But I never know that winning was so easy until the day I meant the spell caster online which so many people has talked about that he is very great in casting lottery spell, . so I decide to give it a try.I contacted this great Dr Believe and he did a spell and he gave me the winning lottery numbers. But believe me when the draws were out I was among winners. I win 30,000 million Dollar. Dr Believe truly you are the best, all thanks to you forever


    ReplyDelete