[RD] George Floyd and protesting while black

[Bugfatty300]

This isn't very fair, because one is just in your head and the other is a material reality.

On the other hand, it's completely fair because whether or not "the criminal forced my hand" is determined entirely in your head and no amount of physical evidence, including body cameras, audio testimony, material circumstances, etc. are admissible as evidence. See exhibit A, the murder of Daniel Shaver.

Also self-defense cases are also backed politically and financially and there is deeply ingrained interests in legitimizing vigilante lynchings, especially of black people.

Although I think Shaver case is more of a case of a cop being acquitted by their own team. Only a worthless baconback could get a away scot-free with bags of cash after the humiliation, torture and summary execution of Daniel Shaver.

IMO all sworn law enforcement officers should be subjected to a separate legal system that resembles harsher military courts staffed by prosecutors who's life goal/passion/sexual fetish is to put rotten cops in a prison cells. After all they want to be big bad soldiers don't they? Then I think they should say adios their civilian legal rights when they put on a badge and gun.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Moderator Action: Hey everybody! Remember the Transphobia thread? Remember how it got shut down? Would you like that to happen to this thread? No? Then stop talking about each other and discuss the topic.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's a really interesting thing how our instincts modify our sense of justice. We all have thresholds of violence and damage during a protest/riot that is just seen an 'unacceptable' and not collateral. With the BLM riots, that line was crossed for me with the killing of David Dorn (77), and I don't think anyone is going to write any words defending his killer as 'righteously angry'. BUT, again, our instincts are interesting. Buncha looters and vandals, and some people are angry (other people understand). Even with that understanding, we all acknowledge that the majority of the brunt was carried by people we basically think of as 'innocent'.

There's a spread of indignation regarding the collateral damage from the BLM protests, and we all duitifully sort into that spread according to our biases.

But the, look at this protest

Spoiler Protest :

There's definitely a theme here, you'll admit.

Now look at the damage from that protest

Spoiler Damage from protest :

Now, that protest caused this damage just as clearly as any cause-and-effect that you can manage. But the outrage isn't the same. Part of that lack of outrage is maybe racism, but some of it is this weird instinct where 'intentional' damage is more morally outrageous than 'accidental-but-you-should-have-known' damage. I can point at deaths in that second scenario.

Now, I've posted a few times that the BLM movement isn't really about black lives. It's more about anger at oppression. It's a different set of instincts. It evokes different styles of outrage.

 

[Takhisis]

'accidental-but-you-should-have-known'

Reckless conduct?
Negligence?
Dereliction of duty of care?

 

[Crezth]

I’ve come out critical in this thread of the CHAZ before but I want to reiterate that this was a white hijacking of a black movement that marginalized black interests and promoted only the fatuous indulgence of white anarchists.

Discussing the killings that happened in the context of a police-free zone and comparing that with the police in general is misguided. It’s not about police or no police, it’s about white supremacy and white violence against black folks. They murdered two unarmed black teens for having a joyride and then tried to cover it up and pretend the teens started shooting.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...led-a-teenager-and-led-to-the-areas-shutdown/

So the question is why do white cops and self-appointed white anarchists both kill black folks and lie about it? White supremacy.

The worst part is watching these white anarchists cheer about it:

https://twitter.com/wittlett/status/1281108276894224384?s=21

This is why black organizers should not allow white particularists to dictate the terms of protest and peaceful resistance. Autonomy is no inoculation against white communities reproducing white supremacy.

 

[Seon]

It’s why the well-organized protest movement in New York holds black and white vote separately to ensure that black voice is always being heard without being drowned out.

Luckily they vote more or less the same way as it turns out with regards to the protests.

 

[innonimatu]

Discussing the killings that happened in the context of a police-free zone and comparing that with the police in general is misguided. It’s not about police or no police, it’s about white supremacy and white violence against black folks. They murdered two unarmed black teens for having a joyride and then tried to cover it up and pretend the teens started shooting.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...led-a-teenager-and-led-to-the-areas-shutdown/

So the question is why do white cops and self-appointed white anarchists both kill black folks and lie about it? White supremacy.

This wasn't "white supremacy", it was "power corrupts". And it corrupts more easily when the people involved in this stuff don't think ahead of acting. When they act according to the latest soundbites. One of which is the alleged fight against "white supremacy".

Idiocy supremacy, that's more like it.

 

[gay_Aleks]

The gymnastics one will go through to deny the existence of the most obvious things in the world never cease to amaze.

 

[Crezth]

This wasn't "white supremacy", it was "power corrupts". And it corrupts more easily when the people involved in this stuff don't think ahead of acting. When they act according to the latest soundbites. One of which is the alleged fight against "white supremacy".

Idiocy supremacy, that's more like it.

You really just blamed white anarchists killing black children on black liberation.

 

[Berzerker]

Burden of proof is not on me to prove that a murderer’s act to murder someone else was an unjustifiable act.

That burden is on the state... the state represents you, me, 'the people' vs alleged murderer

material circumstance is clear. Somebody acted in a harmful way to cause the death of another. We can tell from forensics and witness testimony that a specific someone is guilty of this crime. Self defense is a request for clemency in spite of these litany of evidence against the murderer. Burden of proof is on the defense, as otherwise, material evidence demands punishment.

Clemency asks for forgiveness, mercy, or leniency. If its self defense it aint murder. Now when someone does kill in self defense they'll want the jury to know that, but they dont have to do anything if the state cant prove it's case. I think it was Gerry Spence who defended the guy at Ruby Ridge without even calling one witness for the defense. All he did was ask the government's witnesses questions and destroyed the state's case.

in addition i note that you are now saying that the cops should not even be brought to trial unless we somehow prove that the cops were in the wrong to commit murder.

I said if you have no evidence of murder they shouldn't be charged.

 

[Seon]

Witness testimonies claim the police shot the man many many times. I don’t know what that is if not evidence of murder.

 

[El_Machinae]

Seriously, this is just a question of common law in your jurisdiction. If it's an affirmative defense in your region, there's stuff written about what that means.
Maybe this will help
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_defense

 

[Seon]

I don’t know a single jurisdiction where self defense isn’t an affirmative defense. It just doesn’t work that way.

Affirmative defense necessarily involves conceding that prosecution can prove beyond reasonable doubt all the elements of the crime. It’s simply declaring that the crime in question was a justified act. If the defense can then prove their case to meet the state’s evidentiary standards, usually far far far lower than the prosecutors’, jury is told they must acquit.

What you are saying is that someone who’s been filmed shooting a person, with witness testimonies attesting to this fact, and with forensic evidence surely linking the bullet that killed a person to the gun in the shooter’s possession, shouldn’t be brought to trial if he claims self-defense. This is simply ridiculous and not how the law works anywhere in the world.

 

[Berzerker]

Witness testimonies claim the police shot the man many many times. I don’t know what that is if not evidence of murder.

Did a witness claim the cops were unprovoked?

 

[Seon]

The state does not need to prove that, only that he did. That’s how adversarial court system works.

 

[Takhisis]

Oh, come on, the situation is clearly this:

 

[El_Machinae]

I don’t know a single jurisdiction where self defense isn’t an affirmative defense. It just doesn’t work that way.

I was hoping for a magical world where someone clicked a link instead of just repeating their latent preconceived notion.

 

[Commodore]

Witness testimonies claim the police shot the man many many times. I don’t know what that is if not evidence of murder.

How many times a person is shot is no indicator of whether or not the crime of murder was committed. Any line of work that has the possibility of using lethal force against another person will train their people to keep shooting until the threat is gone. And that is defined as the threat lying motionless on the ground.

The breakdown in communication on all of this seems to be your conflation of the act of killing and the crime of murder. Just because you have killed someone does not mean you have committed murder. At least not in the legal sense.

 

[El_Machinae]

The breakdown in communication is because Seon is describing how the evidentiary burden shifts to the defense if you try to claim self-defense. The State is no longer proving it's murder. The Defendant is trying to climb a (very small) evidentiary hurdle to show that it wasn't.

If you're not looking at it as a step-wise process, but merely as a probability cloud of outcomes, it's not murder unless the State wins the case. That's true.

 

[Seon]

You would not be guilty of murder if you successfully raise the defense that it was self-defense. You are correct that simply because evidence of murder exists that a person would not necessarily be convicted of murder. This is why we have trials, to determine whether someone is innocent or guilty.

A body and witness testimony linking killing with a killer is a strong evidence for murder, no matter how you try to massage this point.