I continue to be appalled at the number of columnists who are justifying the riots and looting going on in Baltimore. The issues of poverty and injustice should not be conjoined with crime and vandalism. They are not meeting their burden of proof. They are assuming that the protesters and the rioters are the same people. As I pointed out yesterday there is evidence that they are different if not distinct groups. Those justifying the rioters need to produce evidence that they’re one and the same.
Keep in mind that even given the assumptions of those justifying violence, the rioters and looters are in rebellion against the democratically elected and duly constituted authorities in Baltimore. If the salt shall lose its savor, with what shall it be salted? What do they want instead of democracy? Autocracy? Is that something that should be justified for any reason whatever?
President Obama erred when he laid the problem at the feet of all of us. The cities have been petri dishes for Democratic Party government for most of the last 80 years. Democrats need a change of heart. They should stop justifying their own politicians on the fallacious grounds that two wrongs make a right. They need to do better. They need to do something different.
When I first read about the demonstrations, I had to look into which of the recent police-related deaths was Gray’s. I was a bit surprised that the man died only a couple of days earlier, and within a few days people were demanding to know answers to questions that will take months. I had thought about asking Joyner how long it took for his wife’s autopsy report to be completed, since I knew he had complained about the length of time while waiting, but I thought it impolite. People appear glad that the feds will conduct their own investigation, but they will presumably slow down the state investigation and won’t be concluded for six months or a year.
So we have a rush to judgment, with pundits using imprecise language to describe their understanding of spinal cord injuries. Coates complaining that those calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer the question “Why is Freddie Gray dead?” Of course not, the experts are still studying that question. Burden-shifting.
BTW/ If a pundit justifies violent crime and vandalism and theft and arson happening in Baltimore as a justified war response, but doesn’t throw any bricks at a police-officer himself, is the pundit a chicken hawk?
The crowds are chanting for justice but I’m receiving the impression that they’re looking for summary justice, i.e. vengeance.
PD, the story had been known for several days before he died, so they had more time to ramp up than just two days.
At the very least an agitator and a wrecker.
Good time to quote from Lincoln’s Lyceum Speech:
“Whenever . . . the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last.”
This is in reference to a St. Louis lynch mob that burned a Negro alive who had killed a constable.
“Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.”
How much poverty and neglect from elected officials is needed to justify rioting & looting? I’ve got some bricks handy, and some targets in mind, and I’d like to know if I can use them.
Ellipses: I was more thinking about the timeframe when a real investigation into cause of death could occur in order to set expectations of when results will be known. But some of the investigation started before that.
PD, things that looked wrong had happened, and that’s enough to start protesting, especially in today’s climate.
My own opinion is that the police have already admitted that they screwed up two key bits: not properly restraining Gray in the police van; and not getting him medical attention promptly enough. I’m willing to change my mind if facts warrant, but that last bit seems to point to negligent homicide.
Counter to that, we’ve now heard that Gray had apparently had an injury/surgery just a couple of weeks before the arrest, there are unsubstantiated reports of another prisoner stating that Gray was thrashing around in the van in what the other prisoner thought was an attempt to injure himself, and that, once again, we have a black suspect who gets hurt/killed by the police AFTER he decides to flee/resist arrest.
“The Talk” ought to be something along the lines of, “Don’t run from the cops, or fight the cops, or do anything to scare the cops.” Which is pretty much how I approach encounters with the cops myself.
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And I still want to know when I can riot.
Ellipses: I’d hate to opine on the pieces of information, some of which may not turn out to be true by the time I write this, but I think some of the issues are going to be:
Causation — Did the police do something wrong that caused his death? It could possibly be true that he received a fatal injury during the initial chase or arrest and it would not have mattered if they had got him medical treatment fifteen minutes earlier. Or for that matter, I wonder if the other detainee in the van was not restrained properly either?
Eggshell plaintiff — Usually a wrongdoer is responsible for the consequences of his actions, even if the victim had unknown vulnerabilities that made the injury much more severe than could have been anticipated. But police are justified to use force in making an arrest, and the standards is usually not to use excessive force. I don’t think their force will be deemed excessive (i.e., wrongful) if the victim had special spinal issues.
Andrew Branca has some interesting speculation that the injury occurred in two stages:
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/04/what-do-we-really-know-about-why-freddie-gray-died/
The above link includes the criminal complaint which is that he was caught selling an illegal knife. So he may have been running for a reason or the cops thought they had a drug transaction.
The van sounds like a “paddy wagon”. Thirty years ago, it had two benches in the back facing each other, and there were no seat belts. If you were acting like an ass, you got tossed in. Otherwise, you would get guided in.
The “switchblade” sounds suspicious. (A lockblade with a thumbhole is just as fast, and would make more sense.) Who the hell carries an illegal knife to commit a crime? He would have been carrying an illegal gun, or he was the dumbest criminal in the city. It was either a drop weapon, or something else is up with it.
If he just started running from the police, they would have chased him down. Whatever caused him to run they did not find out, and the weapons charge was bullshit. He either pissed them off, or they were looking for something else.
Depending upon how corrupt the Baltimore Police Department is, there are several possibilities, but something about the arrest does not smell right.
@Tastybits, the van has a partition down the middle, creating two separate holding cells, so it’s not as roomy. The video shows him being guided into one of the cells, not tossed, but the cops clearly know they are being filmed at this point.
I think the significance of the detainee in the other cell allegedly saying that Gray was thrashing around trying to hurt himself is not that it is true. (How would he know? All he can do is hear noises) It’s that the second detainee cannot think of any other reason that Gray would be thrashing around, such as a rough ride.
I hate to lock onto a narrative, but it seems like the important events occurred prior to the arrest, when we don’t have film. Did Gray injure himself while running? Did the police seriously injure him when they stopped him, and cuffed him? Did they know how seriously he had been injured? That he would be unconscious and dying within less than an hour?
The switchblade stuff seems suspect. It’s a violation of the municipal ordinance to have a switchblade, but the narrative in the complaint says that Gray “did unlawfully carry, possess, and sell” a switchblade. Selling a switchblade would imply Gray no longer possessed it, and that the police either observed a transaction taking place or otherwise obtained testimony from a participant to the transaction. Most of what has come out simply says that eye contact was made and Gray ran.
I’ll go back to telling people not to jump to conclusions: “Sources said the medical examiner found Gray’s catastrophic injury was caused when he slammed into the back of the police transport van, apparently breaking his neck; a head injury he sustained matches a bolt in the back of the van.”
Do you think that’s going to satisfy the demonstrators, PD, let alone the rioters?
No, the issue of a “rough ride” was an early complaint/theory. But really, we are captive to our initial impressions. We have large holes in stories and our brains naturally begin to fill them so we can make sense of the disparate data. I think it’s a self-defense mechanism; we need to understand danger for our own well-being, and we get stuck with black teen with baggie trousers is dangerous for some and police officer with wooden stick is dangerous for others, or both. I’ve not completely alienated my thinking from the continuing significance of an earlier injury, but this is probably my own cognitive bias derived from trying hard to fill the holes with incomplete information. I am not entirely willing to let go.
Anybody with basic cable can order 100 assorted knives from the Knife infomercial on the History Channel every morning for $99.99 + shipping, and they have cheaper deals.
Is Baltimore having a rash of drive-by knife attacks? Are robbers and carjackers using knives? Have the gangs swapped out the guns for knives?
If the van had seatbelts, was the procedure to use them, and if so, why were they not used? It looks like they might have been using the van to rough him up.
I do not know what happened, but for a large city police force, I do know what does not make any sense. Illegal knife charges might be a big deal in the suburbs or a podunk town, but in places with real crimes, nobody has time for piddly assed shit. You take his knife and send him on his way.
Like I said, it smells.
I thought the police have already admitted to
(a) not properly restraining gray upon putting him in the van;
(b) not seeking medical attention for Gray in a timely fashion.
The two add up to negligence, don’t they?
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Maybe it’s because I live in the South, PD, but I can’t imagine the knife charges amounting to anything anywhere. When I was a boy I was kind of an oddball because I DIDN’T carry a pocket knife. (Still don’t, for the most part.)