A 13 Year Old Wrote That?

From the Chicago Sun Times

Lets go over the worst of this. While yours truly has made his share of grammar and spelling errors, there are some things that I've never done. If this is indicative of the education that Malik is getting, there is something very wrong. 1)" Ask you sum": Ask you what? "Sum" What is "sum" where did that come from? Note to Malik AND his parent. How about less time on twitter and cell phones with the horrendous "English" used there, and more time on properly written books (preferably science)? "sum" may be acceptable for a character constrained place like Twitter, but it has no place whatsoever in a letter other than a direct quote.

2)"Imma": Did he mean "I'm a"? because "imma" is not a word. "imma" is a form of saying "I'm a" with the pause between "I'm" and "a" taken out. Again any literate person knows that "Imma" has no place in formal writing other than a direct quote. 3) "Black African-American": Really? 4) Why is that entire letter one big run on sentence? My GOD!!! I know I've made some poor sentence construction but damn. Does this kid know what a period is? 5) "I am the only boy on my mom's side of the family": And we wonder why... 6) "I just wanna be safe": By the age of 13 one should know a few things:

a) Santa does not exist.

Therefore

b) Santa has nothing to do with your safety.

Now..

I barely can’t even go outside anymore, can’t ride my bike, can’t play ball, can’t go play with my cousins, because you have to watch your back every 30 seconds,” said Malik, who hopes to go to college, play basketball and be drafted, and if not, become a teacher.

“I know the president’s letter isn’t going to like solve the safety reasons out here, and it’s still going to be dangerous, but I’m excited the president of the United States wrote to me, and I can’t wait to show it off.”

College? Not writing like that. Basketball and drafted: Long odds. Hit the books young man. Become a teacher: Not with writing like that. We gotta do better. Gotta do better.

Proper Horse - Cart Orientation

So just now I was watching the news when this guy, didn't note his name, said that the "police need the community to do their jobs". I beg to differ.

Why do the police exist? In a completely perfect world, they exist to act as a deterrent from crime. Failing that, because some people are undeterred by the presence of people licensed to kill, They are there to apprehend those who have committed a crime, preferably alive.

Why do they do that? Because "the community" wants / needs to be safe so that they can live their lives. Police are a part of the larger social contract that allows every day people to not have to learn how to shoot or other forms of self-community defense and can spend their time doing other things.

In other words police exist in order to secure a community. It is the community that needs the police doing their jobs. NOt the police that needs a particular community. If a particular community decides that it is going to harbor and defend those who engage in criminal activity, then the police have no job to do there.

If you don't believe that then let the police exit those places where the residents claim they are "occupiers" and see what happens. Hint: It won't be pretty. Think Crack in '85.

The Funny Thing About Dow 18,000

I remember not too long ago (but ancient times in this short term memory diseased culture) when the Dow first went over 14,000. That was under Bush. Folks complained about corporate profits.

I remember when it crossed 10,000 under the nearly finished term of Clinton. Then the tech bubble burst.

So I would advise folks who are crowing about how this proves something about Democrats vs. Republicans to think a bit before speaking.

The Bright But Lazy Kid In The Class

Reading this NYT article on the Russian Lada made me think of stories we all know of the bright kid in the class who, full of great potential, is satisfied with just doing the minimum required to get by.

It is clear to anyone who pays attention that Russians are not incapable of doing many things. But looking over this story (among others) it is clear that what the Russians really lack is the motivation. The drive to be as great as they could be.

I think this is what probably bothers NATO and the rest so much. Imagine a Russia with the drive of Chinese (similar government structure).

President Vladimir V. Putin has repeatedly said this month that Western sanctions mean Russia has to go it alone. So resurrecting Avtovaz is a parable for changes needed by all Russian manufacturing. It is not quite “As Avtovaz goes, so goes the nation,” but close.

It may turn out that the sanctions on Russia will be the biggest kick in the arse that it needs to stop being the bright but lazy kid in the class.

Another 9-11 Connection

From a recent article on Counterpunch:

The company’s own web site informs that it has played an important role in the United States’ geopolitical and military strategy in the Middle East:

“Following the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and the subsequent U.S. military actions, DAI was called on to lead a variety of challenging development projects in the midst of the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, a country where we worked as early as 1977. Similarly, after the United States toppled the Iraqi regime in 2003, DAI won a project to help provide legitimate governance in the country. Other assignments in Iraq covered agriculture.”

It is most interesting that DAI would be in Afghanistan in 1977, way before the Soviet invasion, just when the CIA was arming and training an islamic fundamentalist insurgent force to destabilize the country. [my italicized inner quote]

Who later turned into the Taliban, which would later organize itself enough to fly planes into the WTC sparking a war in the Middle East that has thus far included Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. With "pop up" groups in Nigeria, Somalia and Kenya. Not to mention inspired "lone wolf" killers.

As Commander Lock said in the Matrix Revolutions:

You people can't see but 5 minutes in front of your face.

What Were Those Black Frats Doing?

From Jodi Kantor's piece in the NY Times about Stanford's class of 1994

Scott Walker, one of the only African-Americans in the class to try founding a start-up, said in an interview that he regretted spending so much time at his all-black fraternity, which took him away from the white friends from freshman year who went on to found and then invest in technology companies.

Which brings me to the title question:

What were the frat brothers of (name of black frat here) doing where there wasn't enough of them to produce entrepreneurs?

Also isn't it rather stunning that of all the classes of people that he felt were "necessary" to get into technology, it was white people?

Within a few more years, he, Mr. Thiel, Mr. Rabois and others had transformed themselves into a close-knit network of technology entrepreneurs — innovators who created billion-dollar business after billion-dollar business, using the ideas, ethos and group bonds they had honed at The Stanford Review.

So three white people got together, bonded and created billion-dollar businesses, one after the other and supposedly a entire black fraternity could not do the same. Again. what were these guys doing?

Let me lay it out: Back in the 1920s (even before, but for our purposes we will use that time frame), There were two major pushes in black America: Integration in the face of NAACP and Nationalism in the face of the UNIA.

The UNIA failed for various reasons including the total unwillingness of black folks to build business with, among and for themselves (to export to others). And so black America went to the latter in which we get to buy, consume and what-have-you, what other people create, build and sell. The purpose of school for black folk is to get a "good job downtown" rather than to create a job uptown that is better than the job downtown.

The "Billion dollar business" creators of the linked piece had the latter attitude.

Sierra Leone's Only Free Emergency Room

A few things to notice: The technology: Who made it? Who shipped it? The main "actors" Who are they? Where are they from? Last question: Are the people of Sierra Leone independent or dependent?

US and Cuba to Re-establish Diplomatic Relations!

WASHINGTON — The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, American officials said Wednesday.

In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 minutes off the American coast.

Bravo Obama! Long time overdue.

The Smoking Gun Loses Focus

On Dec 15 the Smoking Gun posted a report about one of the Ferguson grand jury witnesses. Witness 40. I dealt with Witness 40 in an earlier post. But apparently the Smoking Gun thinks that Witness 40 was what sunk the indictment. I mean you see how long that piece is? This is what happens when people cling to a narrative so hard that they need to focus on irrelevant stuff in order to convince themselves that they are correct.

Witness 40 is not the witness that sunk the indictment. Dorian Johnson sunk the indictment along with witness 14 and witness 10.

TSG needs to read the undisputed testimony of those persons and put down whatever it is they are smoking.

One More Thing

I know I know....but one last observation about the story

Not a single mention of Asians (far or near east). I wonder why. Surely if everyone is equally acting a fool in school then we should be able to compare the behavior of Asian students. Did anyone look at Asian rates of discipline? If they did, what were they? And if they are so miniscule compared to the population, then does that mean that Asians are being treated way more leniently than everybody else or that their behavior never warrants disciplinary action? And if it is the latter, then what is it that the Asian kids are doing that the other kids are not?

Studying perhaps?

"Subjectively"

Last one from that article:

Compared with black boys, who are disciplined at higher rates than boys of other races and ethnicities, researchers say black girls tend to be penalized more subjectively, like for having a bad attitude or being defiant. [my underline]

Subjective. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Black+girl+school+fights And

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=white+girl+school+fights

Count 'em up and disregard the compilations. These are the ones caught on video and posted to YouTube. haven't even gone to World Star or other sites.

And remember, the research shows that black women/females are the number one instigators of inter-personal violence

But you know, it's always easier to call attention to those who have to deal with the BS than to call attention to those doing the BS.

But Did She Do It?

Culling from the same piece:

Mikia’s case is not unique. At a sparsely attended committee meeting in Henry County where school officials, advocates and elected officials gathered to address discipline methods in the county, a handful of parents of black girls shared their stories. Sakinah White, a single mother of three who is an elementary schoolteacher in nearby Clayton County, said her 17-year-old daughter had been treated unfairly after she was expelled from her high school over an incident in which she was accused of hitting a white male student with a book. Criminal charges were also filed in the juvenile court system, Ms. White said.

“It’s a form of child abuse,” she said.

After a semester-long expulsion, her daughter became suicidal, Ms. White said, and began cutting herself with soda can tops. Ultimately, the criminal charges were dropped, Ms. White said, and the state board of education reversed the expulsion.

Dropped criminal charges doesn't mean the incident didn't happen. As someone has has in fact been hit by a female while in school, at that age, I know it could have happened. We can debate whether or not it was appropriate to have criminal charges brought against the girl, we should NOT overlook whether the incident actually happened. If she did in fact hit the boy with the book, then she should have faced disciplinary proceedings. expulsion may be over top given the public school mandate to educate all students. But I'm bothered by the entire fuss about the consequences rather than why the accusation came up in the first place.

The Company You Keep

In the movie Ip Man 2, there is a scene where Ip Man, one of his students and one of his ex-foes end up in jail over a fight Ip Man's student got into with a student of another school. Ip Man's wife came to bail him out, after getting money from a family friend. Ip Man having been released discreetly asks his wife and friend if they had any money to bail out the student who apparently had no family of his own. Neither of them had the money but the ex-foe begged his wife for the money.

The entire purpose of that scene, as I understand it, was to show the high character of Ip Man. I don't know if it's true but the story demonstrates the point that's going to be made here: If you hang around with people with high character, when you are in trouble, or if they get into trouble with you, they won't leave you hanging. This brings us to the subject of this piece.

it was a surprise for her grandmother when Mikia, 12, and a friend got into trouble for writing graffiti on the walls of a gym bathroom at Dutchtown Middle School in Henry County last year. Even more of a surprise was the penalty after her family disputed the role she was accused of playing in the vandalism and said it could not pay about $100 in restitution. While both students were suspended from school for a few days, Mikia had to face a school disciplinary hearing and, a few weeks later, a visit by a uniformed officer from the local Sheriff’s Department, who served her grandmother with papers accusing Mikia of a trespassing misdemeanor and, potentially, a felony....

Her friend, who is white, was let go after her parents paid restitution. [My underlines]

While the article this quote is lifted from is focusing on the race angle, I'd like to focus on the company this girl kept. Much like the guy who's back was broken when he decided to roll with a set of bikers who assaulted a man in a Land Rover, this girl, and I assume her family, has learned a hard lesson in being mindful of the company she keeps.

If these two girls were friends, then how come the other family didn't offer to help them? Of course the most logical answer here was that the other family was looking out for themselves and their kid. And honestly that's their only real obligation. But it goes to show, when the chips fall off the table, the greedy only think of themselves.

[Black] Male's Not Working

Since folks are concerned about Ferguson, Mo. Check the map provided by the NYT in relation it's article on men not working:

It would seem that the tract including Ferguson has anywhere between 15 and 45% of males between 25-54 not working. That wide spread is due to the reported margin of error of 15%. This is at a minimum 2.7 times the national unemployment rate and a maximum of 9 times the national unemployment rate. Also of interest is the tract 127000:

81% of males 25-54 not employed? I don't know the geography of that location, so that may be a result of it being a retirement location or something that would depress both the population and the work.

Also you'll note that the places with the highest levels of unemployment among men, particularly in urban areas have high black populations. Where yours truly grew up, there is a 41% unemployment rate among males. It is also MOSTLY(as in 90+%) black.

It also may be the case that where Eric Garner was killed by NYPD, has a 41% unemployment rate for males. You'd think a city with areas with that high an unemployment rate would think differently about how it attacks people selling loosies to make money.

Entire Classrooms. Poof! Gone.

I recently rehashed a commentary I made about the staggering loss of life that black on black crime has on the overall population of African-Americans:

I looked at an article on a Boston high school in which the school in question had 1842 students. A 67 person murder rate, over ten years would see 1/3 of the school population disappear. That doesn't include the shooters. If we add the shooters, then over ten years 1340 persons no longer in the population due to being dead or being put in jail for the crime. That would be close to an entire school population gone every 10 years (of course many, if not most murders go unsolved and so the number of shooters do not match the number shot. Also as with other crimes, one person may have killed multiple people. Therefore the math would be off by quite a bit but is still alarming considering that even unfound killers are a drain on the communities they live in). Multiply that by all the mostly black communities spread out across the United States. Every 10 years black folks in America eliminate one school's worth of people in each of their communities.

Now check this article and the associated picture:

Count those crosses. Now read this:

Members of Mount Beulah Missionary Baptist Church placed nearly 140 crosses on the church lawn to honor those killed in the St. Louis area throughout 2014.

Now I cannot say for certain that all of those victims are black. Usually the statistics on homicides are between 80 and 90 percent black victims.

Of the 567 homicides from 2008 to 2011, for which the race of the victim is available in the SLMPD annual reports, 502 are listed as black, while 64 were white. Over that period, 89% of those killed in the city were black. In a city that's very nearly 50/50 black/white, those 64 homicides would give an annual murder rate of ~10/100,000 for white residents and ~78/100,000 black residents.

There were 140 crosses laid out. 80% of 140 is 112. If you have a class of 30 students, then that would be 4 classrooms of black students gone this year.

Four.

Entire.

Classrooms.

Poof. Gone.

Would we think it acceptable if someone rolled up into a school and killed an entire classroom of kids?

Would we think it acceptable if someone rolled up into a school and took out 4 classrooms of kids?

But that is exactly what this murder rate is like.

Who's marching over that? Or do you think the police are responsible for all that?

Ramsey Orta Must Be Lying

Ramsey Orta said the following in an interview with the NY Daily News

“When I went to the grand jury to speak on my behalf, nobody in the grand jury was even paying attention to what I had to say,” Orta said. “People were on their phones, people were talking. I feel like they didn’t give (Garner) a fair grand jury.

“People was on their phones, people were having side conversations, like it was just a regular day to them,” he said of the jurors.

I just had jury duty. You cannot enter the courthouse with your cell phone. It is taken from you after you go through the metal detectors. You are given a number that corresponds with the spot your phone is in. Now I'll be totally honest and say that I saw one person with his cell phone while I was waiting to be called in.

On the last jury trial I was on, a court officer came into the room where we gathered and had us give him our phones for the day. So unless someone who was ON the grand jury comes out and verifies this claim, I'm calling this guy a liar.

Now let me go onto the other part of his story:

One of them “wasn’t even asking no questions about the police officer, he was asking all the questions toward Eric,” Orta said. “What was Eric doing there? Why was Eric there?

“Nothing pertaining to the cop choking him,” he said.

Here's the thing. This line of questioning implies that the juror was thinking about the reason for contact with Garner. The thinking here would be that since Garner was selling "loosies" and had been arrested for doing that before, that the officer was justified in his contact with Garner.

I share Orta's feeling that such a concentration on what Garner was doing was problematic. No one is disputing that the officers had a legal authority to arrest Garner, though I, as well as many others have issues with this idea of arresting someone over selling a loose cigarette (not to minors). The issue was and is not whether the officers had the authority to arrest Garner, the actions in question was HOW that arrest was effected. The chokehold and the subsequent chest compressions that directly lead to Garner's death.

In that sense Orta really shouldn't have even been brought in for questioning because he provided evidence (the video) and only needed to verify that he took it.

Number 1 Or Not Number 1?

Marketwatch has two pieces on it's site:

1)It’s official: America is now No. 2

And

2)Opinion: Sorry, but America is still No. 1

Either way. The fact that it can now be "debated" means a whole lot.

Blow Rides The "No Agency" Horse For The NY Times

Once again a liberal has trotted out ye olde horse named "No Agency" (can we get Di Blasio to ban it?)

The data suggests that, in the nation as a whole, that isn’t so. Racial profiling is real. Disparate treatment of black and brown men by police officers is real. Grotesquely disproportionate numbers of killings of black men by the police are real.

Well yeah. However disproportionate does not equal racist. I know, I know, disparate impact is one of the books of the liberal bible. If black folks suffer from something it's racist. If they excel at something (track, basketball, etc.) then it's because we are the bomb.com. Kinda like those businesses that like to privatize profits and socialize losses.

Maybe, just maybe an partial, actually predominant, reason for those dead black men via suicide by cop is because black men, unfortunately, disproportionately engage in criminal behavior that involves a weapon. That behavior often being shooting at another black man, or two or three.

Tis true.

No one denies that police officers have hard jobs, but they volunteer to enter that line of work. There is no draft. So these disparities cannot go unaddressed and uncorrected. To be held in high esteem you must also be held to a higher standard.

Absolutely. With much power comes much responsibility. But again, the DATA says that the large portion of the "disparity" is due to the disproportionate amount of crime black folks do relative to their population. Ask Newark mayor Ras Baraka if you doubt me. But how about that citizens also owe themselves and the police a level of comity. How about black folks recognize that [unfortunately] the reason for police running around our communities in the first place is because perhaps we are fucking up when it comes to raising our sons? Not all of our sons. Not even most of our sons. But a large enough portion of them. How about holding ourselves up to that "high" standard?

And no one denies that high-crime neighborhoods disproportionately overlap with minority neighborhoods. But the intersections don’t stop there. Concentrated poverty plays a consequential role.

Say Mr. Blow, how much crime are there in poor white communities? How much crime are there in poor Asian communities? Or how about we look at the recent report out of California where it seems that race and not poverty is the major distinction in homicide rates.

So does the school-to-prison pipeline. So do the scars of historical oppression. In fact, these and other factors intersect to such a degree that trying to separate any one — most often, the racial one — from the rest is bound to render a flimsy argument based on the fallacy of discrete factors. Yet people continue to make such arguments, which can usually be distilled to some variation of this: Black dysfunction is mostly or even solely the result of black pathology. This argument is racist at its core because it rests too heavily on choice and too lightly on context. If you scratch it, what oozes out reeks of race-informed cultural decay or even genetic deficiency and predisposition, as if America is not the progenitor — the great-grandmother — of African-American violence.

Funny thing about that school to prison pipeline. Way back when I was on Twitter a scholar asked his audience to provide him any documentation about a school to prison pipeline. Last I heard he couldn't find documentation of such a pipeline. And to be clear he meant that idea that schools "expect" a certain number of their students to be criminals and therefore treat them accordingly. But if you want to talk about a pipeline then please be bright about it and recognize it's not a school to prison but womb to prison pipeline. It begins by exposing your young children to violent and sexist (misogynist and misandrist) music. It's putting them in front of TV for hours on end rather than, you know, parenting. It's having a trailer load of men in and out of your house, in front of your kids, each one of which eventually is called a "no good nigga" in front of that very impressionable child.

It is not reading to your children and not encouraging them to read. it is teaching them to speak so called "ebonics" rather than the proper pronounciation of words because you don't want them to "sound white".

It is teaching them to disregard authority figures so that when they do get to school they don't respect the teachers and other elders so they get into trouble. it is thinking that those rules of conduct are "racist" and don't apply to your children.

It is all these things and more. But it's rarely the school's fault. The school didn't make you have a child you couldn't afford to have. School didn't make you a piss poor parent (I mean attitude not money). You did that. And the school has to put up with the messed up kids YOU sent there.

And of course we have The Horse(tm)

Yet people continue to make such arguments, which can usually be distilled to some variation of this: Black dysfunction is mostly or even solely the result of black pathology.

Because black dysfunction, where it exists is "mostly" the result of something or someone other than the folks exhibiting said dysfunction.

I bet Blow believes trannies are sane as well.

If a person or group of people's behavior are not predominantly caused by their own choices then those persons are effectively agent-less (is that a word?). Blow has asserted that black dysfunction, where it exists cannot be mostly the result of pathological thinking or even culture. His argument is that they are the fault, mostly, or white folks

as if America is not the progenitor — the great-grandmother — of African-American violence.

Because America! Meaning white folks. Always with the white folks with these folks.

Today, too many people are gun-shy about using the word racism, lest they themselves be called race-baiters.

I agree and lets add to that that too many [black] people are willing to own up to ugly truths about ourselves lest we "give credence" to the "racists". So we'll act like Polar Bear hunting isn't a hate crime (for the record I don't like or agree with the concept of hate crimes). We'll act like the Bosnian killed by a hammer wielding black guy wasn't a hate crime. We'll act like the knockout game that has been going on for years, isn't a hate crime.

And we (not including me) won't admit that Michael Brown was a two bit thug who robbed a store, assaulted it's owner. Laughed about it to his boy DOrian, punched a cop in his face when that cop tried to stop him as a suspect in that robbery, went for his gun, got shot in the hand and then got dead because of his behavior.

No Mr. Blow doesn't want real deal, fact based conversation. He'd be out of a job 'cause he wouldn't be able to trot out that "No Agency" horse. Oh and by the way...

New York isn’t about making a martyr of “Big Mike” or “Big E” as much as it is about making the most of a moment, counternarratives notwithstanding.

Liar. Cause in August Blow said Mike Brown was a stand in for black men. There he wrote:

Brown had just finished high school and was to start college this week. The investigation will hopefully clarify what led to his killing. But it is clear even now that his killing occurred in a context, one that we would do well to recognize.

Before he even KNEW anything about the facts of the case. Now he wants to distract us from his utter failure in August to see.

Here he is doing the "gentle giant" thing:

The response to the killing of the unarmed teenager Michael Brown — whom his family called the “gentle giant” — by the Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson — who was described by his police chief as “a gentle, quiet man” and “a gentleman” — has been anything but genteel.

Here is Blow on the Funeral:

And when the person being shot is shot not by one of the bad guys (people all parents teach children to avoid as best they can) but by one of the people we as a society count as one of the good guys (police officers sworn to protect and serve) there are obviously going to be questions that need answering.

Of course Brown WAS the "bad guy". And did blow bother with fielding the "questions that need answering"?

Nope. He has not spent a single piece in discussing the facts of the case that are available to all to read and see for themselves. This is a guy I'm supposed to take seriously on his proclamations about racism and black pathology?

No thank you.

Not A ChokeHold

This is not a chokehold:

This is a chokehold:

Difference?

The black guy.

Criminally Negligent Homicide

In NY State criminally negligent homicide is defined as: N.Y. PEN. LAW § 125.10 : NY Code - Section 125.10: Criminally negligent homicide

A person is guilty of criminally negligent homicide when, with criminal negligence, he causes the death of another person. Criminally negligent homicide is a class E felony.

What is negligence under NY State law?

4. "Criminal negligence." A person acts with criminal negligence with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he fails to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such result will occur or that such circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation. [My underlines]

Given that NYPD agents (police) are under instructions that the use of chokeholds is banned and that officer Pantaleo knew of such a ban and decided to employ such a chokehold anyway. As we see above "criminal negligence" includes a failure to perceive risk (death or other physical ailments) and it is clear that Pantaleo "deviated" from standard of care that a reasonable person (all NYPD officers who have received notice about chokeholds) would observe.

That's one point. The second point is that the medical examiner said that Garner died due in part to compression of his chest. So after employing a banned chokehold, they then sat on him. However, once Garner declared that he could not breath, the officers continued to restrict air to Garner by pressing his face to the ground.

What jury instruction did the grand jury receive under which they didn't find probable cause for criminally negligent homicide?

The Bogus "Self-Defense" Argument

The NY Times has a piece up on the possible reasons for the grand jury to have decided to not indict Daniel Pantaleo on any charges.

Mr. Garner pulls his hands away, again raising the question of resistance. The difference in size between the officers and Mr. Garner is apparent. Whether Officer Pantaleo felt his life was threatened could also be an issue in whether he acted criminally. If the grand jury viewed Officer Pantaleo’s actions as self-defense, then there would be no crime, said Eugene O'Donnell, a former police officer and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The NY Times is using stills to make it's case. This is misleading. When we see the full video of Garner we see that though he did indeed pull his arm back from the arresting officer, he did not, I repeat did not make any moves whatsoever to assault any of the officers. Once he pulled his arm away he immediately put them back up in front of him with his palms facing forward. He did not grab at any of the officers. He did not ball up his fists. He did not attempt to flee the scene. Garner's actions were threatening to none of the officers. Therefore none of them can claim that they were in fear of their lives or even bodily harm. Even if they did, since the video does not support such a claim.

Continuing:

Officer Pantaleo reaches around Mr. Garner’s neck. He holds Mr. Garner in what William J. Bratton, the police commissioner, said appeared to be a chokehold. The New York City Police Department has banned the use of this particular hold, but the grand jury would only consider this to the extent that it indicated whether the officer was intentionally trying to kill Mr. Garner, acting “recklessly,” or in a “criminally negligent” manner, the legal definitions of various levels of murder and manslaughter. [My underlines]

This goes back to my discussion of intent. It is nigh impossible to convict a police officer on a charge that requires intent simply due to the definitive nature of the occupation. So we put the "intentionally" aside.

That leaves us with "reckless" and "criminally negligent manner". If the use of a chokehold is banned by the NYPD and this officer used the banned technique then he was acting recklessly. The very fact that there is a ban on the use of chokeholds by the NYPD (probably for the very reason we have this case) is enough probable cause against the officer. He may still be acquitted in the due course of a trial, but there is enough probable cause to charge him with reckless behavior at the very least.

What it comes down to is WHAT the prosecutor asked the grand jury to consider. While the deliberations of the grand jury is secret for understandable reasons I think it is within reason for the public to know what charges they had to consider.

Speaking Of Ghost Towns

@chrislhayes Like I’ve said before, if every teenager who robbed a store were killed, I would have attended a ghost town for high school.

— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) December 1, 2014

This sounds like a discussion I had with the father of Corey Stingley who asserted that store thefts by African-American males is a common thing as to not warrant much commentary.

First I'll just say Bouie is an idiot for making that assertion. Because by saying that he is saying that all black people, have at some point in their lives robbed stores. How else could his classroom be a proverbial ghost town?

The second thing is, how bad does Bouie make black folks look to make such a claim in public? Really sir? You believe that just about all black teenagers engage in robbery? With black spokepersons like that I don't need racist white people (liberal or conservative) around.

Lastly while it's not robbery, I have pointed out in a few posts that the rate of murder in various black communities (I was focusing on Camden) as population control:

I looked at an article on a Boston high school in which the school in question had 1842 students. A 67 person murder rate, over ten years would see 1/3 of the school population disappear. That doesn't include the shooters. If we add the shooters, then over ten years 1340 persons no longer in the population due to being dead or being put in jail for the crime. That would be close to an entire school population gone every 10 years (of course many, if not most murders go unsolved and so the number of shooters do not match the number shot. Also as with other crimes, one person may have killed multiple people. Therefore the math would be off by quite a bit but is still alarming considering that even unfound killers are a drain on the communities they live in). Multiply that by all the mostly black communities spread out across the United States. Every 10 years black folks in America eliminate one school's worth of people in each of their communities.

Now that IS alarming no?

Eric Garner Given The Sean Bell Treatment?

To those of us who pay attention to the facts, we know that the proper comparison here is not to Mike Brown but to Sean Bell.

When the Sean Bell was killed and his buddy Guzman shot up, I watched that trial closely and learned a few things that I discussed in a post after that verdict came down:

If you read all the counts you'll note that there is NO second degree manslaughter charge against Isnora or Oliver for shooting at Guzman. This is significant because first degree manslaughter charges requires the proof of intent. I said back in march of 2007 that intent would not be provable. Second degree manslaughter requires no intent. Once it was shown in court, by both Isnora and Oliver that the target of their weapons fire was Guzman, it didn't matter what happened to Bell (case wise) Bell becomes collateral damage from the assault on Guzman. So the question that needs to be asked is why was there no second degree manslaughter (or attempted manslaughter if such a charge exists) leveled at Isnora and Oliver? If the prosecutor did not ask for such an indictment, was he or his office acting in concert with the police department to assure that the officers would be acquitted?

This is significant. We do not know what charges the grand jury in this case were given, thus we cannot cast aspersions on those jury members because they cannot indict someone on charges that they were not told to consider.

What is most problematic with this is that Eric Garner, who was admittedly resisting arrest, did not pose any threat to any of the 3-4 police officers who were surrounding him. Garner did not assault any of the officers. He had no weapons. He was not a suspect of a felony. He was not a suspect of a just committed crime. He was not a fugitive from justice. He had his hands in full view with palms facing the officers. There is no debate as to whether Eric Garner posed a threat to anyone at any time. Therefore it is without dispute that it was the police officer(s) that were responsible for escalating what appears to be a civil offense (a ticket or desk appearance).

Secondly, while it is not illegal for a police officer to use a choke hold, it is in fact banned by the NYPD. The officers on the scene knew this. It is clear to anyone watching the video that a choke hold was applied to him. This is beyond dispute.

It is beyond dispute that the officer using that hold used that pressure on his neck to take him to the ground, severely limiting his ability to breath and possibly causing damage to his trachea. For a person who suffers asthma, that is deadly.

Thirdly we hear Garner say clearly that he could not breath. Yet the officer kept applying pressure to Garner's head in total disregard for his distress.

These actions were clearly negligent. There is no doubt about that. If the DA did not ask the Grand Jury to consider any charge that included negligence then we have yet another piece of evidence of systemic failure to hold the police responsible for their actions.

If the grand jury was instructed to consider any charge that included negligence (or non-intent) and they failed to indict (which is not the same as finding someone guilty) then the jury made a grievous error.

I understand that there is a request to have some of the evidence presented to the public. I would be interested to see what they considered and what exactly they heard or saw, aside from the self serving testimony of the police officer, that would make them decline to indict on any charge that did not require intent.