Minneapolis cops slowly murder handcuffed man in front of crowd

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Man who begged 'Please, I can't breathe' dies in Minneapolis police custody

A bystander clip captured outside the Cup Foods store on Chicago Avenue in south Minneapolis starts with the man already on the ground, in handcuffs, and groaning under the weight of a cop's knees on his back and neck.

As the man says and struggles less, a gathered crowd continues asking for mercy, with one man saying the cop pinning the man down using his knees is "bogus." Roughly three minutes into the 10-minute video recording, the man stops moving altogether.

Minutes after the man has stopped moving, the cop continues to apply his body weight. Paramedics arrive, and one checks the man's pulse. The cop with his knees on the man doesn't take his weight off until a stretcher is pulled over. By that point, the black man has not moved in roughly four minutes, and his limp body is dragged and lifted onto the stretcher and then into an ambulance.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/dpatrickrodgers/status/1265801191314919424

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I'm not sure if this thread is the right place to share this, but watching the reactions to the protesters really bother me. Mostly because it serves as a sort of touchstone for just how awful policing in this country has become.

We should be horrified at a mob of angry citizens burning down a police station. I should. We all all should. But we're not. Reactions on the left seem to range from open sympathy to pretty gentle criticism, much of it worried about how this might help Trump's campaign. There's probably open cheering somewhere, too, but I haven't seen it myself, yet. Meanwhile, the right's response is transparent glee at getting some broadly acceptable ammunition for their race and culture war. And we all know full well (because of the evidence of recent history) that if this was being done by white guys with guns in milita or western drag, they'd be the ones cheering or maybe tut-tutting about means while agreeing with the sentiment.

These reactions are a terrible indictment of American policing as an institution. It has failed. And I see absolutely practical path for how we fix it, for how we get from where we are now, to where the police (and the justice system) get out of the deep hole they're in (and which they helped to dig).

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Jacob Pederson Is Not the AutoZone Umbrella Man, St. Paul Police Say

Aviral and incendiary social media accusation against a St. Paul, Minnesota, police officer is false, the police department said in a statement. The situation shows how quickly information can spread on social media, ricocheting around the web and damaging people’s reputations, especially in a fast-moving situation like the unrest in the Twin Cities.

According to the police statement, the social media falsehood happened to Jacob Pederson, a St. Paul police officer who was erroneously accused of being the mysterious black-clad, umbrella-carrying man involved in methodically breaking windows at an AutoZone during the protests/riots in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Here’s a video of the umbrella man.

https://twitter.com/molllygurl/status/1265864499166396421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7C...

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/stevenportnoy/status/1266473357203116032

I wonder if they can "expedite" an innocent verdict at 8am on November 3rd?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

With everything that’s going on right now, from Trump to Minneapolis to Arbery, I can’t help but think back to what an anonymous stranger told me on a forum for expats when I was researching moving abroad in 2015.

He said that America is going to follow the same path as Cuba: the smartest left on airplanes, the next smartest left on fishing boats, and the dumbest waited until things got so bad that they had no choice but to leave on makeshift rafts made of plywood and empty barrels. If only immigrating to Canada was still as easy as it was for the draft dodgers in the 60s.

Cuba isn't the right model. We're turning into post-Soviet Russia. (At least if the Trumpers have their way.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This violence has evolved into a separate issue from the murder of George Floyd. We must not let a small group of people in various cities destroy our communities and country.

They are getting people against their cause! This is ing sad because this was the chance we had to get the general public on the side of Black Lives Matter.

That's a nicely convenient outcome for those opposed to BLM, isn't it?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1266845479268212736

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This is a good example of the many grey areas we are seeing from these protests. It may be hard for some to process them, but they're the reality of this situation. Nothing about what is happening is that cut-and-dry.

True. It's good to see, and something we need to keep reminding ourselves as this goes on.

https://twitter.com/hknightsf/status/1266850494527365120
https://twitter.com/KristenClarkeJD/status/1266973210798678017

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

So glad to see Trump taking decisive action. Long overdue -- this crisis has thus far been one of the few big black marks of his Presidency.

What "decisive action" are you talking about? Threats and not-so-vaguely racist bluster have been his M.O. his whole life, and that's all he's done today.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I realize that Trump is historically illiterate, but there's this pesky thing called the Posse Comitatus Act that got passed at the end of Reconstruction that prevents him from carrying out his very stable fantasies about sending in the troops. Under the circumstance, it's a little ironic since a prime motivation behind the act was to prevent a future President from sending in the troops to protect the negroes.

Article IV Section 4

I've got some bad news for you. The bit where it says "shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" doesn't actually mean that any random collection of bigoted, demagogue-worshipping authoritarians who come along and take over the name 'Republican Party' automatically get to be in charge.

(And speaking of the Constitution, you might want to consider whether anything your cowardly Chief Cheeto has done is constitutional, given that he has been in violation of Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 and Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 ever since the moment he pretended to take his Oath of Office.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I realize that Trump is historically illiterate, but there's this pesky thing called the Posse Comitatus Act that got passed at the end of Reconstruction that prevents him from carrying out his very stable fantasies about sending in the troops. Under the circumstance, it's a little ironic since a prime motivation behind the act was to prevent a future President from sending in the troops to protect the negroes.

Article IV Section 4

I don't get what you thought you were trying to imply.  If anything, between the language there "on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened)" and the Tenth Amendment, it would seem that even without the Posse Comitatus Act, the Federal government can't send troops into the States to engage in policing unless the government of that State asks for such assistance.

Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Article IV, Section 4 is an express authorization in the Constitution.

In the case of the tweets, President Trump condemned the weak radical left mayor of Minneapolis, and said that he had talked to the governor (Tim Walz) and told him that he would have the full support of the US Military.

Walz can of course call out the National Guard (part of the Minnesota militia) to protect life and property when the police department is overwhelmed. I suspect that there is express congressional approval for the US Military providing logistical support for a state National Guard when it is acting in a state capacity.

Article IV is quite clear. In order to intervene in intrastate violence, the United States government requires a request from a state legislature or, if the legislature cannot convene, the state governor.

No state has made such a request of Donald Trump, nor, given his demonstrated incompetence and unfitness, is any state likely to do. (I suppose there's a chance that some Republican-dominated state that doesn't care about the future will invite him in for PR reasons, but that's it.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891892722831361

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Before we continue this back and forth, jimrtex, let me ask: in your opinion, was there wrongdoing on the part of Officer Chauvin?

What do you mean by wrongdoing?

Is that the same as doing the wrong thing?

Were his actions those of malfeasance or misfeasance?

Was their wrongdoing on the part of Officer Lane?

Was their wrongdoing on the part of Officer Kueng?

Was their wrongdoing on the part of Officer Thao?

According to the indictment Officer Lane asked Floyd whether he was "on anything"? It is unknown whether Floyd responded.

When Justine Damond was shot and killed by a Minneapolis Police officer in 2017, was it because she was black?

Here’s a question for you: If you’re so confident in your position on this issue, why don’t you just state your position rather than engaging in this asinine line of questioning?

Because that's not how sealioning and JAQing off work, and that's what he's doing.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://mobile.twitter.com/yashar/status/1269048818739212288

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

U.S. Marine Corp bans display of the Confederate battle flag.

https://twitter.com/USMC/status/1269075089078784001

Not sure I agree with their reasoning but a good development nonetheless.

I can't believe it took this long. How was displaying the flag of traitors acceptable in any way by our military?

The PR campaign for the treasonous slavers' rebellion was pretty good. Look at all the statues they put up! While I am in no way a Southerner, I get the impression that up until this century, it was often just seen as "Hey, the South, yee-haw!" with no thought given to what it actually stood for.

(And to be clear, it always stood for treason and slavery and their modern-day equivalents. It's just that many people seeing it didn't think about what it stood for, because it didn't hurt them personally. I suspect that most German citizens in the mid-1930s didn't think about pogroms and camps every time they saw a Nazi swastika, but that is what it was a symbol for all the same.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Chauvin needs to get the OJ treatment: get him for everything he's got. If he wins the criminal trial, sue him civilly. If he writes a book about his crimes, have the Floyd family garnish any earnings from the book and take over rights to it. Never let this man see another day where the law isn't on his trail.

Let's make an example out of this pig.

The problems with American policing are systemic. No amount of punishment meted out to individual officers is going to improve anything. When we pretend that the problem is individual bad cops we are actually preventing ourselves from acknowledging and repairing (or replacing) a broken system.

Police officers can certainly abuse their power and trust. And when they do, they should be punished under the law. But if you want to change the system then "make the cop pay" is the wrong approach to take. Make the police department (and the city that employs it) face real, painful (and legal) consequences of choices in hiring, training, and policy (de jure or de facto) and you may see real change.