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Saturday, September 15, 2018

How to Get Away with Murder

There are many ways, of course, if you are imaginative enough. But one surefire, can't-miss, no-fail way to get away with stone cold murder:  be a white cop killing a black man. Never fails.

Hopefully no one is fooled by the Dallas prosecutor charging Amber Guyger with manslaughter, because it's a "safer" conviction than a murder charge. It doesn't matter what Guyger is charged with. Mark my words, call your bookie, and bet your entire paycheck, because it's as much of a slam-dunk as saying the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning -- Guyger will walk, and she probably won't even be fired from her fucking job. She might resign on her own, if a big enough stink is raised. But they won't fire her. They've already invested fully into cover-up-and-muddy-the-water mode.

It would be amusing to watch the repeated attempts to get her story straight, if we weren't talking about an innocent man MURDERED in his own fucking house for no goddamned reason, and a bunch of people who entrusted and empowered to SERVE AND PROTECT the public are collectively using every cheap tactic available to avoid accountability.

Whatever bullshit story they finally land on and decide to roll with, chances are it was something stupid, like Guyger being drunk or high. Either that or she had some unknown (so far) beef with Botham Jean. Probably some combination of the two, but whatever the case, this was no accident. It was either gross negligence and dereliction, or outright intent.

Law enforcement and criminal justice professionals, whether they're cops or prosecutors, will all tell you that innocent people have nothing to hide, that people who instinctively clam up and grab a lawyer are almost guaranteed to be guilty of something. Of course, the rules change when it's one of their own, but we all know the truth.

Everyone knows the fix is in and the game is rigged. Everyone knows that cops can do whatever the fuck they please, when it comes to black men. Ask Patrick Dorismond, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Amadou Diallo, and on and on. For every Michael Slager who gets held accountable, there's a dozen or a score or a hundred who don't. And I promise you, Guyger won't, even though her crime is even more egregious situationally than just about any police shooting.

I mean, how fucking dumb do you have to be to buy the notion that a police officer, a member of a profession that is trained rigorously to observe, did not know her own apartment -- especially since her apartment was not only on another floor, but had additional locks on the entry door because of her occupation. And Botham Jean had a huge red welcome mat outside his entry door. Either Guyger is a laughably bad cop who never should have been on the job in the first place, or she's lying because she knows she fucked up.

But not really. I hope I'm wrong, but I know what country this is. All it takes is one "cops is never wrong" doofus on the jury to jack the verdict, and Guyger walks. Don't think that she and her friends on the blue wall don't know that. This thing will get tossed, and even if Jean's family pursues a lawsuit (and hopefully they do, hopefully they sue Guyger and the police department into absolute penury for their shameful incompetence and reprehensible misconduct throughout), and even if they win a judgment, the amount will be lessened simply by virtue of the fact that a criminal outcome couldn't be attained.

Hell, the aforementioned Slager got a mistrial at first, and the only reason it came back around and he got convicted and sentenced is because he had a long history of that shit -- oh, and his murder of Walter Scott was caught on video. But even with video of Slager shooting Scott five times in the back and planting the gun on him, it took two years and two trials to hold his worthless ass accountable. All anyone has on Guyger is her idiotic fairy tale and a few neighbors who overheard things, some of which may conflict and thus cancel each other out. Then all you're left with is a vulnerable young white woman fending off a menacing black man.

Everyone's up in arms, and rightly so, about the public release of a search warrant of Jean's apartment that turned up a small quantity of pot. What they don't tell you is they were probably looking just as hard for a photo of Jean in a hoodie and baggy pants, maybe throwing gang signs with his hands, that sort of shit. These people are completely without scruple, gearing up to smear and blame a man their employee murdered. Amber Guyger straight-up MURDERED Botham Jean, and she and the Dallas PD are getting away with it, and that's all there is to this.

Even on the million-to-one chance that this was some weird "honest accident," which is already impossible given how Guyger's story has changed from whether the door was locked or ajar, so what? What do you think would happen if you somehow got disoriented and knocked on your neighbor's door, thinking it was your own house, and you pulled your weapon and shot your neighbor when he opened the door, thinking he was burglarizing your house? Seriously? But a police officer makes that sort of fatal "mistake" and they're for some reason given the benefit of the doubt, even thought the standard should be higher.

Again, even on the miniscule chance that Amber Guyger is "innocent," even her own bullshit story proves she has no business being on any police force, or indeed in any position that requires oversight of others' lives. No matter. You just watch -- she'll walk, and the Dallas PD will just get her off the street and give her a desk job. She won't do an hour in jail. Count on it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Horrible but true. How do we change this?