http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/448740/philando-castile-verdict-was-miscarriage-justice
In America, we had a court system that included "juries of our peers" and we honored that system because we agreed that was far more just than mob dscisions or some "pronouncement of the elite". In BOistan, everyone believes their opinion is "as good as the jury" who took 6 days from their lives to sit through testimony, then another 5 days to deliberate. They pull their favorite snippet from the proceedings and declare the jury wrong / racist / stupid / etc.
And even though any of us could be asked to sit on a similar jury, we assume we won't, and amazingly it is broadly OK to disparage the decision made by a jury of our peers, that was once cornerstone of America's legal system. That is what is shocking about the linked post above, it is from NATIONAL REVIEW, an ostensively conservative source, yet totally fails to understand that our criminal justice system is based on honoring a jury of our peers ... they cherry pick their "evidence", draw their conclusion, and decare "the jury is wrong", where in America, the jury was honored and RIGHT unless it could be overturned by new evidence / procedure.
America had a population educated enough in civics to understand that without respect for basic civil government and a legal system, anarchy or tyranny are the only possible outcomes.
Most of our population has no idea of what America even was. The idea of respecting ANY institution over their own "fresh off social media" meme level opinion simply never crosses their mind. They are "god", and they have an opinion, and with apologies to Baron Von Raschke, "that is all the people need to know"
. I covered this lack of knowledge here.
I do know that MPR really wanted this officers hide in the worst way. One comentator this week from one of the lefty schools in the twin cities (Hamline I think) felt that "the good of the community" should overshadow mere evidence here. They have been running excerpts from "74 seconds" a lot over the last 6 months.
https://www.mprnews.org/topic/philandocastile
You get impaired on weed, go drive around with a kid in the car, get stopped, have a gun on your person, and then -- likely because of the impairment, fail to follow police orders relative to the gun EXPLICITLY and ... ??? Up to that point, the decisions are all yours, and you can take your time deciding the correct course.
I put myself standing outside that window, smell of weed reeking in nostrils, obviously stoned driver, says "I have a gun" and rather than leaving hands solidly on wheel in plain sight starts reaching in his pocket where I can likely see the gun ... what would **I** do?
I really can't imagine ANYONE that would not "fear for your life" -- do you shoot? I'm not sure that any of us know that answer for ourselves, and likely it will vary "depending on" a huge set of variables along the lines of ; do you miss the deer that jumps out? lose control? ??? ... the real "action" wasn't in "74 seconds", it was in 1 or 2 tops.
A courageous, and I think honest jury. One guy is dead, destroying another life more than it has been won't bring him back. Unless you believe that he needed to go to prison "for the good of the community". It has seemed peferectly clear all along that Yanez was forced by Castile's decisions into a split second life and death call. There is no reason for anyone, permit or not, to put an officer in that situtation and hope they decide to risk their sober life for your impaired one.
What TP ("The Party" TP-D) wants to happen is that cases like this give the State more power. No more jury trial -- "the State", meaning the Administrative State, decides what outcome best meets their current political, economic, social engineering, etc objectives. The very idea of a "Jury of your peers" is totally out of line with TP anyway. The sad thing is to see that even NR has forgotten what America was, and are willing to disparage the decision of the jury without even a moment to honor their sacrifice and the system.