The Los Angeles Times reports today that the three cops who shot & killed an unarmed driver who led them on a long car chase, will NOT be prosecuted for anything. (latimes.com/california) This comes in the wake of a $5 million settlement to his family (using MY TAX $$$$) after the entire episode was caught on video, by one of the local TV stations.
This decision comes after Chief Charlie Beck found that the officers violated department policy for using deadly force when they shot Brian Beaird, 51, a National Guard veteran Dec. 13, 2013.
The biggest news is that Mr. Beaird was NOT BLACK.(my emphasis)
Join me after the orange chalk outline of another police shooting victim.
The $5 million (of my fucking tax $$$$) was "the largest payout Los Angeles has made in a fatal police shooting in more than a decade."
Earlier, the cops paid a settlement to two elderly Hispanic women whose truck had been shot at more than 100 times when the highly trained (my snark) cops mistook it for a truck of a different make and color and a driver who was a black man.
Yes, these are the same, loveable LAPD cops we see all over the TV from Adam-12, to Dragnet, to whatever cop show of the month is featured.
Funny, I never get to meet anyone like those people, even though I am a middle class white person who has never had a run-in for anything other than a couple of tickets. They are unfriendly, quick to put their hands on their weapons and live in a world most of us cannot enter.
This latest outrage was revealed in a letter when prosecutors (you remember how effective they were in getting convictions for O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake and the other cops who beat Rodney King - whoops, my bad, that never happened, either) made the decision not to file charges because of the "tense and chaotic" situation in which they thought Beaird was reaching for a weapon.
Let me repeat that the entire thing was captured on video and one has to have the mental gymnastic ability of an Anton Scalia to make the argument that he could be reaching for a gun.
I don't have a link, but the episode was shot by station KTLA and it pains me to think about what I saw, let alone watch it again.
The previous lack of convictions, I'm sure, played a large part in their refusal to proceed, since the prosecutors determined that there was "insufficient evidence to provide beyond a reasonable doubt that the three officers "did not act in self defense and in defense of others."
This, despite the fact that the Chief had rejected claims that they fired because they feared their lives were in danger. WTF?? The top cop says his men were wrong and should not have fired, but the losers in the DA's office chickened out and now they're free to commit more crimes under the guise of authority.
"I think one of the reasons we have so many police shootings is that no one ever prosecutes the officer," said Dale Galipo, an attorney representing the family of the victim.
"One wonders whether or not without criminal prosecution, these shootings will actually be deterred," he continued.
I don't wonder. I'm predicting that within a week, another cop, somewhere in the US, will shoot another unarmed citizen and find seventeen ways to justify it without any consequences.
One of the first signs of a fascist state is the unfettered use of violence by police. It is directed at all citizens, with a special emphasis for those perceived to be "other."
I grew up when this country was making headway towards the ideals outlined in the founding documents - with the elimination of Jim Crow and the establishment of civil rights for so many more - and then the sudden decline of all that in the past 30 years. (Reagan? Ya think?) Stagnant salaries, erosion of rights, the demonization of anyone not lockstepping and the rise of the steroid filled cops.
They used to point to the "new & improved" LAPD under William Parker as the model for all police departments and once again, we thought we were getting there - and since Rodney King, it's all been downhill.
This is not the country I want for my grandchildren. What happened to the real America that actually respected cops - because cops respected them?