Shadow Hawk

I think Markdoc's most recent post made an extremely good point. Justice needs to be done and needs to be seen being done. The public trust is extremely important and if the system ignores a fundamental aspect of our society (that people need to see justice being served), then it is no longer functioning.

 
 
You think a typical prosecutor knows the burden of proof can't be met in this case? Really? If that were the case, then why did the actual prosecutor have to hardball all witnesses for the victim, soft ball the murderer, swear in and accept obvious perjury (obvious in that he, himself, knew it to be 100% fake) just to get the murderer off the hook? Those aren't the actions of a prosecutor who is confident in his belief that he couldn't meet a burden of proof, those are the actions of a man afraid that he could. Those are the actions of a spineless swine who has had and will only continue to have a tradition of protecting murderous cops from justice at all costs. 
 
 
I like how you think the physical evidence only corroborates the murderer's story - it doesn't. First, there were three completely distinct autopsy reports done. None of which were in complete alignment. But all of which agreed that the boy was shot several times. Most of the shots were at a distance and that the killing shot was followed up by additional shots after he was already dead. We also have witnesses who at the time of the event were caught on camera talking about how the boy had his hands up and was surrendering when he was gunned down. And that video and their testimony is worth a whole lot more than the racist, mentally unstable, perjurer that the prosecutor decided to rely on.
 
So, Agent X, I don't think you really understand why people are so angry with this case and why it is so necessary that it goes to trial. Perhaps in the full course of a trial I could be shown to be wrong and the murderer could be shown to have been acting in the bounds of the law, but that is a little bit of justice we were all denied. The murderer is not obviously innocent and it is not clear that there is no way to meet the burden of proof. That is purely your opinion on the situation. And the best thing for the victim would have been to have an actual adversarial trial where his interests were given consideration - that did not happen. The best thing for society would have been to have an actual adversarial process where our basic need to see the system actively and righteously pursue justice did not happen. All that happened was that an old-boy prosecutor covered for his murderer friends as he has done so before. 
 
La Rose. 

Actually, sometimes you do. A core concept of the English justice system - on which the US system is built - is that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. The justice system does not exist in isolation from the citizenry, and the prosecutor had the discretion to send this case to trial, if only to ensure justice was seen to be done. He should have done so, I think. After all his job - and the job of the system - is to maintain public order, and it does not look like that is what happened.
 
Our systems give prosecutors a lot of discretion, but the flip side is that we expect them to use it wisely.
 
Regards, Mark

The Prosecutor has prosecutorial discresion and can choose what he wants to take to court. If the prosecutor really thought that there was no chance in heck that the officer was guilty of any crime, then he should have never indicted him and stood up for his beliefs. But he didn't. No, he created a show trial of the Grand Jury for the sole sake of fooling stupid people who think a Grand Jury is anything like an actual trial - it isn't and is never meant to be. He purposely allowed people to perjure themselves in front of the court to throw the case. He purposely deflated every possible aspect of the state's (HIS!) case so as to destroy his case. He purposely made the entire event last longer than many trials just to wear down the jurors so that they would be too fed up to care anymore. 

Yes, it is true he has prosecutor discretion and he could have used it to never take it to trial. But he used it to convene a Grand Jury. Once he made that choice he should have had to follow through with it but he chose not to. He chose to cover for his murder friends and deny anyone of any chance of justice. 
 
If you so strongly believe that the officer was innocent, then he could have had his day in court where he could defend himself. As the old saying goes: innocent people don't need to fear the law. Darren wasn't innocent and the prosecutor knew it. That is why he did everything he could to prevent it going to trial.
 
Do you know whose case wasn't represented at the Grand Jury - the murdered boy. That boy had no one there to advocate for him. That boy was denied even the slightest semblance of justice. The officer would have had his chance to defend his actions with all the vigor the law allows had it gone to trial. But you know what is even better than that, having the prosecutor do that job for you at a Grand Jury hearing. 
 
La Rose. 

I've served on a Grand Jury. Once, for an an afternoon. It was for a small county in rural Virginia when I was about 20, so a long time ago. In theory we were on call for a month, but in practice, we spent one day at it during our term of service. We the jurors sat in a room in the courthouse and prosecutors and cops would enter, tell us who the defendant was, what crime he/she was being charged with, and what evidence they had to support the charge. They did not present any exculpatory evidence, only the evidence for the prosecution. Our job was to decide whether they had enough evidence of the defendant's guilt to warrant a trial.
 
They say that a competent prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. In my experience, that's true. We okayed every case brought to us (everything from passing bad checks to one murder). And why not? They had a convincing case for guilt (at least in the absence of any defense); presumably, if they didn't think they had enough evidence to convince us, they'd have waited to find more and presented it to another grand jury later on. If they had fabricated evidence or the cops perjured themselves, would we have known? No--but that's why all we can do is okay a trial. The defense would be able to make those arguments in the actual trial later on.
 
This is why I have no doubt that the presecutor in the Ferguson case deliberately sabotaged his own case against Officer Wilson. He didn't want to prosecute but wasn't man enough to make that decision himself and stand by it in the face of public anger, so he used the grand jury process to engineer the same result while retaining barely-plausible deniability.

"I said "fear" the cops?   No, I suggested using a minimal level of common sense.  If your boss chews you out for making a mistakes, do you react by cussing out your boss, or punching your boss?  I hope not.  People who do spend a lot of time unemployed."
 
-- I said fear. You said we should act in a way consistent with fearing cops. Which we should because we need to fear the cops these days.
 
And there is a vast difference between a boss chewing you out when you make a mistake and a Cop brutalizing you when you have done nothing wrong. People should never have to worry about getting beat up, arrested, or killed by the cops when they have done nothing wrong. But in the world we live in we are expecting people to bend over and take it just because some jerk in a uniform wants to get their rocks off. And if we as the citizenry can't demand our rights be respect on the spot then there is a strong argument to made that we have NO rights. 
 
"How many dirty cops do you suppose there are though?"
 
You are right to assume that my opinion of the average cop is that low. I really don't think any cop is worth the time of the day these days. I will not go out on the extreme limb and say that the majority are murders but I will say that the majority have no moral qualms about covering for their murderous friends. Given how many daily stories we get about these jerks it isn't hard to have this view. We had the story I posted just a bit ago about a maniac cop. And there is no doubt that if the person he threatened with a gun wasn't a respected politician he would have gotten away with it. The person that filmed the Eric Garner murder found himself harassed and arrested by cops soon after - that isn't just a couple bad eggs, that is a culture of corruptions and complacency. We had the California highway patrolman who would steel nude and otherwise compromising photos of young women he pulled over and sent it around to all his cop friends because, to paraphrase him, "everyone is in on it". And he still didn't think anything was wrong with it after he was caught doing so.
 

  Cops, despite their B''''ing and whining are safer now than they have ever been. It is like how people these days complain about how violent the world is and how much safer it was back in the day - guess what, that is a lie. People are safer today than they have ever been. Cops are safer now than they have ever been - probably because enough people realize that cops are just one bad look away from executing you. 
 
Do cops have an easy job? No, they don't. That is why I always tried to give them the pass. But you know what, I don't care. They get stable job and are paid to deal with that stuff. They're big boys now playing with big boy toys. They need to be held to a high standard - and that includes accepting a certain amount of risk to make sure they aren't murdering a defenseless 12 year old. They need to accept some risks so they don't choke a clearly harmless man to death. They need to accept some risk and not shoot a boy who already surrendered like some Judge-Dread wanna be executioner. They need to accept some F'ing risks because at the end of the day, that is what they are F'ing paid to do. If they can't then they need to turn in their badge and get the F' out of the police force. 
 
La Rose.

I saw that news story earlier today. It is tragic. I wish the best for the families of the deceased officers.
 
----
 
From the article
 
"Some union leaders suggested the mayor had sent a message that police officers were to be feared"
 
Could it be because the police are to be feared? Not many other groups of people have free license to murder people.
 
"“There is blood on many hands tonight,” the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, said outside Woodhull Hospital. He added, “That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor.”"
 
This guy sounds like a big jerk. If anyone is to blame for the bad imagine the police have it is he and his ilk for harassing and killing the citizenry.
 
Is there a single police department in the US that has enough brains to recognize that the problem isn't protesters, it is that POLICE keep giving people reasons to protest.
 
La Rose.

Dang! Sniped!
 
 
Fed Ex. Santa gets free shipping since he provides the NSA with copies of his Naughty/Nice List

Rex is serious about burying his bones.

"No time fo explain, just get in the car!"

"No time fo explain, just get in the car!"

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but MY personal opinion is that only a minority of police officers are criminals and murderous monsters. The majority of police officers are the type who feel that having civilians murdered by police is a lesser evil than holding police accountable for their actions.
 
There aren't any good cops. GOOD cops would arrest the murderous cops and see to it that they got convicted.

Vondy: 
 
"My read of your remarks on Ferguson remains that they are largely speculation and guess-work. Why? Because, there is no way to prove your assertions"

No, the Ferguson issue is not speculation. The way the prosecutor handled the situation is public knowledge. Please feel free to look into this a bit more. Among the most dissettling things is the 'info dump' he did on the Grand Jury. He bombarded them with documents without end expecting them to be able to make sense of it all. Why would a prosecutor who's sole job is to present the State's best case do that? Because he doesn't want it to get past the grand jury. He was reportedly soft handed with the officer and harsh on anyone who, you know, would prove his case. Rather than be quick and concise with his proceeding, he dragged it on longer than normal so as to tire out the jurors. He mixed in all competing forensic reports so as to cast doubt on the situation. Basically the man did everything he could to ruin the state's case at the Grand Jury - he purposely failed at his own job! And he has a history of this. 
 
So, Vondy, you will excuse me if I think your out of hand dismissal of me and this position scream of a level of arrogance and close mindedness unbecoming of you. 
 
 
Vondy:

"When its my local / regional news I'll huff and I'll puff and invest in strongly held opinions and take action. In these two cases, its simply not my place. Based on your location information..."

Vondy, I get it, you and I have never met face to face so I can't expect you to remember where I am from. But before you do the laziest of checks to just realize I live in Japan, try and think back a bit more or do the due diligence of asking me. Ferguson is a lazy drive away from my home. Missouri is where I was born and it is the place I love. When there are troubles in Missouri, there are troubles in my back yard. 

Also, might I add that the level of cognitive dissidence you seem to be enjoying while making such statements is a bit disconcerting. An expat who commonly made comments about the US and its internal and external affairs should not be telling others to stick to their own homes. 
 
Moveover, injustice knows no home. It is not something to be left unspoken just because it happens at your neighbor's and not your own home. That is the kind of willful blindness and abhorrent tolerance that leads us to not get involved when people are being slaughtered in other nations. And despite the three monkeys best attempts, choosing to ignore injustice does not make it go away. 
 
 
As to your last point about being a regionalist, it has no connection to what I have said. I believe in regional governership more than most on these boards most likely, but that isn't the point here. I am not staying that the solution to this problem is somehow external intervention. I am saying that there is a problem - a pan-America problem. One that must be talked about. One that must be addressed. And one that must be solved. 

Everyday a cop kills at least one citizen in the US. Cops have taken up this horrid "us vs them" mentality that we even try to train our soldier to not do. Why do we let the people who are sworn to protect the public treat us like the enemy and behave as if they live in a war zone? There are places in the US where death by Cop outnumbers death by gangs for heaven's sake. We have cops who steal our money, molest and rape people, brutalize people, and kill us without repercussion. This is not an acceptable thing. And our only recourse seem to be to rely on a corrupt justice system that favors our occupiers over the citizenry. 

This is an unacceptable situation and it must end. 

La Rose.

The gaming journalist who tells on her internet trolls – to their mothers
 

Take the studio's money and flee the country.
 
NT: You took the studio's money and fled the country. Where will you go and what will you do?

The Straw Elephants In The Room
 
Pretty much all the arguments Ms Sommers makes in the first video are rebuttals to arguments that the anti-GamerGate side isn't making or to very distorted versions of arguments made.  In other words, they are all straw men arguments.
 
* Violent video games have never been scientifically shown to cause real life violence in there players. Umm, I haven't heard Anita Sarkeesian or any one else in the anti-GamerGate camp say that they did.  So this is a rebuttal seeking an argument.
 
* I find some acts shown in video games like GTA very disturbing, but as a matter of free speech the makers have a right to make such games and the players a right to play them. I've yet to hear any anti-GamerGate person call for the banning of such games, and just because a person has a right to freedom of speech does not shield that speech from criticism if the speech is objectionable. 
 
* Anita Sarkeesian's arguments are all based on the Objectifying Gaze hypothesis which has been much criticized in the 4 decades since it was originally proposed.  Ms Sarkeesian has talked the visual objectification of women in video games, so this would be an actual non-straw man argument if Ms Sommers didn't characterize it as the whole of Ms Sarkeesian's position.  However, Ms Sarkeesian has talked about visual objectification and hyper-sexualization of women as one part of a larger argument that she is making, an argument that can stand even in the absence of the visual objectification component.  Also, a more robust attack on the notion of the objectifying gaze as it relates to video games would have been appreciated from an intellectual standpoint.  There is a bit of a difference between the deliberate decision by a game developer to frame a scene from a vantage point looking through a women spread legs or down her cleavage compared to a man taking a moment out to admire a woman's ass as he passes her on the street.  It would have been been nice if Ms Sommers took the time to argue that the criticisms of Objectifying Gaze hypothesis are valid even when presentation is completely deliberate and directed by men.
 
 
In the second video, Ms Sommers provides some numbers about the sex of gamers, and while I don't think that anyone would classify her as a gamer based on playing PacMan  a few times in the Eighties, I do appreciate the numbers.  Numbers can be very helpful in "keeping it real".  Keeping it real in this case goes a long way towards explaining why AAA games are the way they are but it's not really much of a shield against criticism.  It may explain why game developers create so many games point of view of heterosexual white males, but that is no reason women, gays, and racial minorities not to clamor for representation also.  It is no reason for them to "stand down" as Ms Sommers puts it.
 
Also, you can ding games on individual acts of misogyny, without proving that the games cause their players to become misogynous.  Even if the games are promoting misogyny in their players it is going to be almost impossible to prove scientifically because nothing happens in a bubble, and it is irrelevant.  If someone uses the N word, it is not necessary to prove that they turned all the people who heard it into racist in order state that the usage was in itself crass, rude, and racist.  Just so video games criticized for individual bits of misogyny that appear in the games, and if these instances are so numerous as to be wide spread and pervasive then the industry as a whole can be criticized.

I thought "obviously someone is going to make a book out of the gamergate debacle". And then I thought "It's slowing down now. Maybe next year? Hey, maybe already." so, on a lark, I checked Amazon.  The top results for gamergate are about the evolution of hive minds. I just thought that was funny.

Let's see.  Jaylen Fryberg's girlfriend broke up with him.  He got very depressed.  Then instead of say seeking psychiatric counseling or just spending three weeks eating ice cream and crying a lot, he took his one of his father's guns and did something men are ten times as likely to do as women, he shot a bunch of people.  
 
Now, Mz Sarkeesian didn't blame the shooting on violence in video games; she attributed to something she called toxic masculinity.  Given the well documented reluctance of men to seek help with emotional issues and the much greater tendency of men to go on mass shooting rampages, how can you or anyone else absolutely declare that the shooting was utterly unrelated to issues of masculinity?
 
As for the charge that it was a gross oversimplification of a complex issue, it was a tweet.  What do you expect from 140 characters?  Ms Sarkeesian was not claiming to have a complete answer or saying that the solution would be easy.  She was throwing out onto the table a piece of the puzzle that needed to be solved.   

A Voice for Men has set up a phony White Ribbon website to coopt the international anti-violence campaign of that name
 

Never pick up a duck in a dungeon.

Yeah, only PE teachers give exams they can't pass.

That's like comment about the last Pearl Harbor movie, by one Pearl Harbor veteran: "[in the movie] There was too much blowin' stuff up."

Shadow Hawk: Ensign Newpilot flunked his flight safety quiz.
CDR Oldpilot: How did he manage it.
Shadow Hawk: The safe altitude over downtown San Diego is NOT three feet, Commander.
CDR Oldpilot: Oh good lord.
Non Aircrew PO: Sir, if you're flying three feet over downtown, do you have to obey traffic signals?
CDR Olfpilot: Shutup, Petty Officer.