Monday, June 1, 2020

POLICE BRUTALITY: ARE WE FINALLY SEEING SOME JUSTICE?



"BLUE" JIMMY:  INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA
POLICE BRUTALITY

"BLUE" JIMMY:  September 6, 2018, off-duty Dallas Police Department officer Amber Guyger, walks into 26 year-old Botham Jean's apartment and shoots him dead while he is eating a bowl of ice cream and watching TV on his living room couch.
BOTHAM JEAN

  She claimed she was tired and thought she was in her own apartment (on another floor) and that Jean was a burglar who was a threat to her life.  She is arrested 3 days later after an investigation by The Texas Rangers and less than 3 weeks later she is fired from the Dallas Police Department.  One year later, a jury doesn't buy her story and finds her guilty of murder and she is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
AMBER GUYGER

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Life ain't easy for a cop in prison!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  October 12, 2019, 28 year-old Atatiana Jefferson is playing video games with her 8 year-old nephew in her mother's home when she hears a noise outside her window. 
ATATIANA JEFFERSON
When she looks out the window, she is killed my a single shot through the glass fired by Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean who never identifies himself as a police officer and has no reason to be firing his weapon into someone's home for what was supposed to be a simple "welfare call" (a neighbor was concerned that her house had open doors late at night).  By Sunday morning, Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus, is firing Dean but Dean resigns before he can be fired.  By Monday October 14, Dean is arrested at his attorney's office and charged with murder.  Two months later on December 20, 2019, Dean is indicted for murder by a grand jury and is now awaiting trial.
AARON DEAN


BLIND DOG OZZY:  That was fast!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  May 25, 2020, 46 year-old Minneapolis resident, George Floyd was detained on a city street for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a local deli.  Police pulled him from his vehicle and placed him in handcuffs.  As he fell to the street and suffered a medical emergency, Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd to the street with a knee to his neck and ignored his screams that he could not breathe and that he was dying.  At one point, Floyd calls out for his mother.  Bystanders who took video of the incident pleaded with the arresting officers to get Floyd off the ground and help him and they were ignored.  Officer Chauvin continued to shove his knee into Floyd's neck and suffocate him.   When an ambulance finally arrived, they dragged his lifeless body to a stretcher still handcuffed.  He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
GEORGE FLOYD


BLIND DOG OZZY:  Punk cops!  Killing a man over $20 bucks.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The next day, May 26, 2020, officer Chauvin as well as officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao who were all involved in the incident, were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department by Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo.  The FBI and The United States Department Of Justice announced that they would launch investigations into the incident.  On Friday May 29, officer Chauvin was arrested and charged with 3rd degree murder and 2nd degree manslaughter.  The other officers involved may also face charges.
DEREK CHAUVIN


BLIND DOG OZZY:  Karma is a bitch!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  As I write this, the death of Mr. George Floyd at the hands of officer  Derek Chauvin has sparked protests which have turned to rioting all across the country.  People are clashing with police and fires are burning just as hot as the anger in protester's hearts. 
2020 RIOTS
2020 RIOTS
2020 RIOTS
2020 RIOTS


So what is the point of me bringing up these incidents which happened to three different people from three different walks of life?  In all three cases, police officers involved were swiftly fired from their departments and murder charges were brought against them.  We are seeing this happen much more frequently now than ever before.  I grew up and went to school during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's.  I witnessed Anti-Vietmam War protests and saw the Kent State shootings on television where after endless investigations, no one was ever convicted for the shooting of 13 students by Ohio National Guardsmen, 4 of whom died. 
KENT STATE SHOOTINGS
And at that time, I remember it being virtually unheard of for a police officer to be charged with murder.


BLIND DOG OZZY:  Especially against a person of color!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Policing in The United States has always been fraught with unethical behavior.  According to historical accounts in early America,  police work was not a respectable profession as corruption was rampant among police.  If you have ever seen the 2008 film "Changling" starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich which is the dramatization of an actual crime case which occurred in Los Angeles, CA in 1928, you know that police brutality and corruption have existed in major cities like Los Angeles since at least the 1920's. 
Malkovich plays an actual Christian radio evangelist named Gustav Briegleb, who rails against the brutal LAPD regularly on his radio show whom he refers to as a "gun squad" led by Chief James E. Davis who in real life, was known to encourage brutal police tactics.
GUTAV BRIEGLEB


BLIND DOG OZZY:  Police brutality is not a recent phenomenon!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Yes, Incidents like the one that killed George Floyd still happen.  And that's bad.  But we have come a long way since the days of  Byron De La Beckwith, a Klu Klux Klansman who assassinated civil rights activist, Medgar Evers in 1963 and had two trials in which juries refused to convict him. 
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST MEDGAR EVERS
And before we go rioting and burning down cities ... we should be grateful for that.  


BLIND DOG OZZY:  We've come a long way, baby!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!


BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!
bluejames61@hotmail.com

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