Burning_Ember

Implying someone is lying is a personal attack. Have a good night shiloh.

I've seen such protests. In the bigger picture, this isn't about white cops killing black criminals. It's a much, much larger societal shift that is upset about a lot of issues, a key one being that people think the police have gotten too much power and too little oversight. After Vietnam, there was a reaction, and that was the hippie movement. After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, etc... You are just starting to see that reaction now. Personal attacks are not a valid refutation. I'l gladly respond when you can debate the points, not the person shiloh.

It's simply my position that no human being is perfect, and while I believe in the goodness of people... I don't think any one organization is without correction, or tries to flout the law. Due process and constitutional protections have been under attack for a while now... George brought up earlier asset forfeiture. That's a problem that I don't really see in Canada, but I see awful stories about in America. Let's pretend for a moment that there is an area in the US which suffers a major economic hit, and all departments, including law enforcement, get their budgets cut. To maintain a certain level of pay, or to have enough to equipment, or to have the local police department open at all... They need more revenue. Local law enforcement agencies in the US have two big tools that affect the revenue that they bring in. Asset forfeiture, and ticketing. Some departments, do in fact set quotas for tickets. Sometimes, emails get leaked or Officers step forward and say that they are told to take in a certain amount of revenue per month. At this point, in order for the department to maintain revenue, they HAVE to ticket people, or use asset forfeiture to help their budget out. In Ferguson, that was one if the big issues. A City of little more than 21,000 people took in 2.1 Million dollars in revenue, which ended up being, if I recall correctly, over 20% of the entire revenue of the city. In my city we don't have ticket quotas, and I don't think ticket revenue counts for 10% as a percentage of revenue for here as it did in Ferguson. I don't even see it as a separate part of the pie chart. In addition, if I recall correctly, the budget for Ferguson PD is about 5.3 million dollars. So the department pays for nearly/about 40% of it's own costs through ticketing. $ 2.1 Mil spread out over 22,000 people is nearly $1,000 in fines a year per person, for some people it would be lower, for others it would be higher. So, if there is a department which is responsible for 1/5th of the revenue, or more of a city... or 2/5ths of it's operating costs... Would you want to give that up? What exactly are you supposed to replace that lost revenue with? Additionally, in Ferguson, you can be put in prison and kept there for failing to pay the smallest of fines. I don't think that LEO's in America deserve all of the bad press by any means, and there are plenty of great Officers out there... My concerns are; 1) There is something of a conflict of interest in relying on revenue via tickets and asset forfeiture as an important part of the income for the department from the people that the police are sworn to serve and protect. 2) The justice system is far from perfect. Due process is not just something that these Officers in this case have legitimate concerns about... That's something everyone has to worry about. If there was one Officer out of a hundred that didn't care if they inappropriately lay charges, inappropriately ticket people... That one criminal charge can mean a massive financial burden, losing your job, and a massive hindrance on getting a job again, let alone the level of job you were at before. People do not have a problem with law enforcement when they do an excellent job. People have a problem with when Law Enforcement makes mistakes, or could have done better... I just don't pretend that LEO's are somehow more perfect than everyone else. My city? I would definitely trust the average Officer I run into on the street. Some areas in the US? The worst stories I hear about law enforcement here, are spoken of as a much more common happening down south.

I think one protester put it in one news report something like... For Police, there is not black and white. There is only blue. The focus is on Police Brutality.

We'll see at trial. The most interesting thing I find is the chain of events. From the perspective of a protester/activist, they might say Trayvon Martin might have been one of the big more recent cases that may have been the first of this kind. The protests were not as large, and were less disruptive, and they did not get a conviction. In Ferguson (and the solidarity protests) that is when the tactics of shutting things down (a very common chant) started. Those continued in Baltimore, and got far more people out, were far more co-ordinated, they organized it with the previous guys from Ferguson, and they got it going much much faster than Ferguson. If I had to simply guess at how this trial is going to turn out... I imagine it would turn out to be either a conviction or a retrial followed by a conviction. The Officers aren't convicted of any crime, they are innocent until proven guilty.. But I've read through loads of material on this and I think that it is very likely the prosecutor went into this very confident they could get convictions on most if not all of these charges. Why these charges in particular were chosen, and whether they could get convictions on each of them was pretty confusing, and took a few hours thinking, but I think I understand what she is going for. If all of these were different episodes, I think the protesters will be consistently, if not more energized for the next one.

http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/D/DepravedHeartMurder.aspx The definition as given by Robinson vs State, in Maryland, by Justice Adkins. The definition in my previous post is how that works in Maryland, specifically, where Baltimore is. So again, could you please explain why those two charges would not be appropriate in this case?

http://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-heart-murder/ http://www.vox.com/2015/5/1/8529761/freddie-gray-depraved-murder As for manslaughter; (3rd degree) http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/manslaughter So, manslaughter is killing someone without due caution. For example, if you recklessly drove a car and accidentally killed someone, that might be vehicular manslaughter. 2nd degree depraved heart is similar, the difference being that the person knowingly took action that would recklessly endanger someones life, but didn't care. So if you drove a car recklessly, knowing that you would be recklessly endangering someones life, and showed indifference to that, and then killed them without intent to kill... That could fit under 2nd degree depraved heart murder. So, do explain why manslaughter (3rd degree murder) and 2nd degree depraved heart murder are not appropriate charges to file, since that is your position.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/what-is-depraved-heart-murder-in-maryland/2015/05/01/b2619450-f021-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html From the article; Manslaughter (3rd degree murder) also does not require intent to kill.

3rd and 2nd degree depraved heart murder do not require intent to kill. This is why I'm asking if you know how the definition of those two charges. What the charge actually is, is very relevant to how why someone gets charged with it.

Keep the discussion on the argument, not the person. You claimed that it is inappropriate for the Officers to be charged with murder. Charges are not convictions. Being charged with something doesn't mean guilty of the crime. So, what proof do you have that it is not appropriate for those charges to be laid? There is a timeline of events that was just released today, and the statement of probable cause. Those are readily available for you to cite to prove your case.

You already rushed into judgement by saying murder charges were not appropriate. If you can't actually defend your argument, that's fine.

Nah this is about supporting your claims. You claimed that murder charges are not appropriate for this case. Provide evidence. Speculation doesn't count. Perhaps you can point to the definitions for manslaughter and 2nd degree depraved heart murder and point out how they in fact do not apply.

You made the claim that 2nd and third degree murder charges are not appropriate and do not apply in this case. The burden of proof is upon you to prove your claim. Please provide evidence for your assertion.

So you think that 2nd and third degree murder charges are not appropriate but you don't need to define why they are in fact inappropriate, the start of which would be defining what the requirements for those charges are. What you are saying is still opinion and speculation. Not proof. Please provide evidence that second and third degree murder charges are not appropriate.

That's speculation and a massive assumption on your part. Not evidence. So you don't actually have independently verifiable evidence of some kind. I notice that you couldn't define second/third degree murder. Could you please define those? Perhaps that would shed some light on whether those could be appropriate charges.

And your proof is?

Could you please define 2nd and third degree murder for me?

He was unresponsive and dying by the time he left the van, as a result of what happened in the van. The Officers could have easily used a seatbelt, which they were under a general order from BPD to do, but they did not. He had suffered fatal injuries before he even reached the jail. That is a depraved way to treat someone.

That's very in context. What you said was your opinion at that time. The police put Gray headfirst into the police van, put him in handcuffs and leg shackles, and he was dead when he left the van. They refused him medical care when he needed it and only provided it when he went into cardiac arrest. The prosecutor claims they arrested him illegally as well. What happened was a depraved way to treat another human being. What you said; Their death "is not the fault of the policeman." The Officer "can't be faulted when a suspect resists arrest". (The fatal injury occurred in the van.) It "is not the responsibility of the police to make sure the suspect remains alive till trial." If an Officer treated someone so poorly that they went into cardiac arrest as a result of being transported in a van... That is absolutely depraved and sickening, and I should hope that it should not be allowable to treat someone getting arrested like that. Prison time is a punishment for a crime. Not death.

2nd degree murder and 3rd degree murder charges are murder charges that they got charged with, which, you said, they shouldn't be charged with. You also said the death wasn't their fault. Checking again... Yes, you did say the Officers shouldn't get charged. It very much seemed to be your position that the Officers shouldn't get charged for what happened. That's up to the prosecutor.

That's actually not what you said at all. You said; So you never said you think the Officers should be charged?

The last line in the OP is a simple statement of fact. Prosecutors file charges that they think they can get.

Correct me if I was wrong, but I thought you said there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.

Press conference just now from WBAL in Baltimore. They state that Gray was illegally arrested. That the weapon he was carrying was lawful under Maryland law. Prosecutor states that Gray was unsedcured and placed headfirst into the police van. Resulting in a critical neck injury, against a BPD general order, at least five times. After repeatedly asking for medical help, no medical care was rendered. Mention of gross negligence. Medic was only called when Gray stopped breathing and in cardiac arrest. Manner of death deemed homicide. Charges include 2nd degree depraved heart murder, manslaughter, misconduct in office, involuntary manslaughter, assault in the second degree, false imprisonment. Prosecutors usually only file charges they think they can get in cases like this.

The protesters, in general, do not support violence or burning things down. I'll remind you that MLK organized many marches that blocked off traffic, he was also very disruptive. The Montgomery bus boycotts involved people filling up buses and preventing people from using public transportation to get to their jobs. There is a long history of disruptive protests in the civil rights movement.