Month: February 2016

Individuals are technically dead, but because of their mental mindset, their goal-oriented mindset, they are able to carry on, he said. [An “expert” on “suicide by cop” at the James Forcillo trial.]

The judge– shockingly– wouldn’t allow this testimony.  Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

The expert was trying to explain why it was necessary for police officer, James Forcillo, to fire six additional rounds into Sammy Yatim after he was already incapacitated–and probably dead– after the first three.

Was it ever more clear when a certain line of argument has reached bankruptcy?  I put this in the category of the drug users who had “superhuman” strength, and the man who tried to kill a police officer with a stapler.

The problem with the police is that I don’t think they really care what people like me think anymore.  They are always justified in killing any civilian, no matter what.  Any attempt– absolutely any attempt– to hold them accountable is nothing more than an attack on the most saintly and courageous and honorable public servants in existence.

I often want to ask them, if I could be a lawyer for a moment in one of these court cases, please describe for me a scenario in which a police officer was wrong to shoot a civilian, in the line of duty.  Make one up.  Imagine it.  There must be some circumstance out there in which a police officer would be accountable.

I’ll bet they can’t do it.  A police officer walks down the street in some random part of the city and pulls out his gun and shoots a random shopper:  clearly the shopper was moving towards the officer in a threatening manner (the video shows him running away from the psychotic man with a gun).  The shopper had a knife (turns out to be a cell phone).  The shopper reached for the knife (the police officer had asked him to show him her id).  There were other shoppers around: did you want to take a chance, risking the lives of innocent women and children?  Do you know what happens when you are stabbed with a cell phone?

I am really, really curious to hear it.  I am curious to know if they can even imagine a situation in which a police shooting someone is not justified by the simple fact of being a police officer and the victim was not.

Perhaps the most despicable part of the this case been the instances of people saying they were “on the side of the police”.  What are you talking about?  Do you honestly see the shooting of a drugged out teenager as an issue of the police vs. the public and you’re on the side of the police?  If anything, it should be an issue of good, competent, honest police against bad, incompetent, overly-aggressive police.

But the other officers on the scene agree with the “sides” argument: they all lied in defense of James Forcillo.    So, yes, if you are on the side of the police then we don’t have police.  We have an organized gang with uniforms.  Instead of robbing banks, they collect from the public purse.  And they can kill anyone they want, with impunity, because the only people who can arrest a bad cop are cops and they have proven, over and over and over again, that their first loyalty is to themselves, not the law, and not the government, and certainly not you.

[whohit]The Zombie Defense[/whohit]

You’ve heard it before, but it bears repeating: You are much more likely to be struck dead by lightning, choke on a chicken bone or drown in the bathtub than be killed by a terrorist. Any number of well-known diseases — cancer, diabetes, the flu — take the lives of far, far more people. Yet, by one estimate, the United States spends $500 million per victim of terrorism, and a piddling $10,000 per cancer death.

Why Doesn't Everybody Know this?
And another: “I’m almost shocked,” 
she recalled thinking during her first years 
in medical school as she learned, for example, 
that it is easier to burp lying on your left 
side than your right because of the position 
at which the esophagus connects to the stomach.
 “Why doesn’t everybody know this?”

[whohit]Death by Chicken Bone[/whohit]