Submitted by Caleb Pilgrim
It is not sheer serendipity that former President George W. Bush deemed the decision by the Staten Island grand jury not to indict the white Police Officers responsible for chokehold and death of Eric Garner, as “hard to understand”. Nor that Hillary Clinton, a possible 2016 US Presidential candidate, should have considered the US justice system “out of balance”, and backed federal probes into both the Ferguson and the Staten Island cases. What is clear is the fact that the US grand jury system, under the guidance of experienced prosecutors, has failed miserably to ensure that the rights of victims minorities are legally protected.
Several decades ago, while a graduate student in the UK, I attended a lecture by the late Lord Hailsham, (UK Lord Chancellor). Hailsham, a man of extraordinary political, judicial, legal, parliamentary, and even military experience, described the American legal system as “that great museum of discarded English legal forms” … (page 38 of Hamlyn Revisited: The British Legal System Today).
Fair to say, Hailsham was critical of the civil jury system. Like Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he was born to an American mother. He was not, however, simply asserting a strident anti-American bias, and seeking to torpedo the typical claims of “American exceptionalism”. Rather, he was offering a typically robust analysis of twentieth century UK and comparative legal development.
To illustrate Hailsham’s point as to the US being “that great museum of discarded English legal forms”, the grand jury ceased to function in England in 1933, following enactment of the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1933… (“An Act to abolish grand juries and amend the law as to the presentment of indictments …”). Grand juries were subsequently abolished in their entirety in 1948, when the Criminal Justice Act 1948 (“An Act to abolish penal servitude, hard labour … the sentence of whipping …”),repealed a savings clause in the 1933 UK legislation retaining grand juries for offences relating to officials abroad.
Today, the United States remains the only country which still retains the grand jury system. No other western country, with a common law tradition, e.g. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, retains the grand jury. Recent grand jury nullifications in Eric Garner’s case in Staten Island, New York, and in Michael Brown’s case in Ferguson, Missouri, must therefore concern any thoughtful, civic minded individual. Relatively widespread, popular dissatisfaction among blacks, whites, minorities, males, females, young, old, students, activists, and across the political spectrum – resulting and culminating in occasional rioting and looting – following the grand jury failure to indict police officer(s), who either intentionally or recklessly kill unarmed civilians – also compels us to consider the usefulness of the current grand jury system(s), and ask whether the time for its abolition has not come.
The refusal of the respective grand juries to return any sort of indictment may well be, in itself, a most astounding, if not compelling indictment of the system. Time was when we were told that “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich”. Perhaps, yes! But, not so, where the victim is black. Black lives clearly do not matter in the context of the grand jury. (Curious, also, that the civilian who shot the infamous police assault and murder of Eric Garner should allegedly have recently been indicted by a grand jury in a different matter).
We are yet to see what the Cuyahoga County/Cleveland, Ohio, grand jury will do in the case of the murder of 12 year old Tamir Rice by mis-advised, trigger happy white Cleveland police – Tamir was shot 2 seconds after Police Officer Timothy Loehman arrived on the scene. Loehman, barring a particular species of informal affirmative action, and the aristocracy of skin color may rightfully have been considered otherwise unemployable, based on his previous job performance and his employment record.
Indeed, it is the case that the murder of unarmed black males by the police is nothing new. We are, nevertheless, yet to see any sort of comprehensive statistical data setting out the actual numbers of black men either killed by police, nationally, or how many exactly are the victims of excessive use of force by law enforcement. The WSJ even recently reported that hundreds of killings are not reported in federal statistics.
We do not yet know the actual costs of empanelling the grand juries in Ferguson, including the resulting fall-out, and the Staten Island grand jury. What we do know is that the enormous social, economic and financial costs were quite foreseeable.
Most prosecutors are experienced trial lawyers. They are quite capable of indicting any offender, picking up the pieces and bringing the matter to either settlement or speedy trial. They indict every day throughout this country, without any need for a grand jury. They try cases every day.
It is therefore clear that the grand jury, based on Staten Island and Ferguson outcomes, except where intended to give the prosecutor a measure of political cover, has proven itself a useless sham and an anachronism, which ought to be abolished forthwith. Its mandatory secrecy also militates against transparency, accountability and the Rule of Law in a democracy. How does one reconcile the mandatory secrecy of grand jury proceedings with the need for transparency and accountability? (Belated, ex-post facto release of transcripts- after the grand jury’s decision – is but sheer bogus). Why do we need another layer in a now clearly flawed system of grand jury “prosecutorial discretion”?
The presence of minorities on these grand juries does not even offer a fig leaf of protection to the rights of victims deceased at the hands of the police officers who murdered them. It used to be axiomatic that “Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done”! Based on widespread dissent, not even the most myopic could reasonably, far less unequivocally conclude that justice was either done or “seen to be done” in either Ferguson or Staten Island. Pray tell, how does today’s grand jury help conserve what is best in contemporary American society, beset with a multitude of complex issues.
It should suffice that where probable cause exists, any rogue police officer, and any defendant(s) – e.g. Officers Wilson and Pantaleo, like anyone else, should at a minimum have been charged with murder and tried by criminal jury, without the intervention of a renegade grand jury, in a squalid and unseemly manipulation of the legal system.
159 responses to “Why Not Abolish the Grand Jury?”
@David- December 7, 2014 at 11:17 AM: Any guesses what the decision will be in the Tamir Grand Jury?
For all practical purposes this is an interesting one. Like Garner the visual evidence suggests an indictment.
Unlike Garner, an additional reason to indict is the evidence presented re the POs history of less than stable mental equilibrium.
But…here is where the DA’s determination could be a key factor: How can you determine what is a real gun or a toy? If that’s presented with strong related factors of recent cases in that area etc etc. Then who knows.
But on the face of it I would expect an indictment.
The real dozy in this case of course is the settlement with the parents. Their attorney will have a lot of fodder to smash away re the bad HR process of the Police Dept to hire this guy.
It’s sad that this comes down to your son, brother in a grave and how much money your lawyer can get for that death. Sad.
@ Ross : You have a sweet blog-affair going there with David.
BTW David did ask a rhetorical question not make a statement.
I am impressed though, thanks for the new words: ‘res ipsa’ which I did come across before but don’t use it so its new again, and the wonderful ‘otiose’
Easy with his cool style and you with the cool language and all else here.
Where can we get this all and solid info and comments but on BU.
More power to you Dave!!!
@Dee Word
The only consideration in the Tamir case should be the 2 seconds the PO took pulled the trigger and the 911 call that gave an indication the gun maybe fake.
@ Vincent
Have to agree with you. Who gives a shit about the US Grand Jury? … the whole place is racist, as will be any alternative process….
also…
Charity begins at home ….but apparently not at the home of brass bowls.
@ Zoe
How is GP?
Are those REPORTED crime stats you are giving?
Do you know how many times a white person would be ignored, spoken to, given a warning, or given a lesser charge …..compared to a black person – especially a black male?
…shiite man, Bushie can’t even tell you to stick to the Bible….cause you don’t get that either….
Bush Tea……..ah you dat…..BBE cum fuh yuh wirl…..yuh sun dun ‘gree wid muh
David
We need to be creative and find our own impenetrable niche in this world,sounds easy and glib but that is where we need to be heading and show the rest of the world how it is done,instead of looking over our shoulders all the time and finding excuses why it cannot be done.
@David: The composition of the Michael Brown Grand Jury is reported to have had 3 Blacks sitting yet the decision was unanimous?”
As Sargeant reiterated, “Statistics bear out the truism that Grand Juries are tools of the Prosecution…”
If that prosecution team presented strongly the fact that Brown ‘rushed’ towards the PO Wilson, had just beat-up a store-owner, stolen items and was an all-round 6.4′ hulking mass of angry, dangerous male…
And minimized any and all extenuating circumstance there are few reasonable citizens – NONE, really I would boldly say in those circumstances – regardless of color that will convict.
At THAT point, as presented by the prosecutors, the officer had absolute probable cause to use deadly force.
re Tamir Rice:
Remember Dave, that fact about the ‘fake’ gun is in dispute. I heard news indicating that although the caller suggested it might be, the despatcher never mentioned that to the POs.
That sir is crucial. If there were aware then as you said: case closed, guilty. They apparently were not.
@Vincent
could not agree with more, it is the leadership gave to Singapore but that is a dictatorship right?
Zoe
Good. You “orthodox yid”…..That nailed that one. Nice aint they?
If you start off with the premise that all these cases are institutional murder, there is nothing to discuss – and it wouldn’t matter what the decision of a grand jury or a trial process was. But that’s the position most take on here.
The Garner case I guess is the more problematic of the two recent cases. What is the evidence of a racist killing? Well (a) the ‘victim’ was black, and (b) there appears to have been an excessive use of force.
Does that make it ‘racist’ – well unless you accept the premise in para 2?
A few moments ago I heard a snatch of a news report which said a fella had been shot (I think) seven times by the police at Kensington. Once? OK. Twice? Well OK. Thrice? Yeh, well, um……Seven times?
A few months back I witnessed a rasta fella being set upon by three security guards for pilfering in Cave Shepherd. The security guards were BIG. The rasta skinny. Of course he struggled. The more he struggled the more violent the security people became. The force was manifestly excessive. They dragged him into a side room and there pulled him to the ground – by his locks. (I followed and having witnessed that and remonstrated was thrown out) Was that racism against rastas?
Two weeks ago walking from RBC in Broad Street to Roebuck Street an unmarked SUV came down the road at high speed with siren blaring. Everyone walking in the street was put at serious risk. The SUV parked by Bombay Fashions in Roebuck Street. A man got in. Off the SUV went again with siren blaring. I asked around to see who it was. Answer: the fire chief. Was he proceeding to a fire (this to a policeman)? No. Policeman says to me “Thank you. I’ll speak to him about it.”
Moral..(a) .people in ‘authority’ tend to throw their weight around and shouldn’t., and (b) we meet it every day.
Bush Tea to Zoe
Do you know how many times a white man would be ignored etc etc.
Bush Tea…I don’t. Do you?
David
In the absence of our population being able to sing in the same choir with some discord,a benevolent dictatorship is required irregardless of how imperfect it is.
@David
Sometimes you just can’t win, you should ask the Vincent Hayes of the world to submit a local blog of his/her choice to rekindle the fires of bloggers or you can dispense with blogging about all but indigenous issues. I see on your masthead there are blogs about Lashley, Graeme Hall, Beatrice Henry, CIL and QEH etc. so people like Bushie seem to have a problem masticating and walking at the same time.
Ah mean can we count the ways one say Freundel, Sinckler, Lashley, Jones, Estwick et al are idiots or fools? Plus the more you blog about local issues the more times Bushie has to indulge in his addiction of referring to people as Brassbowls.
@Lawson
The Rodney king beating was that the one before the Reginald denny beating
+++++++++++++
The Reginald Denny beating was that the one after Bull Connor, Claudette Colvin, Tulsa, Rosewood, Emmit Till, Alonso Edwards……? If you are unable to determine relevance I can always start Black history month in December but surely you can differentiate between the actions of a mob and the actions of agents of the State.
Ross
You’re probably correct in assuming that based on the objective evidence, that the Garner case is an obviously use of excessive force. But the problem with that perspective is the fact that when you have a police establishment throughout America, that is accused of violating the of civil rights of blacks people, it makes one stop and wonder as to whether or not this is a case of excessive use force or the commonplace racism. I am not saying that this case is predicated upon the racial tendencies of the White police officers involved, but it surely speaks to the historical practices of the White police establishment in America as it relates to the use of force when it comes to Black people.
Dee Word | December 7, 2014 at 1:38 PM |
@David: The composition of the Michael Brown Grand Jury is reported to have had 3 Blacks sitting yet the decision was unanimous?”
THERE WERE ACTUALLY 3 who voted for indictment on the grand jury.
However the Prosecutor did not disclose which 3 since it is supposed to be a secret group making decision.
@Anthony
If the decision was unanimous does it matter?
Dompey
You have experience in a way that I don’t of course. One can only refer to the figures (Zoe), the fact that many black people who appear on TV deny that the episodes were rooted in racism, that the level of ‘lawlessness’ of black areas is very high, that some say that without the police they would be even higher, that there is clearly a ‘business’ in promoting racism and many unproven assumptions etc etc.
Now let me give you my take on Garner.
We saw a video which appeared to show that excessive force was used. Like everyone else I was shocked and disgusted. It seemed to me then (as now) that the narrative fell into two parts:
first – the initial neck hold which played its part in bringing G to the ground and then
second – the story once G had said ‘I can’t breathe’.
Thereafter, everything is speculative without seeing the evidence.
On the first, like everyone else I watched the video, as I say, with disgust. Then two nights ago I saw the video with what I described earlier as the voice of the “runty” white boy. It was abundantly clear that he was making capital from what was happening – the full hundred. And that made me suspicious. He said to the police that G was trying to break up a fight. There seemed to be no evidence of that. Rather G was being ‘harrassed’ rightly or wrongly about illicit sales of cigarettes.
I then realized something. There is a break in the video. The narrative begins with the police standing off and listening and doubtless talking back. Then there’s a break. Then we hear G say repeatedly ‘don’t touch me’ and then the grey short trousered policeman applying the hold from behind and G staggering backward and eventually falling. A number of officers were engaged in that and arguably if one applied excessive force in applying the neck hold the rest were complicit.
I’m not clear that placing a forearm round someone’s neck and pulling is illicit. I saw it in the rasta case I describe above. But one question arises – if the standard procedure where someone is resisting arrest is to have them lie on the floor then this is in fact what the officers did – though roughly.
How do you make a resisting 300lb Goliath lie on the floor except by in some way dragging him down? In a Privy Council self-defence case some 40 years ago one of the law lords said that a man can’t be expected to weight to a nicety the precise amount of force he should use in the agony of the moment.
Now for me the key question is what went on when the video was cut. Was there self-evident justification for the force that was actually used? This is why I asked if there were other tapes. We were all seduced by what we actually SAW but paid no attention to what we didn’t see. Understand me – I don’t know. But then neither does anyone else outside of the grand jury. I absolutely refuse to go along with the herd. And I won’t be manipulated by Sharpton, the Mayor, Jessie Jackson, Holder, Obama or anyone else – nor by the colour of a man’s skin.
I’ll come back to the second stage later.
@Anthony
I am confused here so let me ask this ignorant question: the Oxford American dictionary defines the word UNANIMOUS as to mean: (1) of people fully in agreement (2) of an opinion, decision or vote) held or carried by everyone involved. So how then could three have voted for indictment?
how many videos must one see to understand that the body of this man was under extreme force resulting in a man pleading eleven times for his life and that the human and right thing to do by those who are legally bound protect and serve would have been implement other legal methods by law which are justifiable to apprehend
THe fact is that if that illegal choke hold was not use as a method to apprehend there would be no controversy ,
it really boggles the mind, when people start using diversion as an excuse as to why this unfortunate incidents occur, Blacks are highly aware of black on black crime, is it acceptable NO! ,however blacks also aware as to the social and inherited racist factors that are built into a system that keeps most blacks on the lower tier and compounds and interacts with the poor blacks livelihood that attributes to crime ,
The garner story is a n example of a black man who had to make a living out of a system so flawed and designed that it has forced blacks in poor communities to under take illegal activities to survive ( which by the way } these communities have been under corporate seige by big business which has all but shut out blacks out a system for any meaningful financial leverage or gains, and as a result blacks become victims either at there own hands or at the hands of the law just for trying to survive, .
Ross
Are you aware of the fact that the throat- hold which was employed by the police officer has been banned for two decades now in the New York Police Department? And CNN reported this morning that the person who video tapped the Garner arrested has himself been arrested on gun charges? He further stated that since he video tapped the Garner’s footage, he himself has been repeated harassed by the NY PD? And finally, the one question a lot of people have failed to ask in the Garner’s case it the fact that, since Mr. Garner’s size posed a real threat to the police on the scene, why wasn’t the Taser employed?
Ross
Question: So if the throat-hold was a violation of the NY PD Police Policy, why wasn’t the officer charged for involuntary manslaughter since coroner ruled Mr. Garner’s death a homicide?
Sarge …starting black history month early…..don’t be threatening me LOL. Morgan Freeman is right
Ross
It doesn’t really matter what happened prior to present video footage. The fact of the matter is a man is dead as a result of excessive force attributed to an illegal throat-hold employed by a police officer. So therefore, I quite confidence that Mr. Garner’s wife and kids will get the justice they’re seeking when the Justice Department prosecutes this case.
Let us give thanks that White America seems to be equally perturb by the Garner video and the Grand Jury decision. The pedantism of some on this blog therefore is irrelevant.
Bill De Blasio Explains Why His Son Needs To Be Careful Around Cops
President Obama Speaks The Truth: Racism Is Deeply Rooted In American Society
Gawd…David…you’re another sick joker or are you the same sick joker? Why do you bother to have a blog if all you can do is insult those who don’t take the party and RACIST line? Shameful. Do you actually read what’s written? But no matter …YOU are irrelevant too…indeed we all are. BUT David…tell you what. Why don’t you get up a protest march? If you do I will join you. Ah yes, but then I forgot. You don’t show your head above the parapet do you? The bottom line like the sicko…no guts. Just power over as blog owner.
ac
OK the system made him ‘bad’. And the others whom it didn’t?
Dompey
Of course I’m aware of what is said about the ‘hold’ just as I’m aware that the ‘runt’ was arrested in respect of an unlicensed gun AND just as I’m aware – until someone can tell me differently – that the tape was doctored before it reached the public domain. We saw the same thing in Sterling.
But my second part. Remember…I said the narrative falls into two parts.
I take the view that once G said in a way that could not possibly give rise to other than a serious concern that he could not breathe the continued use of force became felonious. Again – all would be complicit since all were in close physical proximity and were on notice.
I heard a Republican someone or other say that he couldn’t speak if he couldn’t breathe. Well – I quite take the point that a man might be shamming but there is absolutely no evidence that G was and it is simply nonsense to suggest he was. Of course you can speak if you’re not breathing. I invite anyone to try it.
Some will doubtless say that what caused G’s death was his poor physical condition – but that won’t do. I don’t know what the legal; position is there, but here the principle is ‘you take a man as you find him’. G’s condition did not break the causal chain.
It follows that whatever the position with regard to the first part of the narrative, there is no doubt in my mind on the basis of the video as it seems to be that in the second part there was a demonstrably unnecessary use of force which the ‘agony of the moment’ principle does not excuse.
Oh, by the way….. the sicko will, I’m sure, be delighted to hear that one of two outfits I subscribe to from US and which supports gay rights, incited us ‘members’ to march against racism in various locations in the US. Imagine…bullers have more guts than sickos.
Christ David…I didn’t know you were a circus Clown. When did Obama EVER speak the truth? And as for the mayor….I guess at this point it is indisputable that you really do think we’re all idiots.
ross u can interpret my comments any which way u like, however getting back to the right and wrongs of this horrific human rights violation then who should be blamed, ?
@ David
Some of them have no idea about American social history but believe they could have opinions. Every time they write they implicitly say they know not about American legal history either. They don’t know that a Black man being only 3/5 of a White man as grounded by the 1857 Dred Scott decision is still applicable law today.
They can’t know that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were not aimed at freeing slaves or at establishing slaves as equal HUMAN beings – forget this shite about civil rights because they are less than human rights anyway. Those amendments were about keeping the union together. Lincoln gave not a fu*k about freeing anybody. He himself said that if he could keep the union together without freeing the salves, he would. Why do you think so-called emancipation came only in 1865. Nearly 50 years after other places.
These miscreants can’t know that during the Reconstruction Period and shortly thereafter, African Americans had wider human rights than obtained even today. They can’t know that African Americans had built a Black Wall Street. Had more senators in the federal government than at any time since then.They can’t conceive of the wickedness of White people. A wickedness that set about to destroy Black people even after so-called emancipation. It’s ignorance steeped in naivete. They both continue today.
David, the White you are talking about know the truth about living in an Apartheid state. While the fervent protectors of White supremacy in Barbados would blame Black people even if we were all killed. Regardless of how the event Black have to be wrong. Unfortunately, they are so few it is as if they do not exist. These modern day John Browns will play their role but we have been here before. There will come a point when a fork has to be navigated. Clarke has thought us that we have never had any friends. You will yet learn this.
And a cu*t hole like Zoe with a head steeped in nonsense from a bible would agree with a stinking buller. A serial racist. He has never seen a Black man murdered in any set of circumstances that could not be justified, by him. Anything to absolve Whitey from the racism we live everyday.
We are to treat bullers with deference and as he says ‘learn to live with it’ on our TVs but never a word of contrition for the serial genocide, thief, slavery, wars of aggression and a myriad of crimes against humanity this Bajan, modern day Willy Lynch, can’t cease to try to paper over.
As for the assh*le Zoe. We want you to tell your stinking god in whose name my ancestor were enslaved that we will never recognition him until he cuts off the murdering basters and their progeny. And don’t tell us no nonsense about the foolish Africans who cooperated with their global business either, the same should happen to them too and their progeny.
Rossy
Racist Murder (or not)
Police Murder
Youth Killed
Police Harassment
Thousands Protesting
ac
The answer to your question on my part is abundantly clear if you take the trouble to read what I wrote.
Just empty froth. Look sunshine… with thousands of others it was a white man – Wm Lloyd Garrison – who stuck his neck out in the fight against slavery. He didn’t just spout off with froth as you do. He got up and DID. Why don’t YOU?
yes i take your answer to be conflicting not at all abundantly clear ..two steps forward three steps backward,, errrrr.
” it was a white man – Wm Lloyd Garrison – who stuck his neck out in the fight against slavery.”
Being White ain’t all that nowadays
Colour taking over
@robert ross | December 7, 2014 at 5:58 PM …
What’s so out of step with what either Mayor de Blasio or Pres Obama said?
Facts sometimes are stranger than fiction as they say.
The mayor lived in an area of NY – Park Slope (tony, high-end district), Brooklyn.
Some months back in this Park Slope area a group of Afro kids were tailed by cops in their patrol car and told over the loudspeakers of the car to “get out of the neighborhood” .
Let’s be clear. These kids were not displaying any hooliganism, doing anything wrong or otherwise out of place.
This could have easily been the Mayor’s son on his way home from school.
That’s the type of base reality the mayor knows only too well as a politician and first hand as the father of a ‘black’ kid.
It was said that the President told the mayor’s son that he (the son) looked very much like he did when he was a boy. Pics of Obama and his big afro validate that.
The point; he too had to be wary with cops. Harvard boy or not!
@Robert Ross
We were all seduced by what we actually SAW but paid no attention to what we didn’t see. Understand me – I don’t know
++++++++++++++++
Please don’t make this into a second Zapruder film, next thing you will write about the man on the grassy knoll. Here is the story from the time Garner said he couldn’t breathe they should have relaxed their pressure and turned him on his side, when they kept the pressure on it was “Good night nurse” end of story.
Roll the credits.
Sarjeant
Read what I wrote will you.
ac
Deal with it. Perhaps the finer points elude you. But…if you want…marking time then two steps forward.
Dee Word
Are there SUS laws? But understand me – I do NOT accept the premise that the Garner and Brown cases inexorably exhibit racism or ‘institutional murder’. To say otherwise without evidence, as the Mayor implied, should be made a criminal offence as an assertion calculated to incite racial hatred. As for Obama, he does rather like the idea of his DNA being all over the place doesn’t he?
@Lawson
For me every month is “Black History” month but that early start to the official celebration was for your benefit, unless you are eager to disprove the axiom “you are never too old to learn”.
Come on Sargeant…roll the credits.
Pachamama | December 7, 2014 at 6:06 PM..whoooooa.
I certainly ain’t no scholar to your level but you appear to have interpreted the US history to suit your need to vent with venom, so here is another interpretation.
Dred Scott was absolutely overturned subsequently by legislation.
Even back then when it was upheld as law of the land there were states where slavery was not allowed.
There have been times in the political dynamic of the US that they were more blacks in congress. Absolutely. There were also a time that Republicans spoke as the voice of the blacks. Times change, things morp.
Years from now they will say, there was a time when the President of the US was black. Times change.
There was a time too when people would discourse without resorting to such noise and insults. But times change and manners/decorum is lost, too. I wonder how many of you grew up in a household that accepted the type of speech you exhibit here.
Oh and re Abe Lincoln and abolishing slavery. I read the same history as you did. My take away is that the man accepted that Afro-Americnas were worthy people and that slavery as a way of life was abhorrent. But yes he was a political animal and was married into a family that owned slaves. That does not negate what he achieved.
Let me play your little stupid selective quoting game: President Lincoln also said: “… if I could save [the Union] by freeing all the slaves I would do it.”
Really dude. Anyone can check the entire quote.
That was politics at high noon and like today, what and how you said what you said, was the difference between success and abject failure.
The man was trying to bring a nation together and win a war that was on the edge.
It’s the same as today, Pres Obama needs to parse his words on race very carefully otherwise he will do more damage than good.
Let discourse seriously without the little mind games.
“I do NOT accept the premise that the Garner and Brown cases inexorably exhibit racism or ‘institutional murder’.”
Police, Media, Courts System is biased against poor and non-whites
Police should be charged for killings and all brutality and should serve all
If Courts want to whitewash.. USA catches fire
The Overtakers-The Big Takeover
http://youtu.be/nB8gBGQnhEo
I saw nothing on the Garner video to suggest intent to murder /kill.
What I did see was a callous disregard for a man who was motionless and in obvious distress.
He may have had a chance of survival if he had been treated properly after the initial take down.
Garner died because of the actions of the Police and possibly the apparent negligence of the EMTs
Ross @ dee word
Are there SUS laws? But understand me – I do NOT accept the premise that the Garner and Brown cases inexorably exhibit racism or ‘institutional murder’. To say otherwise without evidence, as the Mayor implied, should be made a criminal offence as an assertion calculated to incite racial hatred. As for Obama, he does rather like the idea of his DNA being all over the place doesn’t he?
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’
maybe the mayor should take a long hard look as to why the outrage,,, he simply does not get it, his one response maybe was to pacify with an attempt to temper collective responses, going by the last few sentences of the above comment i am perplexed as to his assertions,, is he not aware that the victim has now become the criminal and the crime committed at the hands of the police officer was a criminal offence enough to incite racial hatred , some where along the lines the mayor got his message twisted, seems like a wolve in sheeps clothing
Wunna got Nuff time for this US stuff ! OK. Barbados in a downward spiral but wunna would rather talk about the Racism in the US?
Priority deficit disorder ! Bim going to the dogs but wunna rather talk about overseas problems. Wunna is bare jokes! I dare any of wunna to explain what this has to do with Barbados a 98 percent Black Country. No wonder the political class laughing at wunna. Wunna all over the place! Priorities are about the US . LOL . Wunna like wunna ain’t ready.
David | December 7, 2014 at 3:01 PM |
@Anthony
If the decision was unanimous does it matter?
First I responded to correct an error made by Dee Word in using the word unanimous.
Yes it would as we don;t know whether the 3 only black jurors went against the remainder who were white.
Bear in mind that Ferguon is 67% black, with the jury being at least 10 people.
@ Ross
I do NOT accept the premise that the Garner and Brown cases inexorably exhibit racism or ‘institutional murder’.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Wuh boss, nobody here cares what YOU accept….. Fact is that GENERAL LIFE in the USA is an exhibition of racism and this inevitably leads to too many cases of ‘institutional murder’…
As we have tried to explain to Money B and Lawson, um is only obvious that such a situation will be lost to wunna pale-skin people….
LOL …. You feel that duppies afraid of the dark…?
As to your question of whether a white offender would get ignored, warned, or some lighter response by police compared to a black…. steupsss… Bushie won’t even discuss that with you….
…..what do you think would have happened to a black fella who went snooping behind that rasta like you did for example…?
@ Sargeant
Where did you get the suggestion that Bushie has a problem with non-Bajan topics? Wunna NCOs does talk some real shiite hear…?
wuh Bushie’s most favorite topic is about BBE and a place much further that the USA….Just that the bush man don’t care if Grand Juries are disbanded or not… it does not affect the price of rice…. BBE’s schedule 🙂
I agree that it is great to see all races taking places in marches and sitdowns all over America.
Remember that a large majority of both races voted for Obama’s election both times.
@Anthony
Sometimes one has to know when to fold, The BU household is unanimous in this decision.
Is there a Revolution in USA or a Revelation
In Zoe GP’s Little Mind European Jews in Israel are the chosen ones
and they love up white
Dread Revelation Dub
http://youtu.be/BnOzbQAN-dA
@ David
unanimous
Sharing the same opinions or views; being in complete harmony or accord.
Based on or characterized by complete assent or agreement.
i think this might be one of Ross most quotable quotes of the day
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’
I saw nothing on the Garner video to suggest intent to murder /kill.
”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’ROFLMAO
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Well a man hands wrap around a person throat “vice grip” style,, wuh dat supposed to intend,