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[Flying Teasets]

So, Breonna Taylor's killing may have been an assassination committed as part of a conspiracy to gentrify her neighborhood. And today we learn the penalties for killing somebody under color of law.

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

[Dunamisdeos]

Who is saying that it was part of a conspiracy to gentrify her neighborhood? Hadn't heard anything about that before now.

[Flying Teasets]

Who is saying that it was part of a conspiracy to gentrify her neighborhood? Hadn't heard anything about that before now.

That I'll need to find out myself. Somebody promoted the theory in a TikTok and Reddit post.

[Dostoevsky]

That theory has been floating around for a while now, though from what I recall the evidence was circumstantial at best. I think there's already enough evidence of different malfeasance that I'm not inclined to believe this particular conspiracy...

[Dunamisdeos]

Ah, it looks like the warrant preceded an announcement from the city for redevelopment, and then after the incident they bought the land and home for one dollar. This has supposedly even been brought forward by her family's lawyers.
 
Apparently there's also talk that the unit that killed her had been recently put together specifically to build up cases against similar individuals then conduct raids, and that a ridiculously huge percentage of those raids were in predominantly black neighborhoods.
 
I cobbled this quickly from various news sites that I have never heard of before, while doing stuff at work, so take with a grain of salt. This could absolutely just mean that the city was redeveloping things and also an unrelated police unit fucked up horribly.

[Dostoevsky]

Huh, the $1 dollar purchase does seem to be accurate (from local paper reporting, checking the deed info), and there was an uptick of purchase-and-demolish in the area at the time as part of a redevelopment plan. Still not sure there's causation, myself, more just rank opportunism.

[anewaname]

It looks like there was some sort of conspiracy, for whatever purpose... nytimes article... and some excerpts:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The former detective, Kelly Goodlett, pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy, admitting that she had worked with another officer to falsify a search warrant application and had later lied to cover up their act. In pleading guilty, Ms. Goodlett became the first police officer to be convicted over the March 2020 raid, during which the police were searching for evidence of drug dealing by Ms. Taylor’s former boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover.

Inside a courtroom in downtown Louisville, Ms. Goodlett, 35, admitted that she had known there was not enough evidence to support approving the warrant, but had nonetheless failed to object when a fellow detective falsely wrote that the police knew Mr. Glover was receiving packages at Ms. Taylor’s home.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ms. Goodlett’s plea suggested that she may be cooperating with the Justice Department prosecutors who have charged her and two other former Louisville police officers over their roles in acquiring the search warrant for the raid.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Neither of the two officers who shot Ms. Taylor has been charged. Prosecutors have said in court documents that neither of those officers knew that the search warrant was based partially on false information.

Ms. Goodlett, who resigned from the police force after she was charged earlier this month, was not present at the raid.

It is feasible that the "ringleader" of the detectives falsified the information on behalf of someone external to the police department and received some form of kickback, or that their superiors ordered the actions, or that they falsified it to increase their number-of-cases-closed statistics, or for personal vengeance reasons. But, the moment you have a detective falsifying information, that is corruption that needs to be burned with fire.

[Dostoevsky]

Oh yeah, those parts were/are quite rank. I was more dubious about the particular connection with the development plan/scheme.

[delphonso]

Huh, the $1 dollar purchase does seem to be accurate (from local paper reporting, checking the deed info), and there was an uptick of purchase-and-demolish in the area at the time as part of a redevelopment plan. Still not sure there's causation, myself, more just rank opportunism.

Reminds me of car transfers between family members, where we'd exchange one dollar for the car to make the sale and transfer of ownership 'legitimate.'

[Flying Dice]

I think we have a new candidate for the most absurd abuse of power retaliatory arrest caught on camera.

Legally blind man walking home from jury duty is stopped by a deputy who supposedly thinks the navigational aid folded into his back pocket is a gun (but at no point treats him as if it was) and tells him to stop. This is in a state which allows open carry. She harasses and escalates for a minute or two, her sergeant joins in on harassing the guy, mocking his disability, and illegally demanding to see his ID. After he asks for names and badge numbers the supervisor(!!) immediately defaults to arresting him for "resisting arrest" with no other charge appended.

If there was a more open-and-shut bad arrest made in the era of bodycams I haven't heard of it. Two separate violations of his Constitutional rights, the unlawful arrest, and the instigating factor being discrimination based on a disability. This guy is going to have a field day with the lawsuits, but of course the egotistical pigs in uniform will probably just get paid vacation.

Highlight is when the guy asks the deputy "are you a tyrant?" and she immediately responds with an affirmative.

[Rolan7]

Saw on twitter earlier.  My "favorite" part is when they were about to let him go, having caressed their own egos, but he spoke up one last time and they responded by throwing him in jail for 24+ hours.  Vindictive, plain and simple.  No justice here until they pay.

Oh and worth noting that he brandished the cane at both of them and they don't even flinch, not an iota.  They knew what it was.  They knew he wasn't armed.  They just reacted poorly to his lack of deference. 

[Flying Dice]

Yes, when he whipped the cane out I was half-expecting him to get gunned down. She very clearly never believed it was a gun to begin with (and, again, even if it had been -- not illegal to open carry in that jurisdiction).

Bonus points for her lying on her report and claiming that she didn't realize it wasn't a gun until after he was handcuffed and arrested. Of all the silly things this implies if it weren't a bold-faced lie, the silliest is that she was about to put him in the back seat with a gun in his pocket, so far as she was aware.

[EuchreJack]

I found this article interesting: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/12/suicide-by-cop-how-police-present-killings-as-unavoidable/

[anewaname]

"Suicide by cop" is something that happens.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had to deal with a guy the local police have on their "suicide by cop" list (his mother found this out). He's doing poorly in life and starting to lash out, with one presumed suicide attempt and multiple other incidents, all involving at least 4 officers even if they are just helping him into the ambulance.

But the other version of "suicide by cop", where the label gets used to hide what really happened... That is because statistics are the lifeblood of where management layers meet regulatory requirements, whether your regulators are state, federal, international, or some citizen group that power was vested to.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So when you are preparing your reporting and you need to indicate fewer of one category of incident, maybe you have a chat with the investigator and find out if you can re-categorize the incident. Or, maybe the incident could fall under multiple categories and that would adjust its weighting. Or maybe a politician needs there to be less reported crime, so you chat with all the investigators who filed incidents to see if you can put some incidents into a category that doesn't need to be reported.

When it comes to reporting, getting 50 incidents shifted into another category can be the difference between meeting a % goal or receiving an in-depth audit...

What I am suggesting here is that "suicide by cop" is probably as misused a category for police reporting as any other category. Because, you have incidents that are clearly in a category, and you have others which can pop into another category with a nudge.

[Great Order]

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2022/12/09/bodycam-footage-shows-moment-leading-to-ax-wielding-man-being-shot-by-jacksonville-officer/

Man has a hatchet, the officer pulls out his gun and aims it at him, telling him to put the axe down. He refuses, so the officer approaches and, after a bit of back and forth, shoots him from a good 10 meters away. The guy was literally standing there with an axe in his hand arguing with the officer, not charging him or pulling his arm back to throw.

The way the officer says "Shots fired" into the radio, it's so damn obvious he's actually proud of himself for having shot him. I'm not exaggerating for effect, he sounds like he's an action hero who's just taken down a terrorist. It's not on the site, but I've seen the raw footage (which I'm not linking, you literally see a man die) and it's so infuriating.