THE JANUARY 24th ICE SHOOTING

 I have just viewed, re-viewed, and viewed again in slow motion the latest ICE shooting of the detainee in Minnesota. I feel that I am qualified to critique the video because of my 30 years as a prosecutor, during which time I investigated many police shooting.

What I saw was at least four officers forcing the detainee to the ground. As he is belly down on the ground, three officers hold him down and struggle with him while a fourth repeatedly strikes the man with an object which I could not identify. There were enough officers on top of the man to restrain him without the use of deadly force. Get his hands under control, handcuff him, and cart him off. That they appeared to be unwilling or unable to use non-lethal force to subdue him suggests at best inadequate training. As the officers crowd around the man, a shot rings out, and the officers scatter from the man as he rolls onto his back. I plainly see him lying flat on his back while two officers draw their weapons and fire multiple shots into his unmoving body. It didn't look like any of the officers in the group were carrying tasers. With officers in a scrum like the one I saw, it bespeaks poor judgment for one of them to fire a shot in such close quarters. The fellow officers appear to have agreed with me, because they scattered at the first gunshot. Now the officers are standing around the man, who is lying unmoving on his back. Two officers produce firearms, point them at the prostrate body, and fire multiple shots. It is claimed that the man was armed with a 9 mm handgun. If so, it was concealed, should have been unavailable to him with three officers on top of him and him on his stomach, and I never saw it. The first shot fired is hard to justify. The follow up multiple shots do not look justifiable, but the man was probably dead at that time, and it isn't a violation of a corpse's civil rights to fire bullets into his dead body.

Suggestions: Since the video raises many questions about the propriety of the shooting, (1) The officers who fired their weapons should be immediately suspended pending a full and fair investigation by an independent agency conducted in tandem with state agencies. (2). Moving forward, ICE officers should be (a). equipped with tasers or some other form of non-lethal weaponry, (b). equipped with bodycams. (c). trained in proper techniques for handcuffing resisting arrestees who are on their bellies on the ground. (3). Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and anyone else in the Federal Government should refrain from making judgmental comments about the incident until the investigation is complete and the results are in. (4). The Federal Government should immediately take steps to de-escalate the situation in Minneapolis, not double down on ICE tactics.

I welcome contrasting, well-informed, courteous views that don't accuse me of being a libtard or a sufferer from TDS.

ANNEXING GREENLAND BY FORCE

Donald Trump wants Greenland. Greenland is not for sale. Donald Trump threatens military action to capture Greenland. Greenlanders don’t want to be taken over by America. 

Greenland belongs to Denmark. Denmark is a member of NATO. So is America. Per NATO treaty, America must protect Greenland against invasion. If America invades Greenland, it would be a violation of our NATO treaty obligations. 

Invasion of another nation’s territory to capture land is a war crime. Trump would be a war criminal if he invades Greenland. 

NATO will defend Greenland. We may very well wind up in a war with NATO if Trump invades Greenland. This will be bad for everybody except Russia. 

There is really no need to discuss the matter further. We mustn’t let Donald Trump violate our NATO treaty. We mustn’t let Donald Trump use the American military to commit a war crime. 

Anyone who favors annexing Greenland by force, state a good reason why going to war against Greenland would be lawful. State a good reason why going to war against Greenland would be moral. 

I don't want to hear how much money we will make by forcefully annexing Greenland and taking their rare earths. I don't want to hear how badly I am infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome. I want to hear a rational, courteous explanation why such an insane maneuver would be both lawful and moral.  

ICE SHOOTING OF RENE NICOLE GOOD IN MINNEAPOLIS

 

I just watched a video of Kristi Noem saying that a critic of the ICE shooting in Minneapolis didn't know what he was talking about. I would like to criticize the shooting, and I definitely know more about shootings in general and police shootings in particular than Kristi Noem does.

I’ve prosecuted and defended plenty of shootings in my career. And I have investigated more than a few police shootings. I was even been personally involved in one. I also know something about running over people with a car. I have handled a few of those cases, too.

I am going to try to be dispassionate in my critique and refrain from using incendiary language like "jack-booted thug," "meat-headed police officer with more testosterone than sense," "domestic terrorist," or "left-wing conspirator against law and order."

In my experience, the most justifiable incident involving an officer shooting the driver of a vehicle bearing down on him occurred with the appropriately named Mississippi State Highway Patrolman, John Wayne Leggett. Leggett attempted to stop two escaped murderers when one of them rolled down the rear window of the stolen Bronco they were driving and started shooting at him. They had a running gun battle through the streets of Brookhaven, Mississippi until Leggett chased them into a cul de sac. Leggett got out of his car with a shotgun as the bad guys made a U-turn and raced toward him definitely attempting to run him down. Leggett stood his ground and emptied his shotgun into the windshield on the oncoming car. He struck the driver in the face but failed to stop the onslaught. He finally jumped out of the way at the last minute, with the car barely missing him. The driver, being somewhat disconcerted by the injury to his face, swerved on down the street and rammed a tree on the side of the street. Both men were captured and sentenced to death. One died of natural causes awaiting execution, and the other died in the death chamber at Florida State Prison. I admire Leggett’s courage, but I question his judgement. He could have much more safely shot at the car from behind his nearby cruiser’s trunk.

I have prosecuted a few drivers who ran their cars into officers who were trying to detain them. Never got a conviction because the officers were mistreating the defendants in some way, and the defense was, “I was just trying to get away from the aggressive officer.”

Then there was the case where the officer said he was defending himself from a drug arrestee's vicious attempt to run over him. The problem was that the bullet holes were in the driver’s side window, not the windshield. Pardon me for being skeptical about the necessity for shooting through the side windows of a car that has missed you. I was, however, appreciative of his wisdom in jumping out of the way.

That’s the best defense against someone trying to run you over with a car—jump out of the way. Stand your ground and shoot the driver dead, and you haven’t stopped the car. Not only that, but you have deprived the driver of the ability to stop the car. Best strategy: jump out of the way jump in your patrol car, and give chase. There is a difference between "justifiable homicide" and necessary homicide.

Now let’s look at what was just shown by video evidence to have happened in Minneapolis in the light most favorable to the officer who fired the shot.

The woman was blocking the street. Officers approached her, ostensibly to get her moved out of the way. She and her wife were engaging in conversation with the officers which would irritate a thin-skinned officer, but which should have rolled off a professional officer's skin like water off a duck's back. (Look at the officer's cellphone video if you don't believe me). The officers did two things which were counterproductive to their stated objective of getting her out of the way. One officer grabbed the driver’s side door handle in an apparent attempt to get her out of the car. If she were out of the car, it would be difficult for her to drive out of the way. The other one stood in front of her car, rendering it difficult for her to drive away. It looks far more likely that they were attempting to punish her for "mouthing off" at them than that they were attempting to get her moved. She pulled off, turning to the right, as the officer, standing to the left front of the car shot her dead in "self-defense." He didn’t stop the forward progress of the vehicle, and it eventually crashed.

If she had survived, could a prosecutor have convicted her of aggravated assault on the officer? I don’t think so. She would most likely have defended herself by saying that the officers were being angry and rude (they were yelling and cursing), and she feared they would hurt her if they got her out of the car. Maybe throw her on the pavement, handcuff her behind her back, and use a little unnecessary roughness in the process. She would say that she tried to evade the officer in front of her by driving around him. Verdict: Not Guilty.

As a prosecutor, I would probably not prosecute the officer either. Although I believe he used abominable judgement and committed an unnecessary homicide, giving the officer the benefit of the doubt, I can’t say that I could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he acted unlawfully. That’s a paradox I saw many times as a prosecutor: a homicide which was defensible as being justified but was absolutely unnecessary.

The officer's abominable judgement, however, won't protect him or his department from a civil rights lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S. Code § 1983.

Two things that I think are the marks of a highly professional officer. He doesn’t lose his cool when a suspect gets verbally abusive, and he uses force judiciously. The ICE officer failed this test of professionalism on both counts.

CAN MINNESOTA PROSECUTE THE ICE OFFICER WHO SHOT THE DRIVER?

The question comes up whether Minnesota can prosecute the ICE officer who shot the lady driver. The answer is "yes" and "no." Before I retired from active practice, the law was that prosecutions of federal officers in state courts can be removed to Federal court, where such prosecutions go to die.

THE WAR BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATIONISM

 

Some folks seem to think there is a war between science and religion. There isn’t. The war is between militant scientism and ultra-conservative strict fundamentalism. “Scientism” is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best way to render the truth about reality. Militant scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the only way to discern the truth about reality. Whether you are a theistic, an agnostic, or an atheistic scientist, you rule out supernatural explanations for events. All three types of scientists rule out the supernatural because in science “. . . and then a miracle happened” is not a very helpful piece of data. Theistic scientists do not rule out the possibility of the supernatural in non-scientific areas, such as matters of faith. Atheistic scientists rule out the possibility of the supernatural in all areas, and atheistic scientists who subscribe to a “theology” of militant scientism are quite disagreeable about their nonbelief, as are many ultra-conservative strict fundamentalists.

Today’s most hotly contested battle is between hard-core Darwinian evolutionists and young Earth creationists. These two schools of thought are irreconcilable.  And they are both wrong. You can be a Darwinian evolutionist and a Christian, as evidenced by books like Michael Dowd’s Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World. History and current events are full of the stories of men and women of faith who have made and are making significant contributions to science. And Christians don’t need to be ultra-conservative strict fundamentalists who believe in a six-calendar-day creation and a 6,000-year-old Earth. For me, John 3:16 is all the theology I really need.

Even before the New Testament was written, Jewish scholars looked at the Old Testament as a book which was not necessarily absolutely literally true. The Jewish historian Josephus, when writing about the creation, ventured the opinion that Moses was “writing philosophically.” In other words, some of the stories in the Torah, while not literally true, taught important spiritual truths. The Jewish philosopher-theologian Philo wrote that Biblical truth was often found in allegory rather than literal history.

The early Christian fathers were open to non-literal interpretations of scripture. Saint Augustine wrote about four levels of meaning in scripture: The literal (historical) meaning, the typological (allegorical) meaning, the tropological (moral) meaning, and the anagogical (spiritual) meaning. He also wrote that the literal meaning of a passage of scripture was often the hardest to cipher out. Saint Augustine wrote a book, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, in which he argued that the world came into being in a fashion very similar to the Big Bang. As a matter of fact, a man of the cloth, Father Georges Henry Joseph Edouard Lemaitre first advanced the Big Bang Theory in 1927. Of course, he didn’t call it the “Big Bang Theory.” He theorized that the Universe came into existence from a “primeval atom” or a “cosmic egg.” His idea was ridiculed by the atheistic astronomer Frederick Hoyle. Hoyle used the term “Big Bang” as a slur against Father Lemaitre’s “idiotic” theory.

Evolution was a theory long before Charles Darwin came along. What he did was argue that the engine driving evolution was “natural selection,” or “survival of the fittest.” Both before and after Darwin many clerics affirmed evolution but argued that God drove evolution through a process of “theistic evolution” or “evolutionary creation.”

Thus, the argument between materialistic evolution by natural selection and young earth creationism is a false dichotomy. There are many different nuances of understanding between the two poles.

I have no problem with evolution, but I am highly skeptical of “evolution by natural selection.” I cannot accept the proposition that we are here because of a chain of random accidents. Some atheists have had trouble swallowing that theory. Henri Bergson, in his book Creative Evolution, argued that evolution was driven by a non-theistic “elan vital” or “life force.”

I have my own ideas about the mechanism driving evolution, and they are not incompatible with the belief that God created the Universe. I’ll talk about my theory in another post. Soon, I hope.