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Who the fuck thought it was a good idea for the MPD to drive down a city street with no lights or sirens tagging dudes with rubber bullets like gangbangers doing a drive by?
I can absolutely understand why, after days worth of riots and violence, this guy thought he was being shot at by criminals.
Arguably, the cops were criminals at that moment.
Truth is I’m glad it ended up this way.
Cops step outside their lawful authority, get slotted, and the citizen shooter goes free claiming self defense, next time the cops pay more attention to staying inside the lines.
Good jury decision, terrible MPD decision.
Also, hitting a moving vehicle from across a street after taking a round to the chest is some damn fine shooting.
and the lawsuit against the department and officers is going to be epic.
I hope theyre all fired and named publically and are put in prison. That should be the conditon of any lawsuit on top of getting rich.
This is a case where the officers’ “qualified immunity” should not apply.
What part of a police officer’s job description involves taking pot shots at citizens out the open door of a moving, unmarked vehicle?
What would happen to us non-police-officers if we did that?
In that context — no riots in the area, only a few people out, no overt suspicious behavior — any police use of force is unreasonable. As bad as that is, add in that they were rolling up unannounced, no lights, no sirens, no identifying themselves as law enforcement, and shooting at citizens, and it quickly goes from “unreasonable” to “criminal”.
As in, “multiple felonies” criminal.
As in, every single charge they leveled against Jaleel Stallings, for each round fired and/or each person down-range.
That they were using rubber bullets doesn’t matter, any more than waving a pellet gun at police instead of a real gun means they tone down their response. There’s no way for the citizens on the street to know that those are “less-lethal” (importantly, not “non-lethal”) rounds flying at them; they just know they’re being shot at from a moving vehicle.
And in that context, with no riots or suspicious behaviors in the area, there’s no justification for any of it. Zero. None. These are unprovoked assaults on random people, which shows that these officers aren’t qualified to be police.
Thus, “qualified immunity” should be stripped and these “officers” made to perp-walk out of their station, in broad daylight, before God and everyone. And that’s on top of both their department and themselves, professionally and personally, being sued into oblivion.
Background:
Bench trial by a judge, not a jury trial. Probably a good decision, just like the Baltimore cops that were acquitted in the Freddie Grey trials.
The scene with the cops reminded me of FBI Agents Johnson and Johson in Die Hard swoopng around LA in a Huey. Redneck door gunners driving an unmarked van in the mean streets of Minneapolis. Not shown is they were the lead van, being followed by a bunch of squad cars. I especially liked how they took 20 seconds to reach the proned out defendant, and then proceeded to beat, knee and kick him for about thirty seconds. You can see some of the bruises in the booking photo. That should be worth a few more million in excessive force civil suits.
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To describe the mood, this was the Saturday after George Floyd died on Memorial Day Monday Night. This was after the MPD had one precinct overrun, and burnt out, and a second one almost overrun the next night. They had four nights of riots, looting and arson. There were actually TRAFFIC JAMS of looters, rioters and idiots blocking the police and fire department from the fires and looting on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday Nights. The riots spread to Saint Paul too. President Trump was demanding action and threatening to send in Federal Troops Friday Morning. (IMO, F– the Pentagon! Trump Should Have sent in the troops!)
After three full days (w/T/F) of Riots Looting and Arson, Governor Walz finally sent in enough National Guard and state cops to be effective on Saturday Morning. He sent the ENTIRE MN National Guard, all 14,000 of them. He sent every Highway Patrol, DNR Game Warden. and Corrections Officer he could find to stop the riots. (The asshole Democrat Governor Walz really didn’t want to President Trump to save the day.) (cont.)
They’re damned lucky someone didn’t pot their little party van with something heavier than just a pistol.
What. The. Hell. Everyone in that van should be out of a job.
OK, so Friday night was an absolute shitshow. Riots, Loting Arson, an attempt to overrun another Police Precinct.
Riots broadcast on ALL 4 Local News Channels, with reporters and cameras following the marchers, and helicopters showing the mobs, looting and the headlights of the cars in the traffic jams at midnight,
The shit show really started Wednesday Afternoon, when a mob looted and set fire to a Target at the Midway Shopping Center, over 10 miles from where George Floyd OD’d. That was when Walz should have called out about 2-4,000 National Guard.
Saturday, there were suddenly thousands of NG and a couple thousand cops on the streets. Guess What? It all STOPPED! No more looting. No more arson.
The police suddenly outnumbered the crowds. The crowds stopped throwing rock, cans, and shit (literally) at the police. They tried the first night. Suddenly the mobs that were overruning the police Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were being rounded up and arrested for curfew violations PEACEFULLY!
Overwhelming Force Stops Riots
The MPD finally on Saturday Night was able to free up officers, and IMO these police went out to get some retribution for beng beat on, stoned, and burnt out of a precinct house, and restore their credibility.
And these perps,,, I mean officers, NEED their asses handed to themselves on a plater. Before the libtard mayor is strung up.
Ok, sure, and since when is “retribution” part of a cop’s job description?
The other comments are absolutely right, they need to be charged with (a) attempted murder and (b) conspiracy to infringe Constitutional rights, tried, convicted, and sent to prison for a couple of decades.
Overwhelming Force Stops Riots.
Guess what happened to the actual real peaceful protesters in Minnesota Saturday, Sunday, and every day thereafter? They peacefully protested. No one threw stuff. No one got their head bashed in. They marched, they blocked roads. They protested for redress of their grievances, PEACEFULLY. They also went home before the curfew.
Yeah, there were lots of police and NG watching the protests. A lot of the protesters and the cops starting talking. The NG talked to the protesters. The troublemakers like Antifa and the Workers World folks went home or flew out of town. Yes there were even Bugaloo Boy assholes too. One just got convicted this month for his mayhem in the riots.
The sad part is that if Governor Walz had called out enough of the NG (thousands, not the measly 200 he actually did) on Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday would have been as peaceful as Saturday and Sunday. More importantly, would the mayhem have spread to every Blue City Democrat Shithole like NYC, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia that weekend? Their mayors and governors were too stupid and too evil to anticipate the carnage that engulfed their cities. They could have stopped it all PEACEFULLY! Just use overwhelming force. Peacefully.
I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way rd, but this reads an awful lot like “its okay that the cops did this because other people were misbehaving in other parts of town at other times, and this kind of action against people not rioting is what stopped the riots.”
I see your point, but when I read it, I read “Overwhelming force stops riots” and “MPD freed up enough officers for some to seek retribution” as two separate statements. The former has rd’s approval; the latter does not, and is merely offered as an explanation as to why this roving van of trigger-happy cops was free* to drive around and assault citizens.
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* – “Free” as in “available; had the time”, not “free” as in “had the right and proper authority”.
You guys are right. I was not clear.
When I heard Mr. Stallings was acquitted, I was shocked. Then I saw the videos. The judge was right to acquit him. Then you get to the 30 seconds of gratuitous brutality on a proned out, non-resisting suspect. Look at his booking photo. No one was disciplined for that yet. Probably because they did not want to give Stallings’ defense any more ammo.
Those officers did not decide by themselves to do a driveby down the boulevard. This was a mission conceived by and briefed to them by MPD Leadership. There were a bunch of squad cars behind the unmarked van full of other officers. MPD Leadership put the entire mission together. Mr. Stallings was not the first person they shot at in the street from the unmarked van, and any supervision there had plenty of time to stop and correct their tactics. They didn’t because the MPD decided they needed to “reassert their authority.” They got their asses kicked all week, and were getting payback. “Respect Mah Authoritah!” “MPD owns the streets.”
By the way, when the shooting team showed up, the officer in charge claimed that his guys did not need to be separated when they were driven to HQ before they gave their statements, because guess what? NONE of the officers shot anyone that night. Really, they said that! It took the force investigation officers several hours to find out that these police were shooting at people including the suspect, but the rounds were “only” less lethal rubber bullets. It was not really shooting people, because they were not using their firearms and normal ammunition. That is how screwed up the MPD Leadership is.
@rd
much more clear.
And yea, leadership should hang right next to them.
BTW, Clumsily and stupidly attempting to cover their asses at shootings is almost an MPD Institution. Look at their behavior at the Justine Damond Ruychyk shooting. Way back in 2005 or so, they shot the shit out of an undercover MPD officer with a full auto MP5, because he was pursuing a perp with a gun. Then they threw him under the bus, and blamed him. He committed suicide several years later.
They have a tough job in a shitty city with no political support. They also make their job harder for themselves. MPD has a long history of lots of payouts for excessive force.
Stay out of cities. Urban law enforcement is just one reason.