Miguel has mentioned this before. The Left was gung-ho about making sure every cop had a bodycam on them at all times. They were dead sure that every cop was a racist and that the bodycam footage would prove beyond any doubt that just about every police shooting was a bigoted murder.
Except that didn’t happen. It turns out that most shootings captured on bodycam and dashcam were justified.
So now what are anti-cop activists supposed to do?
Remember that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.” Vice President Joe Biden said something similar, “we choose truth over facts.”
When the facts are not on your side, it’s perfectly acceptable for the Left to keep saying that there are five lights or that we had always been at war with Eastasia.
From the Washington Examiner:
When video doesn’t fit their narrative, anti-cop protesters refuse to believe their own eyes
A tragic officer-involved shooting of a black man has sparked nearly two weeks of activist marches and cries for justice in St. Paul, Minnesota. Angry protesters demanding police transparency have flooded the city’s streets and added 31-year-old Ronald K. Davis to their list of “martyred” African American males “unlawfully” shot and killed by police.
The Star Tribune reported on the protests.
The evidence of this crime, it was presumed, was on the white police officer’s body camera video footage. Officer Steven Mattson’s patrol car had been rammed by Davis at intersection of North Griggs Street and Thomas Avenue. As Mattson exited his vehicle, Davis ignored Mattson’s demands to halt.
Davis rushed at Mattson with a knife, and Mattson subsequently shot Davis, killing him.
Boy howdy did he ever. Twin Cities Pioneer Press released the bodycam footage.
According to a release from the Anti-Police Brutality Coalition, as reported by KMSP FOX 9:
Activists are calling for an independent review of all video footage available in this case, including the full body camera video, any dash cam video, street cameras, and any other surveillance footage.
“It is unclear from the limited body camera footage what types of de-escalation tactics were used by Officer Mattson, why he fell to the ground, why his flashlight fell, and whether he attempted to use nonlethal force before using deadly force against Ronald Davis,” the coalition wrote in the release. “The public also has a right to demand an independent investigation in police shooting cases in Minnesota, given the relative frequency within which they have been occurring the disproportionate rate of Black men and other men of color being killed by police. Beyond that, there have been allegations of corruption within the St. Paul Police Department and the BCA for many years and those concerns have not been taken seriously by Governor Walz or other elected officials.”
Fine, they can call for whatever they want, but that video is pretty cut and dry as to what happened.
There you have it: A fair and impartial accounting of videotaped officer actions in this incident and a complete gathering of all the facts in the case never were part of the desired end state. In the activism business, you have to stoke fiery emotion, and it does not necessarily require a tethering to facts. The “grievance industry” is predicated on stirring up raw, naked sensations and opportunistically isolating the few bad actors in order to smear an entire profession.
Miguel has also pointed out the radical Left has hitched its wagon to the anti-cop movement.
I’m not sure why, unless they believe that the demographic of people who hate police is larger than the demographic of people who like living in safe and civil societies.
In St. Paul, it seems that “the truth” of the anti-cop activists is more important than the facts presented in a bodycam video.
As Miguel says, cui bono? I wonder why people would work so hard to undermine police and cast doubt on bodycam video.
All I can come up with is that the radical Left wants to Portlandize the United States. The police in Portland have been emasculated and declawed by the city government. Antifa as near free reign to do what they want.
If the rest of America, or at least its big cities, are turned into Portland re their police forces, then come 2020 Antifa and similar protest groups will have the ability to turn up the violence knob with little fear of police crackdown.
Just from watching the video, looks to me like knife-guy wanted to kill himself some popo’s & rushed to attack the officer after ramming his car.
That’s a common ambush move in latinamerica for assaults, kidnappings or murder. They hit your car and when you get out of your car, they attack you.
“Suicide by cop” is my initial theory.
Well when you bring a knife to a gun fight…
The Black Activists are not united in Minnesota. One that was interviewed immediately after the video release actually looked at the video objectively. He said that it was obvious the cop did all he could to avoid the shooting, and he could see how the officer was backing away. I wonder if he will be run off or silenced?
IMO, someone is stoking the outrage to get a settlement, AKA Ghetto Lottery.
BTW, Murder is way up in St. Paul Minnesota this last month. Like 7 murders in September, and 20 for the year. The new, young black mayor and city council want to cut five police positions next year. The Police in next door Minneapolis Minnesota want 600 (six hundred) new officers, and the city council might generously give them 14 next year. This is the same Minneapolis that had the horrific video of a dozen people gang beating and robbing people publicized on this blog last week. It wasn’t the only large robbery gang beat down on tape.
They are right on one thing. The St. Paul police have a history of corruption, going back to the 1930’s bank robbery gangs, when Dillinger and such knew St. Paul was a safe city to rest and recreate in. There are still complaints about insiders versus outsiders, and excessive force. Next door in Minneapolis, the police were paying out on excessive force complaints regularly. Nothing huge, but $14 million over just a few years.
If you followed the Justine Damond / Rusczk murder, you know how the BCA and Minneapolis Police Department slanted some of their investigation to help out the officer, Mohammed Noor that killed her. Both the judge and Hennepin County Prosecutor Mike Freeman had something to say about the BCA and MPD.
Off topic, Freeman is 70 and just completed Alcohol Treatment. I think he is too soft, but I fear who will replace him. Look at the Woke Social Justice Warrior Prosecutors paid for by Soros & Co., in Baltimore, Dallas, and Chicago.
Also look at how they treated Joel Rosenberg.
But, an organization’s history has no bearing on this case, except possibly as motive for the attempted murder of the cop.
“Grievance industry” is a good phrase. It has made a number of people very rich indeed, a notable example is Al Sharpton.
“I’m not sure why, unless they believe that the demographic of people who hate police is larger than the demographic of people who like living in safe and civil societies.”
The police-hater demographic doesn’t have to be larger than the civil-people demographic for their plan to work. It only has to be nearly as large or larger than the local law enforcement capacity.
You brought up Portland but missed the connection to the sheer number of antifa that seem to be there. The cops are overwhelmed so its easier to give in to antifa than to adhere to the wishes of the civil-people demographic.
Which is one as-yet unstated (unless I missed it) reason — among many others — the writers on this blog advocate building up the relationship between peaceable gun owners and police.
Not just so the police have our backs in the political arena, but so we have their backs in the societal one. That door should and must swing both ways.
“Antifa” outnumbers police, but they don’t outnumber “police + gun owners”.
If the environment were changed to foster a trust relationship between police and gun owners, Antifa wouldn’t be able to pull off half its shenanigans.
While I have no grief with a group asking for a full suite of evidence, in this situation additional information is extremely unlikely to change the outcome. This is political theater at best.
What other evidence could there be, stipulating the video is of the entire encounter?
Donut Operator also covered this: https://youtu.be/1gfjNcNNPns
It’s the Left. The actual Factual Truth is something they want arrested and sent down to the Lubyanka’s basement.
In St. Paul, it seems that “the truth” of the anti-cop activists is more important than the facts presented in a bodycam video.
“Who you going to believe? The ‘truth’ or that lying camera?”