That sound you heard in at 3:58 at the Fullerton Transportation Center? That was a pin dropping.
I’m not an expert in dealing with loss. I’ve never had a crisis of faith. I’ve never been an addict. I understand what doubt is, but I do not appreciate the intoxicating grip of despair. I’ve never had to walk down a seemingly unending dark tunnel. I’ve never had to hope that somewhere a light is left to guide my way.
I’ve never heard a man threaten to fuck up my son. I’ve never heard my son beg for his life, to ask me to help him, to ask me to save him. I’ve never seen a loved one beaten to death on camera. I have never had my heart break. I have never had my soul shatter. I have never had my world go dark.
The community I want to live in would have a way of making it clear that bullying and small minds will find no shelter. We would make it clear that we govern with our conscience and that we expect those who uphold our laws to not only enforce what is written, but also what is unwritten. We can’t codify what it means to be kind, to show compassion, to abhor contempt, but we do understand how to show it. Where I want to live, respect would be earned and not taken. Where I want to live, the least among us would be confronted with charity and not with the sound of snapping latex and the dull thud of wood landing on bone.
Instead, where I live, it’s a greater crime to discuss FACTS about what wrong a law enforcement officer has done in his past while on duty than it is for a law enforcement officer to beat a man to death in the street. Where I live, we’d rather pay a handsome sum to a stranger to spot-check our community’s integrity than to let a neighbor have her say in how expectations should be enshrined. Where I live, we happily tell a father that his son’s murder was actually a suicide. We casually tell a mother that her son’s cries for help were just the dying delusions of a man who could clearly breathe. Where I live, respect is taken, and the difference between a dog and a man is a subject for debate.
Where I live, a man can kill another man on video for the whole world to see, he can taunt him, threaten him, and use his massive obese grotesque bloated frame to squeeze the very life out of a man and get away with it just because someone put a star on his fat furry yellow belly. Where I live, not only is being homeless a crime; it’s a death sentence:
I live where I have to wonder what kind of courage is required to do the right thing. What it takes to make a choice to not bludgeon a man without a shirt to death. What it takes to actually convict a man of killing another. I get to wonder if the thin blue line protects me as much as it protects itself. I get to wonder why that matters.
I don’t know how to get from where I live to where I want to live. I don’t understand how we can grant special legal privileges to shield those we expect to be our heroes from the consequences of their own bad behavior, and yet not allow the simplest of rights and basic protection to those who get nothing but the scorn and contempt from our society each day. I am not granted the wisdom to substitute my judgment for that of twelve of my peers, nor (apparently) am I granted the sum total of brain cells required to defend their decision.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day than today. Maybe I’ll be able to be something other than bitter; that I’ll be able to be constructive and I’ll have a voice for change.
Today, I’m just angry.
I can’t guarantee or do anything to ensure that my son won’t grow up to be just like Kelly Thomas, but I can guarangoddamntee that my son will not be anything like the contemptible piece of shit that killed him.
UPDATE: I rarely ask anyone to sign a petition, but please sign this one, asking for a Federal investigation: http://wh.gov/lIsdX
Commentary by other Orange Juice Blog contributors and friends:
- Retired cop Diane Goldstein: A “Peace Officer” Considers the Kelly Thomas Verdict
- Fullerton artist Jesse LaTour: Reflections on the Verdict
- Fullerton activist Matt Leslie: Sign Your Anger on the Dotted Line!
- Attorney Greg Diamond: Verdict – Not Guilty on All Charges
I’m angry too. So angry I cannot stop crying from the helplessness I feel. I am sorry Cathy, Ron, and Dana. I am sorry for what my police department has done to your child.
For so long we felt comforted that justice was coming to the rescue, to right the wrong of your son’s murder.
But that has not happened. I don’t know what else to do. I fear the police have been given a clear message that they can kill with impunity, at least in Fullerton with a shitty DA who can’t gain a conviction for a murder that is on video tape with eye witnesses and mutliply DAR tapes documenting the entire gruesome murder.
*The great image of justice….is a woman holding a scale……with a blindfold. She stands erect and with a posture that a 1950’s high school senior would be proud. She has a sword by her side. She is not God. She is not Oden. She is not Diana the Hunter. She maintains her integrity. In the end, she makes mistakes and some people who are truly guilty are left to go free from the societal pressures and understandings. The likes of Casey Antony and George Zimmerman come to mind. In the words of the great OJ Simpson case…….”If the glove doesn’t fit ….you have to aquit” Foxy Knoxy…Amada Knox is sweating bullets now. She may have an International Extradition Order waiting in the wings. Do people escape the long arm of the law? Some do, but even those seamingly beat the system….become prey to it. OJ Simpson could not in the end beat the hell and fury of public opinion. Casey Anthony is living in a virtual hell on earth. The jurors in the George Zimmerman trial are all in hiding, rather than living off the royalties of various books about the trial. God has a way of taking care of grivous faults. Sometimes in a great karma that balances the books for all of humanity. Sometimes, God apparently misses the target – only to be found years later – exactly on the mark. We would prefer not to live the lives of any who were involved with the Kelly Thomas killing. Starting from the top to the bottom……..the hell that waits for these folks is dank, dark and ominous…in the extreme. They can have it and relish each and every so-called victory. Victory or defeat………God has he way of getting even in the end. Now, then and later!
According to Ramos’ lawyer this is what cops are trained to do.
http://newfullerton.com/2014/01/13/the-thomas-verdict-proves-that-nothing-has-changed-and-we-cant-trust-the-cops-or-the-d-a/
Yes, well … had the D.A. called the former Police Chief … or even played the CNN interview … the jury would have been able to know that NO, it is the opposite of the Department’s training.
But all of that is irrelevant to the fact that these cops knew & understood … as did the jury …. that they don’t want the homeless in Fullerton and they did exactly what they had to in order to “scare them off” …
I’m no theologian, but I’m fairly certain that God said summin bout whatever you do to/with/for the “least of these” so have you done for me.
Seems to me that to get to where you WANT to live, the folks where your DO live are gonna need to get it right with God! Cuz I promise you … HE’s watching! And so is the rest of this Country …
http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/tag/kelly-thomas-beating/
Respectfully,
LL/R
Gracie, good catch. McKinley: you never hit anybody in the head.
That’s – I’m deciphering – former Police Chief (and councilman during the murder) Pat McKinley? I’m gathering he (testified? said in an interview somewhere?) that it is not part of FPD training to hit someone in the head – or rather that it is their training NOT to?
Follow Gracie’s link to the McKinley CNN interview. He had seen the video and was apparently getting ready to throw Ramos and Cicinelli under the bus to cut the department’s losses.
And that’s why I think that Cicinelli should have been guilty of use of excessive force at least. (Whether he was guilty of manslaughter would depend on the factual question of whether the facial beating caused the death.)
However, was Ramos’s behavior — either intimidating Thomas into compliance (at best) or bullying him for the fun of it — consistent with training? My guess is that “intimidation” would be consistent and “bullying” was not — but proving that it was bullying rather than intimidation beyond a reasonable doubt is going to be difficult. The bigger problem for the City is that whether or not it was consistent with training, it was pretty clearly consistent with how we was being supervised.
today I’m ashamed to say that I was born and raised in Fullerton I’m sad I’m hurt I’m angry I’m disgusted I hope we are
Fullerton city council gave Kelly Thomas mother a million bucks to pull the plug that ended his life.
So just who was responsible for his death?
Are you joking? He died long before her settlement.
The people responsible for his death are the people who killed him and the people who made it possible for them to do so with impunity.
Interesting comment for someone who is very ill.
How kind of you to judge Kelly Thomas’s family when they faced years (potentially) of care and painful visits to their brain-dead son. Lest you forget Cook, here’s what Kelly Thomas’s “life” would entail;
Characteristics of the vegetative state;
Return of a sleep-wake cycle with periods of eye opening and eye closing
May moan or make other sounds especially when tight muscles are stretched
May cry or smile or make other facial expressions without apparent cause May briefly move eyes toward persons or objects
May react to a loud sound with a startle
Unable to follow instructions
No speech or other forms of communication
No purposeful movement
Persons in coma or vegetative state require extensive care that may include:
Feeding using a feeding tube
Turning in bed to prevent pressure sores
Special bedding to help prevent pressure sores
Assistance with bowel and bladder relief using catheter and/or diapers Management of breathing such as suctioning of secretions; this may include care for a tracheostomy tube
Management of muscle tone (excessive tightness of muscles)
Special equipment that may include a wheelchair or special bedding to help with proper posture and decrease muscle tightness
Management of infections such as pneumonia or urinary tract infections Management of other medical issues such as fever, seizures, etc.
Personally, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone (okay … Ariel Sharon 🙂 ), but maybe it’s what you envision for yourself … better warn your wife though.
I have a DNR on file. If its my time to go, then let me go.
I don’t know if the juries deliberation get public publication, it would be interesting to hear how they arrived at their verdict.
And yet … you wrote what you wrote above, which was wrong in too many ways to count.
Vern, it seems that some of your readers are closed minded.
They will never understand these outcomes as long as their personal bigotry and prejudges cloud their vision. The DA had a slew of charges to pick from and he chose charges that he could not win. So in my opinion the party responsible for losing the criminal sue against the offices is the DA.
Anyway, who had the authority or gave the authorization to pull the plug?
Cook, i can’t believe you’re still digging away at your hole. The people who killed Kelly were the men who beat and suffocated him till he was brain dead, NOT whoever “pulled the plug” days later. You got a DNR yourself, you should understand that. Do you know what a dick you’re sounding like? Just drop this before the whole world hates you.
Kelly was taken off life support by his family in July 2011. He was brain dead.
“Fullerton city council gave Kelly Thomas mother a million bucks to pull the plug that ended his life.”
Wow, I don’t even have a comeback I’m so disgusted with Cooks comment….
So just who was responsible for his death?
We all are if we let fear, hate and IGNORANCE rule us…
“So just who was responsible for his death?
“We all are if we let fear, hate and IGNORANCE rule us…”
Nope, it was Cicinelli, Ramos, Wolfe, Blatney, Hampton and Craig.
El Roy was channeling Jagger: “I shouted out who killed the Kennedys…”
“You and me” didn’t kill the Kennedys, either.
I’d-a been a pretty naughty three-year-old.
You’re a special kind of weapons grade asshole aren’t you? What a total dick you are/.
Today I feel like I did the day Joey was killed.
Now the people of Fullerton will know how the people of Dallas felt after November 22, 1963 when the whole city was blamed for JFK’s murder…….
Tell me about this jury. Am I correct in assuming that they would have to choose jurors who had never heard of the case before? That would explain a lot, I suppose. A dozen very clueless people.
But then there’s the prospect of being marked for life as someone who sent a cop to prison. Great way to piss off the most powerful street gang around.
(You have a beautiful way with words Ryan. Our friendship is one of the good things that came from this)
I got to the transportation center right at 4pm, immediately after the verdict was reported, I was dazed and feeling nauseous. I knew everyone who had beat me there personally, many since the early days of the protests, and we all consoled each other. There were many tears among them. More friends, some who had not been involved themselves, but knew how important this case was to me, stopped by just for a few minutes, gave me a hug, said they were sorry and left. More visitors continued to show up as people got out of work, all stunned at the verdict, just starring at each other with vacant confused eyes. Whatever we were feeling we knew the family was feeling it 100 times more. Even without the family there yet, the common sentiment was that we felt horrible for what they must be going through. There was press, hugging, venting, waiting and some shouting.
As dusk set the candles came out and Cathy and Ron arrived soon after. They each gave statements regarding their disappointment, Cathy was in great pain. She had just learned that her son was not worth shit in the eyes of this jury. (I’d like to take a time-out here to invite the poster named Cook above to f*ck, right the f*ck off and to get his facts straight. I be more than happy to educate him in person as to the facts in this case, the settlement, and his lack of class towards a grieving mother – The admin is invited to give that dick all my contact info)
Next Ron made a statement regarding the Police Officers Bill of Rights, a statement I support completely. this battle may be moving to Sacramento. At some point after that a group of about 40 left and marched to the police station. I had no energy and I was not sure what I would be marching for so I stayed behind with the family and others.
After that I left the memorial for a few hours. I needed to get a bite to eat, charge my phone and to take a rape shower. When my phone came up I had 290 messages, all saying some form of WTF (based on sample of about 30) I then came back before midnight. I told myself that I was going back to ensure people were not being stupid, but I had to go back no matter what. When I got there it was mellow. Perhaps 20 people were left, all well behaved. I had a drink at a nearby restaurant named Hopscotch with a few close friends from what was once called Kelly’s Army. We were sitting on the patio in view of the memorial. While there, even servers came up to me and said they were so sorry to hear about the verdict. That felt as good as the 12 year old MacCallen I was having. They were as baffled as we were. I then walked friends to their cars and went back to the memorial myself. It was now near 2 am and I was the last one left at Kelly’s Corner, although a few folks were sleeping on nearby benches. I was cold and I felt like a zombie as I was sitting in front of the many candles in the almost silence of this early Tuesday morning. My thoughts at this moment were no longer with the family I was in fact selfishly wondering if I had wasted a good portion of the last 2.5 years misapplying my attention, further contributing to the failure of my marriage by my absence, and neglecting many other things in my life in general. Had I done so trying to bring attention to the murder of a man I once knew fairly well, and for whom I had affection. A case which seemed so clearly one sided, but in reality was a case which was in fact stacked against the prosecution from the beginning. Should I have just reallized long ago that cops are special humans under the eyes of the law and that this was going to be the outcome all along. Is there anything I can do next which will make these last 2.5 years feel worthwhile? Will good come from this afterall or have we just given the police a defacto licence to kill any one of us at will, with zero legal consequence likely to result. A Murder conviction has not happened in 163 years in the state of California when an on duty officer was involved, why should they expect it to happen now if they take anyone one of us out? Or take any one of you out for that matter? Seriously, why not?
As for Ramos Wolf and Cicinelli: They will get get all their back and pension returned and petition the city for the jobs from which they were fired. They will be denied these jobs by Chief Hughes because of the public hate and mistrust. This means they will will file suit for the jobs and our spineless city council at the advice of the forever settling city attorney, the other dick jones, will hand each murdering officer approx 1.5 million. Ding f*cking ding. Jack pot boys!
In the end these men will have received a dream retirement for their act of brutally. Think on that Fullleton!
I thank OC Juice for all the attention you brought this case. Without you and others, the same thing would have happened, but no one would have cared. Now we all do. Well, all of us except that turd poster named Cook above apparently.
Off to work on 3 hours sleep. Wish me luck.
RIP Kelly Thomas
Bax,
Please allow me to thank you for all hat you have done and given to this tragedy from day 1. If not for you, myself and so many others would not have been able to participate or give to or add our voice to the community outrage over this senseless murder.
POBRA is an atrocity. It is a weapon that is used against innocent civilians. It is a threat to public safety, an end run around our Constitutional rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, and must be done away with.
RIP Kelly Thomas. I will see you when I get there.
Paul Lucas
Ryan God bless you! There are three main types of people in this world. good people, bad people and apathetic people. I would like to think…….I have to think there are many more good people than bad! But those apathetic people sometimes allow bad people to have the upper hand!
Too many in our community viewed those seeking justice for Kelly Thomas as “annoying pests” which they hoped would go away. They hoped that we would stop telling people to just view the video to find out what really happened that night and why it matters so much. Many who believe that those 2 officers were within legal bounds of performing their jobs, thought it not necessary to watch “the video”. Why have to confront evil when you can wish it away!
We will never win the hearts and minds of evil or bad people. But we must try to win the hearts and minds of those that are still apathetic, still unwilling to view the facts objectively. Those that are still unwilling to view “that video”, it is still not to late to learn something important. That people who are paid handsomely to protect us, sometimes do just the opposite. It is too late for Kelly and for real justice for his family. Hopefully, it is not to late for the rest of us!
That does it, I’m adding the video to this story now. Ryan’s piece here has gone national (nearly a thousand hits in less than a day) and people need to know what we’re talking about.
There’s a 34’14” version going around. Do you know how that differs from the 33’33” version you have above?
No, you?
PS just switched it to a subtitled version. Same length though.
Wow. Steve Baxter has a lot of memory on his phone!
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for so quickly expressing your anger as it reflects a collective rage that I am having a difficult time getting my head around. My emotions have been boiling as I work through my response to this verdict. It is close to erupting as I look at a system that I at one time believed in but have long ago abandoned as being beyond redemption. I appreciate your ability to articulate my feelings.
Diane
The jury verdicts are not really surprising to me.
The most shocking thing about this entire affair is the level of cowardice demonstrated by the political establishment in Fullerton who knew what happened but who nevertheless chose to hide behind their ldrawn curtains; some miscreants like Flory and Chaffee actually curried the favor of an unrepentant and unreformed police department to get elected.
Fullerton did not open the door when justice knocked, but somewhere, sometime, justice will have to be appeased. This story is now national news again and Fullerton again is in the worst kind of spotlight. Fitzgerald, Chaffee, Flory may be pleased as punch that their prized department is somehow cleared, but the story isn’t over even though our near-worthless DA has decided to wash his hands of it.
Meantime, thanks to Tony Bushala whose efforts made even a vain swing at justice possible; and to all the people, left and right like Baxter and Levinson who stood outside the FPD and let the cops know that we may go, but we won’t go quietly.
Justice.
Well Chmilewinski and the Liberal OC win first place for politicizing the tragic verdict:
http://www.theliberaloc.com/2014/01/14/three-strike-tony/
Not that that means much around the cesspool that is the blogesphere.
That seems like a fair editorial, and it’s probably more by Prevatt. “Politicizing” is in the eye of the beholder; why should T-Rack be immune to criticism? It’s not like there’s some Democratic DA candidate with a chance in hell that the LOC is shilling for.
I read it differently. I’ll let things cool down before I start in. There is still a lot we don’t know.
Interesting enough I attended closing statements by T-Rack and then watched the defense live streamed. I would concur that given that Tony had not tried a case in years that he would have deferred to a senior trial deputy. Tony was methodical yet didn’t connect with the jury from my perspective. I don’t think the liberal OC is politicizing but making a public statment that has been shared by many privately.
I think he intentionally threw the game. Point shaving. There is no way this case can result in acquittal if not on purpose.
I’m glad that you’ve convinced yourself, but that’s simply not so.
Pretty much all the lawyers looking at it say that except MAYBE for the “excessive force” claim, it was a hard case to win at best — not because of the jury but because of the laws on the books. So why are all these non-lawyers giving confident opinions to the contrary?
You’re fueling despair. The way reform in these cases happens is through civil suits for wrongful death and such. That people don’t like that to be true makes it no less true.
Diane — NOTHING will change so long as politicians stand to lose elections if they’re not endorsed by Police groups as being “law and order” candidates, even when “law and order” means preserving laws that protect even outrageous police misbehavior.
If you want to change things, there need to be endorsing organizations that will produce slate mailers to give electeds covered. Until then, many elected officials (and other candidates) have the choice of being right OR being in office, but not both — and its the ones left in office, not the ones who nobly sacrifice success for their ideals, who get to write the laws. Where’s the alternative to the COPS mailer?
Two more recommended pieces by Orange Juice friends:
From Fullerton artist Jesse LaTour – http://jesselatour.blogspot.com/2014/01/reflections-on-kelly-thomas-verdict.html?spref=fb
From Laguna maverick Eddie Rose – http://www.eddierose.org/blog2/?p=301
From Jesse’s piece:
“This morning , I ran into my friend Dale, who is homeless, and we got talking about the verdict.
” ‘Will they be able to kill me, like Kelly, now?’ Dale asked, with genuine fear in his eyes.
“I have no answer for Dale. What I cannot say is, ‘You are safe.’ None of us feel safe anymore. Not me, not Dale.
” ‘You can’t make sense of the senseless,’ Dale says.
“At Starbucks, two police officers, one of whom is responsible for ticketing homeless people for being homeless, sat and talked together, smiling, laughing, text messaging, sipping coffee. I felt a tinge of fear. Could they arrest me and beat me for no reason? Could they start brutalizing homeless people again, like my friends Dale and Julia and Ernest and Curtis? The precedent set by the Kelly Thomas verdict forces me to consider these questions and wonder what recourse we now have.
“I got my coffee and bumped into my friend Jerry, who told me that he was with his ten year old son when the verdict was announced. He looked at me with deep sincerity and said, ‘I didn’t know what to tell my son. What can you say?’
“I don’t know what you can say to a ten-year-old about all this. I don’t know what the future will hold…”
nobody has brought up the race card yet. surprising. if Kelly had not been white, the race baiter “reverends” Sharpton and Jackson would have been here and had it plastered all over the national press. This pressure might have returned a different result. Unfortunate that a deadwhitemale doesn’t seem to concern them very much. Nor the knockout games on whites.
When Obama gets our guns (and lightbulbs) and as the police become more militarized, spying on citizens gets more widespread, God is mocked, we kill even more unborn children, the water runs out and economic equality speeches start class warfare and turn us into a broke socialist country, we will all be in trouble and will think of these days as the good ol’ days.
Wow. That’s how YOU see it? I coulda sworn it was the exact opposite.
The kinda thing that happened to Kelly Thomas happens to latino and black young men regularly and nobody hears about it or cares. This case only became as well-known as it has, and seemed close to achieving justice as it did, because Kelly was a white man, and this doesn’t usually happen to white man. (Plus his good luck in having millionaire Tony Bushala and an ex-cop father who wouldn’t let this get swept under the carpet.)
No limits to your white victimhood though. He would have justice if he were black, huh? I’m pretty sure it was an all or mostly white jury who cheered on the pigs.
Good luck? Some good luck that this one is.
yeah… ill put
“I coulda sworn it was the exact opposite.”
Ding, we have a winner.
I’m not a big fan of petitions, but this is one I can get behind.
http://wh.gov/lIsdX
If there would be the constitutional Jury in this trial it would consist of the COPs, Sheriffs and other law enforcement personnel (defendant’s peers) who would be members of the Oath Keepers rather than thuggery Police Union.
Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, reserves, National Guard, veterans, Peace Officers, and Fire Fighters who will fulfill the Oath we swore, with the support of like minded citizens who take an Oath to stand with us, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God. Our Oath is to the Constitution http://oathkeepers.org/oath/
Such jury would follow OATH KEEPERS: ORDERS THEY WILL NOT OBEY
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control.”
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.
From the above you can see that there is no provision which would found Ramos and Police Union pigs “not guilty”, more over they would never be COPs to start with.
FYI, I am OK founding member and we meet at The Old World Village, 7561 Center Ave #49, Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Come and see us or go see your Union Thugs who train the COPs to kill you.
Hey, that’s practically my front yard. When do you-all meet?
How did this get past the filter? Did you take down the filter?
You’re not going to go over well at an “Oath Keepers” meeting, Vern.
I can sit and watch. Perchance to laugh. Perchance to report.
I don’t know much about the oath keepers but I saw them many times at protests in front of the Fullerton PD when Fullerton’s liberals were cowering at home with the curtains drawn.
I know they believe some things that are crazy and paranoid. But they stood with us Occupiers at the last 4th of July parade in Huntington Beach, in a very visible and effective protest against government spying. “Take Back the Fourth!” we called it, referring also to the Fourth Amendment… Click for larger view.
Speaking of cowering Fullerton liberals … grrr … I’m sitting on a Pam Keller story … I should keep it quiet since she took back what she briefly wrote the other day … but … grrrrrrr
Another Great Friend of the FPD. She stood on street corners with them!
Okay then … soon after the outrageous verdict, Pam posted some big Fullerton-cheerleading post on her Facebook. I don’t know how much it referenced the case and the verdict cuz I didn’t have a chance to see it. My good friend, Ayerite Democrat HB pro-tem Joe Shaw got on and roundly chewed her out for her insensitive timing, and then he called me so I could see it. By the time I clicked it was gone.
We all write or say stupid things that we later regret and erase if we can, so there’s that.
But it serves to remind us Dem/liberal/hippies who think of ourselves as naturally anti-authoritarian that not all supposed “liberals” or Democrats are anti-authoritarian, and that we’re just as likely, or more likely, to find anti-authoritarian allies on the other side of the ideological spectrum.
(Especially whenever the US President is a Dem by the way!)
I’m not the least bit surprised. Kelly Thomas was just an annoyance. So were all those dirty, weird protesters.
Collaborate on that.
You’re welcome to the Oath Keepers, David. The likes of them — among others, is a large part of what kept Fullerton liberals away. No one likes being co-opted for someone else’s agenda.
Uh, right. Whatever you say. Of course Pam Keller or Molly McClanahan or Vince Bike or Doug Chaffee or Jan Flory or any number old school Fullerton liberals could have at least written a little essay for the Fullerton Observer deploring the killing of a helpless man at the hands of the FPD. But they didn’t even do that, did they?
For these people “social justice” is just an abstract plank is somebody else’s platform.
That’s crap. You really think that the liberals you mention has no feelings about the tragedy — and your evidence is an asserted absence of articles in the Fullerton Observer? I don’t know one among them who didn’t think that what happened was horrible. Writing that in the Observer — which would have been belaboring the obvious — would not have satisfied you at all; it would simply have set up a juicy target for criticism because “they weren’t going far enough.” They weren’t “reacting the right way.” They weren’t reading from your prayer book. They weren’t screaming at the City Council. As if the reaction that you and your colleagues had was the only legitimate reaction.
The issue was not whether the event was a deplorable tragedy — I don’t think anyone outside of a few assholes would deny that and it barely required saying. The issue quickly became “what do we do about it?” Answers short of “install a fan of racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio as Fullerton Chief of Police” were hooted down. I agreed with the goal of critics that the Council majority had to be taken down, but it was galling to see that being leveraged into “we have to elect a Council that will try to spike the public employee unions and renege on pensions.”
There could probably have been a broad social consensus on a public response to the Kelly Thomas killing — but it would have been a more measured one and would not have done nearly as good a job of fueling the recall of the Fullerton Council majority. The recall was the agenda — and a lot of otherwise sympathetic people didn’t want it because they were afraid of what a new Council’s ideology would be.
Making it hard for people to criticize the action without signing onto an overall agenda they disliked was canny politics — but it was not serving the interest of bringing as many people together (including the ones you mention) as possible. The POINT was to isolate them: to make it impossible for them to participate equally in the public grieving and criticism — as a means of dividing them from the public. So you really don’t get to criticize them over it.
See you at the rally at 10, which I expect will be similarly diverted.
The position that “the City’s policies regarding policing were wrong, but that doesn’t mean that the acquittals on murder and manslaughter were illegitimate; that much still needs to be done, but much arguably HAS been done; that we can try to tackle the more manageable problem of policing of the homeless and mentally ill without asserting that the only problem worth addressing is the huge and intractable problem of the excessive use of force by police — which is a worthy target of opposition but is NOT going to go away anytime soon no matter WHAT anyone at the rally says and does — is probably going to be unwelcome and anyone speaking along those lines will be hooted.
Good politics, sure. Lousy activism. You do not get full credit for that.
“So you really don’t get to criticize them over it.”
Sure I do. I just did.
As for all the poor, tormented souls of Fullerton’s old guard liberals, I guess that can they can assuage their bourgeois guilt talking about another “intractable” problem – building homeless shelters next to elementary schools. But whatever, please don’t question their marvelous police force. You don’t get elected or stay elected by making Barry Coffman angry. And of course Chief “Danny” is on the job – the very man who congratulated The Six for a job well done on that hot night of July 5th with Kelly’s blood in the gutter.
P.S. Please be briefer.
You have me there. You do get to say that. You can also say that 3 + 4 = 92 and that La Palma is the capital of Peru, but that doesn’t make it right.
Imagine — a Police Chief (or whatever he was at the time) saying publicly that his officers acted correctly, probably without knowing the facts. (Better yet, imagine one that doesn’t do so. That’s more difficult.) I care most about whether Hughes has, or has not, tried to — and more importantly succeeded in — implementing real and significant reforms, despite what Barry Coffman may have to say about them. I’m open to the argument that he hasn’t — and I’m perfectly willing to criticize or condemn him if not. I’d say that to his face. (Yeah, that’s “white skin privilege” — but at least put to good use.) Are you open to the argument that he has? That’s what’s critical now.
I think that you, an Orange County Republican, may have just criticized someone for being “bourgeois” — but I presume that I must have hallucinated it.
It think that the case should have been televised. For some reason the DA didn’t want it published.
Was it the DA’s decision to present the case himself rather than use one of his prosecutors? Given his lack of courtroom experience I don’t understand why he would want to go against experienced defense attorneys unless he didn’t give a high priority to getting a conviction.
My understanding is that yes it was. He has plenty of courtroom experience — he was also a judge, after all — but had not prosecuted a case within the past 15 years. To me, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was “playing to lose”; it does mean that he wanted absolute control over the County’s stated positions — both written in advance and extemporaneous.
Fuck you Orange Juice. You don’t like the truth published. YOu guys are a bunch of chicken assholes.
Alright, Gigi. You can have this one.
For the record, I deleted your posts. I’ll also delete anything else you attempt to publish.
You will not, ever, bully people here.
The video was compromised because a tree branch was in the way. It is my understanding that witnesses to the beating we’re not allowed to testify. That troubles me if it is true and I think that it probably is. Witnesses could have filled in what was blocked from view of the camera.
If there had been more cameras which showed the beating from more angles, and if it was shown that the beating continued after kelly went limp from loss of consciousness, would the cops still have been acquitted?