DL Open Thread: Saturday, April 24, 2021

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on April 24, 2021

Maryland To Review Cases Handled By Ex-Medical Examiner Who Testified For Chauvin’s Defense.  Including this case:

In 2018, a 19-year-old college student named Anton Black died after interacting with a Greensboro officer responding to a call of a possible kidnapping on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

“Anton Black died because police employed excessive force, laying him out prone on his stomach, lying on top of him for approximately six minutes and approximately five minutes after he was handcuffed, and folding his legs toward the sky in a manner that further compromised his ability to breathe,” asserts a lawsuit the Black family has filed against several public officials in the case including Fowler.

A report signed by Fowler and an assistant medical examiner ruled Black’s death as accidental, saying that it was “likely that the stress of his struggle” with police contributed to his death, as did bipolar disorder and underlying heart issues.

The ruling said “no evidence was found that restraint by law enforcement directly caused or significantly caused or significantly contributed” to Black’s death.

Does that sound familiar?

Deadbeat Donald’s Debts Head To Collection Agencies.  Cities seek reimbursements for expenses from the Trump campaign.  Albuquerque, El Paso, and Minneapolis. Betcha there are others.

Did Marijuana Industry Ply Gaetz With Prostitutes In Exchange For His Support?  Hey, it’s Saturday, why not speculate?

Wall Street Headed For Another ‘Big Short’?  Could be, led by many of the same malefactors as last time.  This time, though:

… the issue is not a bubble in the housing market, but apparent widespread inflation of the value of commercial businesses, on which loans are based.

…this industry-wide scheme is colliding with a collapse of the commercial real estate market amid the pandemic, which has business tenants across the country unable to make their payments.

They’ll never learn.

Columbus (OH) Cops Are Out Of Control.  They use force, over and over, and never get sanctioned.

Remember That Covid Suicide Spike? It never happened:

According to Tyler Black, a suicidologist and the medical director of emergency psychiatry at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, 2020 was, for all its many horrors, likely just an average year when it comes to suicide in both children and adults. “There was no wave from March to August—like, none—and we’re quite certain about that,” he told me. In fact, the preliminary data from the CDC show that deaths by suicide dropped by 5.6 percent in 2020 from the year before, reaching their lowest total since 2015.

This is what happens when we allow the anecdotal to become the empirical.

Portland Cops Killed Homeless Man. My wife and daughter were nearby when it happened.  In Portland, this is a ‘dog bites man’ story.  The Feds need to investigate this police agency.  It’s a rogue force.

In Virginiaand North Carolina.  C’mon, there’s a real problem, and it’s happening everywhere.

Delaware Police Chiefs Propose Laughable ‘Reform’ Agenda.  It’s basically support for the so-called ‘Police Bill Of Rights’, along with some limited support for body cams.  They needn’t worry. They’ve got the so-called Accountability Task Force wired. I’m glad that Sherry Dorsey Walker has introduced HB 185.  There is no point, none, in waiting for any report from that compromised Task Force. Tizzy, take note.

What do you want to talk about?

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  1. Alby says:

    Police accountability is exactly what the Police Bill of Rights was designed to outlaw. Just look at some of the provisions:

    No formal complaint against a law-enforcement officer seeking dismissal or suspension or other formal disciplinary action shall be prosecuted under departmental rule or regulation unless the complaint is supported by substantial evidence derived from an investigation by an authorized member of the department or another officer who is certified by the Council on Police Training pursuant to Chapter 84 of this title and has experience and/or training on conducting an internal law-enforcement investigation and is appointed by the Chief of Police of the law-enforcement department to conduct the investigation of the officer in question.

    Translation: The only people who can investigate police misconduct are the police themselves.

    Interview sessions shall be for reasonable periods of time. There shall be times provided for the officer to allow for such personal necessities and rest periods as are reasonably necessary.

    Translation: You can’t interrogate us the way we interrogate all other suspects.

    All records compiled as a result of any investigation subject to the provisions of this chapter and/or a contractual disciplinary grievance procedure shall be and remain confidential and shall not be released to the public.

    Translation: We know what vicious criminals we are, but we’ll be damned if we let the public find out.

    It is not a Bill of Rights. It is a Bill of Special Privileges Available to Nobody Except Police Officers. They act like they’re above the law because they are — the law literally places them above everyone else.

  2. Arthur says:

    Did you read the story about the single deli in NJ that makes 30k a year but is valued at 100mil on the pink sheets

  3. bamboozer says:

    Total agreement with Albi, the police do as they please, murder and maim at will and never pay a price. Thanks to bad legislation like Police Bill Of Rights the police consider themselves a law unto themselves and act accordingly. Cowardly politicians will never fix the problem, in particular with the COP Cabal in place, it’s up to us to make them do what is right. Yet again.

  4. puck says:

    There seems to be an endless supply of cops retired in their forties and available to run for office.

    • Alby says:

      And saps who’ll vote for them.

    • Well, yeah. They get their cop pension and start on a second career. Often as a legislator. Some, like Larry Mitchell, get to work on a second and third pension at the same time–as a legislator AND as director of security at Del-Tech, where he gets additional props by shilling for Del-Tech while in Dover. Wonder what HIS time cards look like. His predecessor, John Van Sant, did the same thing.

  5. RE Vanella says:

    David Fowler trained in pathology at the University of Cape Town in the late 70s early 80s.

    Better than fiction.