Georgia Shooting

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Vonnegut, May 6, 2020.

Loading...
  1. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    News clips are everywhere and so is the video. Always have sympathy when life ends in a shooting. Families are devastated and even if a shooting is justifiable, everyone suffers. This incident though is simply horrifying, to me. Comparisons to Trayvon, I feel are absurd, there was arguably legal room for reasonable doubt in that case. In this one though. We literally have retired LE run down a young man for jogging down the street, and by their own admission was not committing a crime at the time. Two grown men chasing after a young man jogging, with one in the bed of a pickup and gun drawn, than calling outrage that he’d have the audacity to not stop and agree to be interrogated by two armed men chasing him down, and by their own admission that they put their hands on him to check for weapons before he fought back. WTF... we have Southern DAs defending this?!? I’m often one who believes LE and Military are always given the benefit of doubt, but this is insanity.
     
  2. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    I agree. Last I saw in the news was yesterday saying that the case was going to be presented to a grand jury.
     
  3. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    I had a longer reply that I deleted. I will simply say that running while black appears to be cause enough to confront someone with a gun in GA and, regardless of original intent, a murder occurred. I look forward to seeing the outcome of the trial.
     
  4. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    That the local law enforcement defended his former colleague by saying it's perfectly within their rights to have multiple people chase down with guns drawn someone who by their own admission wasn't committing a crime... and that the kid should have stopped and answered to them... was one of the most chilling statements/mindsets that I've ever heard. This is just heartbreaking on so many levels.
     
    JBjunior likes this.
  5. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    Just imagining the fear of that young man being chased and confronted by people in a vehicle with guns saying "hey, I just want to talk," disgusts me. That someone in power and making decisions about whether people of color get to go home safely each night thinks it is acceptable behavior for someone to carry out is beyond comprehension. Someone's choice to confront someone in public with a gun outweighs the other parties right to privacy, liberty, and safety? Not to mention the murderer has admitted he didn't witness the victim committing a crime.
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    But no surprise. The culture of police in the U.S. to defend their own no matter what is a cancer.
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  7. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    The video is extremely hard to watch. One second, the guy is just enjoying his jog, the next second he is fighting for his life and ultimately loses it.

    How this happened 3 months ago and no charges have been filed is an absolute shame.

    It has been reported that a grand jury will not convene until June at the earliest due to COVID-19 restrictions. That bit I can't understand. We have a couple of murder suspects out on the loose and we just have to sit on our hands for a while? How is that NOT an essential service?!

    ---

    On a separate note- who took the video, and why? It looks like someone held up a cell phone while driving. I don't understand why you would do that unless you are expecting something to happen. It's a bit frustrating that it's hard to see the actual moment the altercation began- that might leave a little bit of a window for them to make the claim that the shooters were attacked first. It would be an obvious lie, considering their previous statements and the insensibility of randomly attacking someone who has a shotgun, but I can see them attempting to make a case around it.

    Even so, I think that if two guys with guns and a pickup truck in the middle of the street start barking orders and threats at you, you have just cause to start defending yourself.
     
    JBjunior likes this.
  8. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    They fully have the power to arrest them, they're choosing not to. They're on the record stating they want a grand jury to hear this because "...a man has a right to carry a gun" and "...all they wanted to do was talk to him" (paraphrased)... they are really trying to protect their former colleague. Many, including legal scholars online, are speculating they're trying to hold off for a grand jury so they can dismiss all charges with the appearance of the a juries blessing.

    From the back story, the father/son saw him jogging down their road (by their own admission), went and grabbed guns, hopped in their truck with literally one in the bed armed with a shotgun and drove him down. Reports are that someone driving saw two crazy fat losers chasing off in a pick up with guns drawn... and started filming (because WTF)... apparently they pulled up right as the truck passed the kid and tried stopping him at gun point.

    On an interesting note, Georgia does not allow self-defense as a justification for using lethal force when one is the instigator.... they started the confrontation.... they out numbered him... they brought guns... they had guns drawn on him....
     
    Maniac Craniac and JBjunior like this.
  9. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

  10. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Public outcry for the win.

    It proves your point that they could have arrested the guys time they wanted.
     
    JBjunior and SteveFoerster like this.
  11. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    The 64 year old father was a retired police officer. The small town police chief did not want to charge a friend of his with this crime. The latest news is that the father and his son have been arrested. I'm an old retired white guy. I'm very suspicious though that race played a role in this sad tale. That is from both sides. The young black man was probably afraid that he was being attacked by racists and that his life was in danger. The two white men may not have been so interested in stopping this young black man and using their guns if he instead had been a young white man?
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  12. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    As mentioned earlier, some of the local officials have been vehemently defending their former colleague. The DA is on record of stating he believes that it was a justified "hot pursuit" with guns drawn and a justified shooting because.... the victim grabbed the barrel tip of the shotgun put into his face.... WTF!!!!

    https://www.fox5atlanta.com/video/682162
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  13. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    The stated justification for the two men to stop and question (or make a citizen's arrest as the story at one point was) the young black man was that they suspected him in a string of burglaries in the neighborhood. It seems that over the past month there had only been one reported theft in the neighborhood and that was a pistol being stolen from an unlocked car. The arrested pair seem to be having problems with their story. I predict an attempt at a smear campaign against the murdered young man, at least that seems to be the way these things go.
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  14. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    I don't like jumping to race-based conclusions, but I think the first point was at least fair given the circumstances and the second point was demonstrably correct.

    It's hard to imagine based on what else would they have chased him. Even if we took their (pathetic) story at face value- what if there were reports of a white man committing burglaries in the area? Would they have hunted down any given white man they saw running down the street?

    The absolute most charitable way to took at the situation would be to grant that they believed that there was a serial burglar, that the serial burglar was black, and that being black was an unfortunate coincidence that made Ahmaud match the scantly detailed description of the criminal on the loose. Even under this extremely charitable interpretation of the incident, race did play a big factor.
     
  15. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    I too don't like jumping to conclusions about motivations based on race. Even more damning evidence to my mind was the reported fact that there had only been one reported burglary in the neighborhood over the past month. I'm very pleased that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stated that they would investigate the person that made a video of the assault. The video obviously was not a dash cam. Why would someone be following a jogger in a car and be video taping them?
     
  16. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    If you see to a crazy idiot in the bed of a pick up with a shot gun going down the street in a panic... that's certainly time to pull out the cell phone and start recording.
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  17. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    Great story here on some this local police station and DA basically having a long list of ethical violations of the public's trust and trying to protect their own. HERE

    Additional video of minutes prior to the incident have leaked and further complicate the narrative. HERE
    • Appears that most likely the guy while out on his jog, stopped and snooped around in a house under construction.
    • Neighbor calls 911 to report the trespassing.
    • Guy leaves a few minutes later and takes off running down the street. Note, he did not appear to take anything, which means that likely is a misdemeanor trespassing charge at best.
    • The dynamic duo grab their guns and give chase in their pick up.... leading to the confrontation and shooting.

    A few thoughts, from someone who is neither a lawyer or law enforcement, so they're probably meaningless... but:
    (1) Georgia's Citizens Arrest Law is probably not applicable - he was not in the commission of a felony on the people's property and he wasn't in the commission of a violent felony.
    (2) Georgia's Self Defense - Lethal Force Law is probably not applicable - as they initiated the confrontation.
    (3) The dynamic duo's report to the police is contradicted by the video.
    (4) The police report is contradicted by the video.
    (5) DA and Sherriff have a history of covering their own (court records) and have personal connections to these two (public records).
    (6) DA statement to the mother was a patent fabrication.
    (7) Thieves suck.
    (8) Idiots suck.
    (9) There will be a lot of suffering for multiple families in the end.
     
  18. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    Absolutely true, still well worth investigating though. If taking the video was somehow coordinated with the father and son then it could be very damning.
     
  19. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    Apparently the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, state level FBI equivalent, is looking into the source of the video. It was released through a lawyer to maintain the persons confidentiality, hopefully the lawyer scrubbed the cell info from the video to protect their client. From the sounds of what had been going on in that area with law enforcement and the DA, one would certainly need to be cautious about releasing a video which directly contradicts the police report and DA statement. If I'm reading things correctly, they only had the porch video before. The video that went viral appears to contradict the fathers statement to the police, the police report, and the DAs statement. Which makes it very unlikely that it was coordinated with them. If anything, it sounds like they didn't know of it's existence until it was released by a lawyer last week and went viral, other wise they certainly wouldn't have made some of the statements they did. Although with the former video being shown down, it may (I'm going back and forth) dilute the race factor for the father/son in this, although I believe the sheriff/DA statements were quite racial.
     
  20. JBjunior

    JBjunior Active Member

    I saw something recently that they didn't arrest the guys because "they" saw the video, they arrested the guys because "we" saw the video. It appears that is true; news trickling out indicates the police have had the video since the day of the incident, and have done nothing with it, and the lawyer that released it did so in support (and with permission) of the accused. It seems that the lens they view the world through makes them think the video will "prevent a riot" and proves the innocence of the accused.

    Article showing video released to help accused and saying the victim should have froze and not fought back: https://www.foxnews.com/us/lawyer-says-he-leaked-ahmaud-arbery-shooting-video-on-behalf-of-the-2-suspects
    Article showing police were shown the video day of incident: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/09/us/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-video-saturday/index.html
     

Share This Page