[Discussion] Police, White Nationalists, and the Rise of Fascism

Hopefully he gets thrown in general population. It might make the appeals superfluous.

It was 10 years over the minimum sentencing guidelines. Certainly better than the defense asking for time served.

My wife and I were struck by how tone deaf Chauvin's mother sounded. While saying she loved him and will serve his sentence with him was moving, her statement that she believed he was innocent nomatter what the court said, and that many people agree with her, was divisive. Finally, she never mentioned Floyd's name, or conveyed any sympathy for his family's suffering.

Perhaps but the law says

State guidelines say that for such a person, the presumptive sentence for both second-degree and third-degree murder is 12 1/2 years. The judge was given discretion to hand down a sentence between 10 years and eight months and 15 years for each.

If the judge had done more than the appeal would have argued the sentence was to harsh, that the judge was bias, that mars was in retrograde, that little green men made him do it, etc. Well they will still argue much of that but this gives the sentence a firm middle of the guidelines stance that will be harder to argue against.

It's enough that, if such sentences were consistently applied to police officers who murder civilians, and if such officers were consistently charged and found guilty as Chauvin was, it could serve as a deterrent to such murders. That's enough for me.

It's more important to me that such uniformed murderers are consistently charged, found guilty, and punished than whether the punishment for this particular murderer is twenty years or thirty or life. The problem isn't whether Chauvin is being punished severely enough, it's that he's the exception rather than the rule in being punished at all.

I just found out that Chauvin's mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, is related to former MN governor and 2012 presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty (R, of course), by marriage. After divorcing Chauvin's dad in 1984, she married Leroy Pawlenty, the former governor's cousin.

Pawlenty was a terrible governor during the Great Recession, gutting public school funding and creating elaborate "fees" to claim he was balancing the budget without raising taxes. As a school board member I place a lot of the blame for our current financial challenges at his feet.

Just more reason to detest this whole family.

Don’t forget. Chauvin still has the federal charges pending. So the 22.5yrs, around 15 for good behavior if I’m reading right, are only the first tranche. I’m hopeful he gets locked up till he dies when all the sentencing is done.

JLS wrote:

I just found out that Chauvin's mother, Carolyn Pawlenty, is related to former MN governor and 2012 presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty (R, of course), by marriage. After divorcing Chauvin's dad in 1984, she married Leroy Pawlenty, the former governor's cousin.

Pawlenty was a terrible governor during the Great Recession, gutting public school funding and creating elaborate "fees" to claim he was balancing the budget without raising taxes. As a school board member I place a lot of the blame for our current financial challenges at his feet.

Just more reason to detest this whole family.

I have no sympathy for his mother.

She married a former governor's cousin.
And?
Are we supposed to be suspicious about that?

I respect your service as a school board member, but do you really think she is responsible for the actions of her husband's cousin?

Chauvin's mother is responsible for tone-deafly talking about how she'll never be able to give her racist, murdering son a "special hug" while failing to acknowledge that her racist, murdering son prevented Larcenia Floyd from ever giving her son anything because he murdered him and that as the mother of a racist murderer she likely bears some level of responsibility for George Floyd's death because she failed to adequately impress upon her spawn that murdering another human was bad.

At a bare minimum she should have had the grace to have shut the f*ck up and said nothing because it was actually all about the victim of her son and the people who survived him, not her son, who, again, is a racist murderer.

I imagine that the woman is grieving the fact that her son is a murderer in the best way she knows how, which in this case is denial. It would have been better if she'd done so privately, but this impulse to tar her with guilt by association with everyone even tangentially connected with her who's ever done something objectionable is distasteful.

It sounds like she said some stupid sh*t in her grief. Let's not compound her error by paying undue attention to it. Let's have the grace she didn't have and move on.

The idea of Chauvin emerging from prison at age 72 without anyone who cares about him being alive to greet him and seeing a world and a nation that has left his racist world view in the rear view mirror is the outcome I would like to see. I don't need him to die in prison. I need him to live to see his universe reject him.

Paleocon wrote:

The idea of Chauvin emerging from prison at age 72 without anyone who cares about him being alive to greet him and seeing a world and a nation that has left his racist world view in the rear view mirror is the outcome I would like to see. I don't need him to die in prison. I need him to live to see his universe reject him.

It's been almost 80 years since we defeated Nazism, and that idea is alive, kicking, and growing like a weed. I wouldn't hold my breath.

Considering it took a video from a private citizen and a GLOBAL protest to bring a person that slowly choked the life out of someone to justice I wouldn't hold my breath.

Paleocon wrote:

The idea of Chauvin emerging from prison at age 72 without anyone who cares about him being alive to greet him and seeing a world and a nation that has left his racist world view in the rear view mirror is the outcome I would like to see. I don't need him to die in prison. I need him to live to see his universe reject him.

Hate to burst your bubble, but it’s 100% likely that DC will get married to a female fan of his while he’s in prison, and she will be waiting for him upon his release… if he lives long enough.

RawkGWJ wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

The idea of Chauvin emerging from prison at age 72 without anyone who cares about him being alive to greet him and seeing a world and a nation that has left his racist world view in the rear view mirror is the outcome I would like to see. I don't need him to die in prison. I need him to live to see his universe reject him.

Hate to burst your bubble, but it’s 100% likely that DC will get married to a female fan of his while he’s in prison, and she will be waiting for him upon his release… if he lives long enough.

Thanks for putting that image in my head. Monster!

A former police officer arrested after the Jan. 6 riot was told to stay away from guns. He bought 34, feds say.

Washington Post wrote:

In January, a federal judge agreed to release Thomas Robertson, a former Rocky Mount, Va., police officer facing multiple charges over his alleged participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

But Judge G. Michael Harvey’s release conditions were clear: Robertson could not own any firearms, destructive devices or dangerous weapons while his case was pending. If he owned any guns, he must relocate them within two days.

Days after his release, authorities found eight firearms at his Ferrum, Va. home, according to court documents. The judge gave Robertson a second chance, reminding him of his release conditions.

Then, last month, authorities found a loaded M4 carbine and a partially assembled pipe bomb while conducting an authorized search at his home, court records state. Robertson is also accused of buying 34 firearms online and “transporting them in interstate commerce while under felony indictment,” prosecutors said.

Now they are asking the judge to revoke Robertson’s release order and issue an arrest warrant for violating his pretrial release terms a second time.

“Because the defendant has shown utter disregard for the Court’s orders prohibiting his possession of firearms and other weapons during the time he has been on pretrial release, and because he has further flouted his release conditions through repeated violations of the federal firearms laws, the defendant presents a danger to the community that no release conditions will adequately mitigate,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elizabeth Ann Aloi and Risa Berkower wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Washington.

An attorney for Robertson did not immediately respond to a message from The Washington Post late Thursday. Robertson could not be immediately reached for comment. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges (obstruction of an official proceeding, aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building).

The prosecutors’ motion comes days after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department has arrested 500 people in connection with the insurrection, among them the first defendant in the Jan. 6 riot to face charges including assaulting a journalist.

On Jan. 6, prosecutors said, Robertson and Jacob Fracker, his then-colleague with the Rocky Mount Police Department, stormed the Capitol and posed for a photo in front of a statue of John Stark making an obscene gesture. Both men, who were off duty at the time, later sent the photo to their colleagues, the criminal complaint states. (Fracker has also pleaded not guilty.)

Shortly after, Robertson posted the picture on social media and said he was “proud” of the photo because he was “willing to put skin in the game,” court records state. In a Facebook comment on Jan. 8, Robertson wrote, “The next revolution started in DC 1/6/21. The only voice these people will now listen to is VIOLENCE. So, respectfully. Buckle armor or just stay at home.”

I suppose kudos are due to the Rocky Mountain Police Department for firing these two jamokes back in January before they were charged. At the same time everyone at that PD involved in hiring these clearly unhinged motherf*ckers should be fired and new hiring procedures put in place.

OG_slinger wrote:

I suppose kudos are due to the Rocky Mountain Police Department for firing these two jamokes back in January before they were charged. At the same time everyone at that PD involved in hiring these clearly unhinged motherf*ckers should be fired and new hiring procedures put in place.

It's naive to think these two are exceptions rather than exemplars of that (and most other) police departments.

Feds pay $6.1 million to build database of photos, videos, social media posts to help prosecute insurrectionists. The contract could grow to $26 million.

The cost for this should be added to the costs clean up after January 6th and every insurrectionist should be required to pay their portion of the damages (and be charged for causing millions in damages in the first place).

I heard on a news podcast that nonviolent offenders are being fast-track processed and probably are getting light sentencing in exchange for their cooperation in upcoming trials of the more egregious offenders. They talked about a middle aged woman who walked in and casually walked out about ten minutes later. She’s getting probation and community service.

The 1/6 investigation is a lot larger than people realize. Huge commitment of resources.

Robear wrote:

The 1/6 investigation is a lot larger than people realize. Huge commitment of resources.

GOOD!!

RawkGWJ wrote:
Robear wrote:

The 1/6 investigation is a lot larger than people realize. Huge commitment of resources.

GOOD!!

If it doesn’t get Bobert and Margery the Gathering it will be a tragedy.

A Texas family joins the list of more than 500 people arrested in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol

NYT wrote:

Among the more than 500 people arrested so far in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, there have been several married couples and any number of parent-and-children teams. There have even been sets of siblings charged.

On Tuesday, however, in what seemed to be the first move of its kind, the Justice Department unsealed a complaint against almost the entire Munn family of Texas, accusing the father, the mother and three of their children of illegally breaching the Capitol through a broken window.

Then on Jan. 5, court papers say, Mr. Munn posted another Facebook image showing what appears to be the family’s car and trailer on the road from their home in Borger, Texas. A homemade sign is visible on the back of the trailer reading, “D.C. Bound We are Q,” in an apparent reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

According to the complaint, the Munn parents and their children Dawn, Joshua and Kayli entered the Capitol through a broken window at around 2:25 p.m. on Jan. 6 and took what amounted to a brief tour of the building, breaking nothing and harming no one. Afterward, court papers say, they all posed for a photo with another family member — a minor child — who was not charged in the case. The exact ages of the children were not released.

The charged family members were arrested in Borger on Tuesday and could not be immediately reached for comment. A lawyer had yet to file an appearance in their case .

Prosecutors say that investigators tracked the family down with the help of a tipster and interviews with at least three of the Munn children’s teachers. The F.B.I. also obtained private Facebook conversations that some members of the family had with their friends.

For example, on the day of the riot, according to the complaint, Dawn Munn sent a Facebook message to a friend saying, “We went in and stormed capital!” In another message to a different person, Dawn Munn wrote, “We were in capital!!…I do mean IN the building!!”

That same day, Joshua Munn wrote a Facebook message to someone named Joel, prosecutors say, describing how he and his family had crawled through the window and saying it was “super cool.”

The end of this Daily Kos post has a link to some FBI and other resources.

The FBI is good an' aw, but the crowdsourcing effort identifying insurrectionists has doubtless been a big help. GQ interviewed one of the main drivers of the effort.

Twitter was a big nexus, for the #SeditionHunters and other efforts. Part of the joy of scrolling through it is the nicknames they give suspects pre-indictment: #TaserPrick and #MidWhiteCrisis are a couple of favourites.

The Victoria Secret Karen incident proves once again how racist cops are.

I heard the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is going to add a new award category based on Victoria Secret Karen's performance and professional footballers around the world will be studying the her videos.

VIDEO: A Utah Police Officer Killed a Man Inside the Police Department. It Was His Third Shooting.

It is difficult to read the statement by the FOP official here and not conclude that nationwide, FOPs believe that police should be able to shoot anyone with the thinnest justification possible and face zero repercussions for doing so.

I watched that very sad video. So the cops tormented the poor guy until things escalated to the point of shooting him in the head while he was handcuffed. The guy asked for mental health care and was denied that. If it was so important for him to go to jail why couldn’t he go to the psych hospital first? When the psych doctor released him THEN he could go to jail. Few people in the middle of a psychotic episode will have the clarity to ask for help. This guy asks and gets ignored.

AND… ONCE AGAIN… if you’re worried about a friend or loved one, it seems like calling the police for help is just about the worst thing you can do.

The crazy thing is that nothing is happening to the people that provided a edited video and knowingly lied to protect the cop.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I watched that very sad video. So the cops tormented the poor guy until things escalated to the point of shooting him in the head while he was handcuffed. The guy asked for mental health care and was denied that. If it was so important for him to go to jail why couldn’t he go to the psych hospital first? When the psych doctor released him THEN he could go to jail. Few people in the middle of a psychotic episode will have the clarity to ask for help. This guy asks and gets ignored.

AND… ONCE AGAIN… if you’re worried about a friend or loved one, it seems like calling the police for help is just about the worst thing you can do.

You would think that "the good ones" would care more that this is the prevailing view of almost half the country. "If I call the cops, they will either do nothing or make it worse."

Mixolyde wrote:
RawkGWJ wrote:

AND… ONCE AGAIN… if you’re worried about a friend or loved one, it seems like calling the police for help is just about the worst thing you can do.

You would think that "the good ones" would care more that this is the prevailing view of almost half the country. "If I call the cops, they will either do nothing or make it worse."

They care, but for some reason think that they can change public perception without doing the hard work of changing policing so that such things don't happen.

Which is why even the "good ones"-- which I'm defining here as "ones who wouldn't actively do such things themselves"-- are nevertheless complicit.