DA interference to prevent cop indictments for killing unarmed woman

[GarfieldtheCat]

Story here in the paper:

http://investigations.myajc.com/overtheline/#da-misconduct

Two cops surrounded a woman in her car, and shot her to death when she was unarmed (does this sound familiar...unarmed person murdered?). Cops were of course in fear of their lives.

Several prosecutors saw the video, and almost all said it was a crime, but a new DA came in, and fired the prosecutors that wanted to indict the cops.

DA then went to the grand jury herself and basically threw the GJ case so that they didn't indict.

Nice....perfect example of collusion with cops, and getting away with crimes.

Still, the violence that unfolded on the computer screen shocked them into silence. The video showed eight police bullets piercing the car windshield of the unarmed Georgia mother as she was pinned against a utility pole and surrounded by police cars.

The consensus in the courthouse conference room was that the two Glynn County police officers who pulled their triggers had committed a crime. One DA called for more investigation. A second said it was manslaughter. Another said it was aggravated assault.

Several called it murder.

Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson fired one prosecutor for his outspoken determination to prosecute the 2010 shooting, and she excluded the others who best knew the evidence. The case languished for a year before Sgt. Robert C. Sasser and Officer Michael T. Simpson were cleared by a civil grand jury in 2011 amid a series of questionable and irregular legal maneuvers. Sasser and Simpson remain in law enforcement today.

So these fine officers are still on duty....cleared of murder by the work of the DA.

Really makes you feel safe doesn't it?

 

[master_shake_]

law enforcement is systemically corrupt and there is no repair.

how many nails does this coffin need?

 

[senseamp]

Quentin Tarantino was right, but was attacked by the statists.

 

[JSt0rm]

law enforcement is systemically corrupt and there is no repair.

how many nails does this coffin need?

They had an expert on npr, I cant remember his name, but he said that its going to take 20 years to fix the problem because they need to come up with new training and then implement and then change the police culture. So its going to be the norm for a long time.

A cops life isnt worth more then the guy paying his taxes everyday.

 

[Darwin333]

They had an expert on npr, I cant remember his name, but he said that its going to take 20 years to fix the problem because they need to come up with new training and then implement and then change the police culture. So its going to be the norm for a long time.

A cops life isnt worth more then the guy paying his taxes everyday.

It doesn't require any new training or bullshit like that. Just like businesses hiring illegal aliens doesn't require businesses to be "trained", you make the penalty for the crime high enough and they won't do it. Same thing with cops, you start throwing them in jail for slaughtering innocent people and they will stop. You start throwing them in jail for tasing handcuffed people and they will stop. You start throwing them in jail for beating the shit out of people for no reason or once they are already subdued and they will stop.

We need independent investigators and independent prosecutors to prosecute cops when they do shit wrong. Entities that are not connected to the police at all nor do they work with them in anyway whatsoever so there is no conflict of interest. Personally I'd like to see some sort of federal law passed that puts the investigation, indictments, and prosecution into the hands of the Feds. Perhaps a federal law that requires each state to do what I mentioned above would work as well but the current system is obviously beyond broken.

What's even worse is that the police and politicians who can't afford to get on the bad side of the police unions will cite the statistics on how many police are found guilty as how little they actually commit crimes. "See! The statistics say that they hardly ever commit crimes so we don't need to do anything about it."

 

[EOM]

War on Cops(tm)

 

[sm625]

Sound like Jackie Johnson gonna be mayor one day.

 

[K1052]

That we still have elected DAs/judges/LEOs is terrible and corrupts the system to it's core.

 

[waggy]

WHats a DA to do though? IF they don't play ball with the cops they get threatened, harrased etc? hell even judges who go against them have been threatened and have had DA's ask to move trials out of that courtroom.

The whole system is fucked.

 

[woolfe9998]

Read the article and several others about this case and it made me angry. What a terrible crime these cops committed, but the most important aspect of the story is the corruption in the system which let them off. I agree with what Darwin said - we can't allow these cases to be investigated by the very police department which employs the officers in question. This is made even clearer when you contrast this case with the one in Louisiana where the cops were charged with murder. In that case, the state police, not the local leos who knew the cops, investigated the matter. In this case, you have a corrupt police department and a corrupt DA who was in bed with them.

 

[woolfe9998]

WHats a DA to do though? IF they don't play ball with the cops they get threatened, harrased etc? hell even judges who go against them have been threatened and have had DA's ask to move trials out of that courtroom.

The whole system is fucked.

I don't buy this reasoning excusing the DA's behavior. This DA was a political ally of the police chief, who had endorsed her for DA. She wasn't being threatened. It was a quid pro quo, an example of rank corruption in the system.

 

[Bart*Simpson]

As I look at that video I wonder why the cops didn't shoot the engine of the car if they were afraid of the car moving around at them? That same number of shots into the engine block would've ended the issue all that same and everyone would still be alive.

 

[Darwin333]

As I look at that video I wonder why the cops didn't shoot the engine of the car if they were afraid of the car moving around at them? That same number of shots into the engine block would've ended the issue all that same and everyone would still be alive.

Not trying to defend the cops but handgun rounds against an engine block just isn't a good short term solution. You put a few through the radiator and it will eventually stop but a 9mm or .40 isn't going to go through the engine block. You need really serious rifle rounds (not 5.56 either) to do that.

Granted you could get a lucky shot to some electrical or computer components in the engine but it would be sheer luck to immediately stop a cars engine by firing at said engine with a handgun or even a 5.56.

 

[Darwin333]

I don't buy this reasoning excusing the DA's behavior. This DA was a political ally of the police chief, who had endorsed her for DA. She wasn't being threatened. It was a quid pro quo, an example of rank corruption in the system.

It's worse than that. A DA requires the help of LEO to prosecute people. Their "resume" is quite literally their conviction rate. If they can no longer secure convictions because they pissed off the LEO's they work with by prosecuting one of their own then their conviction rate goes to shit. It's absurdly easy for the LEO to do too, "blue flu" when it's time to testify on that prosecutors case or even simply a case of amnesia or conflicting testimony to throw the prosecutors case.

It's very clearly a conflict of interest. How this is allowed to continue is beyond me. When you ask people to potentially throw away their very expensively attained and huge future profits or not, how is it shocking when they decide to "not"?