On the front page of last Saturday’s paper was the news that there would be no federal civil rights charges pressed against Ian Birk, the former Seattle police officer who shot to death Native American woodcarver John T. Williams in broad daylight in downtown Seattle. This surprising decision was at odds with the determination of an inquest jury; inquest juries are notorious for finding police “justified” for killing even unarmed citizens, but in a rare turnabout all but one jurors found Birk’s actions unjustified. It was clearly an example of police officer creating a dangerous character out of his own paranoid fantasy world, literally within seconds losing all grasp of reality and judgment, and killing a man who was merely walking down a sidewalk, minding his own business, and posing no threat to anyone. But while it can be expected that the city attorney would do nothing, it is disheartening that the Feds refused to take action against Birk, particularly because there are more than a few officers like him roaming free and armed on the streets.
The Feds claimed that they could not make civil rights charges “stick” because the Justice Department’s investigation of the SPD found that the department’s “training” in the use of lethal force was lacking; thus it wasn’t Birk’s “fault” that he acted the way he did. If you feel an unhealthy sensation churning inside your stomach, I share your disgust. Is it current police training for an officer to see a man walking past on the crosswalk right in front of his squad car, formulate without the slightest evidence that he is violent menace—probably because he is a racial minority—jump out of his cruiser and begin shooting without taking in one moment to ascertain the true nature of what he was dealing with? If this is the case, then the SPD has far bigger problems than the even the Justice Department’s investigation found. Lax training wasn’t Birk’s problem; his problem was that he was psychologically unfit to carry a badge and a gun, and there are likely many more like him.
In the same newspaper edition there was a story about a Federal Way cop who heading to her coffee break at Starbucks at 1 pm, claimed to observe what she thought was a “hand-to-hand” drug transaction inside a car outside the coffee shop. She claimed that she communicated a verbal command to the occupants to stop what they were doing. She also claimed that she saw one of the men reaching for something under a seat. She further claimed that she yelled at them to get out of the car. When the man continued reaching under the seat, according to the officer, she started firing her weapon, upon which the car sped off (gosh, I wonder why?). The suspects’ vehicle was found a few blocks away, with the passenger dead and the driver missing. Maybe there is something to the officer’s story, maybe not. Take for instance Birk’s initial story, in which he claimed he saw Williams perched on a wall, and when Birk approached him, Williams jumped off the wall and advanced toward him menacingly with open knife. Even his police guild handlers couldn’t let him get away with this bald lie; police officers teach each other how to concoct such “likely” stories, but in this case, there was obvious evidence (like his dash cam), and three witnesses to contradict his initial tale. If this shooting had occurred in the wee hours of the morning with no witnesses, the lie would have become truth. Civil rights be damned.
Since the Feds refused to prosecute Birk, what motivation does the SPD have to change its “training” methods? None whatever.
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Meanwhile, it was reported on NPR recently that the Obama administration successfully petitioned the FBI to expand its definition of rape in crime statistic reports, hoping to inflate the numbers, so long as local law enforcement cooperates. This is an example of how gender politics and victim mythology becomes intertwined with crime statistics, leading to wild but unsubstantiated claims in regard to such things as human trafficking and child prostitution. Still, it is unlikely that changes in the definitions that the FBI uses will be sufficient to satisfy the victim lust of activists and advocates, since the FBI relies on reported incidents, not assumptions, ratios and guesswork. The CDC report I commented on a few weeks ago, with its own expanded definitions, is likely to suggest an upper-limit on the prevalence of sexual crimes and domestic violence. But the curious thing remains that the focus is on women as victims, since the media and the activists studiously avoid the implications of the CDC findings on domestic violence. The fact that 25 percent more males than females report being victims of domestic violence in the previous 12 months of the survey suggests that while men have become more conscious of the fact that they can be arrested, charged and imprisoned for domestic violence, women apparently know no such restraint on their own actions.
One advocate quoted in the NPR report used the term an “incredibly violent crime” in reference to rape; it was not necessarily over the top, but in relation to what? Taking your small children out into the backyard and taking a large stone and crushing their heads in, or, like Andrea Yates, filling a bathtub with water, taking your five children one-by-one and holding them in the water while they struggle for life, until they drown? The Seattle P-I wrote an editorial praising the “justice” of the not guilty for reasons of insanity verdict in Yates' second trial. I wondered who inspired this horrific, hypocritical opinion; I know that Susan Paynter was still employed by the P-I at the time (she bailed shortly before the paper folded); I’m certain she had her fans—people I would have no commonality with—but I remember Paynter as a nauseating amalgamation of victim feminism, racial insensitivity, police abuse apologias and personal arrogance. Funny how radical feminism mixes so easily with such lesser pursuits; it probably has something to with the tyranny of it.
The insanity claim seems particularly popular in Texas in defense of women who commit, well, incredibly violent acts against children. Such was that case in 2003, when Deanna LaJune Laney took her three sons—including a toddler—out in the back yard, sat on the two older boys (6 and 8) and beat on their heads with a rock. The toddler was found in critical condition. In 2006, Dena Schlosser was charged with murder when her baby daughter bled to death after her arms were cut off. The judge in the case ruled that she was legally insane. Interestingly, all of these cases were blamed on the killer’s religious beliefs; but nowhere in the Bible does it say that parents (let alone mothers) are justified in killing their children. In Genesis, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test of his faith; having been satisfied that Abraham was prepared to do this, God stopped him at the last moment and accepted a ram as a substitute (frankly, people should start paying more attention to the New Testament's version of God). On the other hand, the killing of these children was due entirely to murderers’ obsession with self and their own perceived “victimization.”
Sometimes I get the impression that a certain demographic is so wrapped-up in its “victimization” that some of its components have no sense of right and wrong. Some of you might remember the case of Mary Winkler, the Tennessee woman who murdered her preacher husband, shooting him in the back with a shotgun. Winkler claimed that she suffered years of sexual and psychological abuse, that no one else apparently saw. Two witnesses at her trial claimed that they saw her “cower” on one or two occasions in his presence, but this may well have been an act. It certainly contradicted her initial statement to police—and before she talked to her attorney—that her husband had not abused her “in any way.” Surprisingly, the prosecution did not press this contradiction at trial. It was, however, revealed that Winkler was a poor manager of money behind her husband’s back, engaging in check-writing fraud worth $5,000—something which did apparently cause considerable friction between them. Winkler was eventually convicted of voluntary manslaughter, but was set free for time served. This wasn’t a surprise to foreman Bill Berry, one of only two men sitting on the jury. Berry told Court TV that the 10 female jurors were “heavily” in favor of Winkler, and nine were ready to acquit her of all charges immediately. According to Berry, "I don't think justice was done. It's the times we're living in. People are getting away with murder today." He and the other male juror refused to countenance Winkler getting away scot-free, and the voluntary manslaughter conviction was a “compromise.”
Later, in an anecdote Ann Rule noted in her book "Smoke, Mirrors and Murder"--in which she admitted that despite the courtroom theatrics, her own research assistant in Tennessee could find almost no evidence to substantiate Winkler's claims--the "demure" Winkler, encountered in a bar drinking a beer, responded to the query "Are you the preacher-killer" by laughing and retorting “Yeah. You want to be next?”
A summary of the case on Trutv’s website included public comment. A Lisa Oglesby-Liljander said “I'm glad she got off..Im so sick of men abusing their wives and getting away with it. I don't think they deseve to be killed but sometimes they just push their wives too far. I hope Mary and her girls are living a wondreful peaceful life!” People like this are speaking for their own victim “entitlement,” not from knowable facts—particularly when it isn’t men who are necessarily “getting away with it.” Such people should be the last on the list passing themselves off as moral paladins. Mrs. Rule also included a brief discussion of that incident on New Year’s Eve when Mary was photographed in a bar with a beer, and holding a cigarette. The man who snapped the picture with his cell phone camera subsequently asked Mary: “Are you the preacher-killer?” Reportedly, Mary laughed, and said: “Yeah. You want to be next?”
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