Where is the “outrage” now?

On November 23, Michael Dunn—unmistakably a Caucasian male—shot and killed Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old black male and high school student at a Jacksonville, Florida convenience store. Apparently as Dunn was waiting in his car for his girlfriend to buy a bottle of spirits, nearby was an SUV where four occupants were playing music “loud.” Now if you are in a library or living in an apartment building with thin walls this may be a legitimate issue. But if you are only in the area for a few minutes, it is nothing to become too upset about. However, it seems that Mr. Dunn—who was in town attending his son’s wedding—was already well-imbibed and his sense of indignation enhanced to the point where his violent fantasies became unfortunate reality.  

Dunn—an avowed gun “enthusiast”—claims that an “argument” ensued over the loudness of the music, and in response the passengers of the SUV turned-up the noise even louder. Now the story gets a little murky; the teens in the SUV admit to everything up to this point, but were driving away when Dunn suddenly began opening firing on them, about eight or nine shots being fired. Davis was hit by two bullets and died soon afterward. The victims claim that they were unarmed. Dunn, on the other hand, claims that he only emptied his weapon when he saw a shotgun in the SUV.  No weapon was found that substantiated this claim, but the explanation for this was that the teens had discarded the weapon after they drove away. As for Dunn, when his girlfriend came back to the car, he admitted that he had just fired his gun, and rather than reporting what had occurred to police, they decided to drive back to their home in a different county.

According to a story in the Florida Times-Union, Dunn’s lawyer, Robin Lemonidis, claimed that Dunn “absolutely” did observe “someone” with a shotgun in the SUV. She stated at the hearing where Dunn was charged with second-degree murder that he “acted appropriately” in self-defense. Lemonidis went on to say that this case was “totally different” than the Trayvon Martin case, and she hoped that there wouldn’t be a “media circus” as that which surrounded that case. Well, she is right about that, but not for the reasons she claimed. I’m not going to rehash the Martin case; I’ve done that ad nauseam; suffice it to say that the facts seem to indicate that George Zimmerman only fired his weapon while he was still being physically beaten on by Martin (“but I no u wupped his ass tho” one of Martin’s friends had written on his Facebook page after the shooting; he must have known Martin better than the media pretended to).  I suppose the Martin partisans can claim that you can hardly use the “stand your ground” defense when you are flat on your back getting pummeled by a “child.”

I am not condoning what Zimmerman did; what I am saying is that in the Martin case, there was confluence of circumstances in which both Martin and Zimmerman played a part in the final denouement. In the Davis shooting, there seems to be no rational explanation for what occurred. In that case, Dunn acted like a true vigilante. No one acts in such an impulsive manner unless they are predisposed to violence—“preferably” toward those of a disliked demographic. Jacksonville homicide detective Rob Schoonover was quoted as saying “Our victim was shot a couple of times…They were listening to the music. It was loud; they admitted that. But I mean that is not a reason for someone to open fire on them.” City Attorney Gene Nichols dismissed the claim by Dunn’s lawyer that any “responsible” person would have acted the same way, stating that “Mr. Dunn is going to have to answer the question, 'Why did you not call the sheriff's office? If you are reasonably protecting yourself, why did you leave the scene, get in the car, and the next day, flee the jurisdiction of Duval County?’” He also asserted that “There's no indication that Jordan or anyone else in that car had a gun, there's no indication that they were any threat to Mr. Dunn.”

Now, the question I have is “Where is Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? Where is CNN’s Anderson Cooper? How about Laurence O’Donnell over at MSNBC? Or all those lefties on the local AM 1090 station who were demonizing Zimmerman every day for months?” I suppose that one reason is that Florida learned its lesson and quickly charged Dunn. But that doesn’t explain why the media was silent on the Daniel Adkins shooting, in which a developmentally-disabled Hispanic man walking his dog was shot to death by a black male outside of Phoenix in an alleged “stand your ground” case. It was only four months later—and two weeks after the shooter was arrested after participating in a drive-by shooting—that murder charges were filed in the case. 

The answer in the Dunn case seems to be another dynamic in play with a similar variable. Zimmerman was called “white,” but he was appeared “obviously” Latino; after years of demonizing immigrants—both legal and illegal—for many of the problems in the country, it is a short step toward having an instinctive aversion to anyone with brown skin, and belief in the negative stereotypes that have been habitually applied to them. But for “real” white people like Dunn, there is the desire to give a whole race the “benefit of the doubt.” Unlike, say, Latinos (or blacks, for that matter), white people are not all “like this.” Of course that is true; I’ve actually met white people who are decent human beings. But all too often we do not see this same “logic” applied to other groups. And that is the problem with this case relative to the Martin and Adkins cases.

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Also in the news is Jose Padilla, the “convicted” dirty bomber, except that he wasn’t actually convicted of that crime, because it never existed. His current sentence has been ruled “too lenient,” and he is to appear in court for a new sentencing hearing. I’ve discussed this case before in detail, and it is one of the great travesties of justice  perpetrated in recent memory in this country—and it only promises to get worse if the sentence is considerably extended.

Now, Padilla was not a “good man” caught-up with bad people; he was a gang member with a criminal record. During one stint in prison he converted to Islam and gave himself a new Arabic name, although the government insisted on referring to him by his given name. Padilla travelled to several countries in the Middle East, and he was arrested on the charge that he attended al Qaeda training camps and was plotting to deploy a “radioactive” bomb in the U.S.. But after nearly four years in isolated confinement in which he was subjected to various torture techniques (all illegal on U.S. soil)—and staving-off a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of holding a U.S. citizen indefinitely without charge—the Bush administration finally concocted the ludicrous charge that Padilla was “supporting terrorism in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya.” Note that there was nothing about staging attacks on U.S. soil or harming U.S. citizens.

Non-prejudicial observers thought the Padilla was being charged with nothing more than a “thought crime.” However some believe his eventual conviction was due more to his prior criminal history and his sullen, nonresponsive demeanor than any actual evidence that he was a “terrorist.” One commentator likened Padilla to a “piece of furniture,” no doubt due to his years enduring isolation and torture. He was sentenced to a 17-year prison term, but the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court intervened, claiming—by a 2-1 vote—not that the case against Padilla was absurd, but that his sentence was “too lenient.” The judges in favor of extending his sentence pointed not to the evidence in the case (merely that he was convicted), but to his prior criminal history, and that he was a potential “danger.” They also faulted the trial judge for “remarking that the defendants’ crimes did not personally harm anyone nor target the United States”—which was true, and merely points to outrageousness of the Bush administration’s actions throughout this case.

But the dissenting judge, while not questioning the conviction itself, noted several blatant miscarriages of justice in Padilla’s trial:

The old adage that "hard facts make bad law" is clearly evident here. First Agent Kavanaugh's opinion testimony should have been excluded because he was never qualified as an expert and did not have the requisite first-hand knowledge to offer his lay opinion. His lay opinion testimony was merely the government's closing argument in disguise. Second, the incriminating statements Padilla made prior to being read his Miranda rights should have been suppressed, because, under the undisputed facts in this record, it is beyond peradventure that Padilla was in custody at the time he made them. Finally, the sentence imposed on Padilla should not be disturbed by this Court, because doing so simply substitutes this Court's sentencing judgment for that of the trial judge, in whom that authority inheres.

More recently, Padilla was denied the reinstatement of his and the American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld (someone who should be in jail) and others for illegal detention and torture. But like George Zimmerman, Padilla is a man who elicits a visceral response: dark, swarthy, “ethnic”—criminal and “dangerous.” Not, that is to say, quite “human.” His “kind” needs  to be “put away.”