Weeping Criminals and Police Brutality

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on the three young men accused of attempted murder who wept in court viewing the video of their beating.

Three men charged in a triple shooting wept openly in court yesterday as a videotape of their beatings at the hands of Philadelphia police officers was screened at the Criminal Justice Center.

Dwayne Dyches, Brian Hall, and Pete Hopkins are charged with attempted murder and other counts in connection with a May 5, 2008, shoot-out that injured three men in the Feltonville section.

After shooting three other guys on the corner, Dyches, Hall and Hopkins led the police on a high speed chase. The cops hate that. Apparently in their anger and disapproval, the Philadelphia police involved in the chase didn't realize a news helicopter was filming the whole thing. When finally cornered and extracted from their vehicle the three shooters were given a taste of what I suppose those adrenalin-high cops call justice.

As the video was screened, Hopkins, the alleged gunman, used his necktie to dab away his tears. Dyches and Hall choked back sobs as family members seated in the courtroom gallery cried and groaned.

There weren't many details about the beating except that it "resulted in the firing of four officers and the demotion of four others." Here's a link to what I think is this incident. It's hard to tell because there are dozens to choose from.

What is wrong with the Philadelphia police department? Or are they typical in their methods of fighting crime? What's your opinion? Is it the criminals' fault when cops go over the line? Should the police be given a break because of the stress of the job? What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

Time Capsule Opened in Dallas After Nearly 100 Years

The Dallas News reports on a Time Capsule that was discovered in Houston during the demolition of a hospital. It had not seen the light of day since 1913, which meets quite nicely the criterion mentioned by FatWhiteMan last time we talked about time capsules.

The crowd that gathered around the front of the Old Parkland Hospital on Thursday could have been re-enacting a scene from almost a century ago.

Back in 1913, Dallas public officials and business leaders were on hand for the laying of the cornerstone of the new public hospital. Inside they placed a copper box filled with documents.

On Thursday, the battered time capsule was removed from the landmark's foundation for the first time. Inside were the crumbling remains of some letters and two mostly intact newspapers.

The holding company responsible for the demolition and construction project didn't know if anything was buried there, but they drilled a hole in the cornerstone to look. The copper box was discovered.

Historically, cornerstones were put in place with Masonic ceremonies. Sam P. Cochran, an early Dallas business tycoon who was one of the founders of the Dallas Scottish Rite Cathedral and the Scottish Rite Hospital, conducted those proceedings at Parkland in March 1913.

On Thursday, Leonard Harvey, a Mason who is past grand master of the Grand Lodge of Texas, pulled the small metal box out of a hole bored in the side of the cornerstone.

Does that mean the Masons were involved in this particular hospital, or that they run Dallas the way the Mormons run Salt Lake City? What are the Masons anyway? Aren't they some kind of secret organization with secret rites all their own? Is burying time capsules one of them?

Here's the fascinating part: "The big news on the front page of the March 18, 1913, Morning News was about President Woodrow Wilson and a rebel attack on the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo."


I don't suppose that could have anything to do with the present-day problems along the Mexican border? It is interesting though that those problems are not limited to our own day and age.

What's your opinion? Is part of the fun in burying a 100-year-or-more time capsule that we sometimes forget about it and have to discover it by accident?

Please leave a comment.

One Handgun per Month in New Jersey

Why do the pro-gun folks object to this one? It's often been suggested as one of the ways to combat gun violence and the gun flow that inevitably takes place in our society. Yet, it's met with the same response you'd expect when denigrating the 2nd Amendment or when talking about door-to-door gun confiscation. Why are they so unbending?

In New Jersey it'll now become law, assuming Gov. Corzine signs, which everyone expects him to do. The Gun Guys describe it like this.

Our Freedom States Alliance affiliate, Ceasefire NJ, and one of the most remarkable gun violence prevention advocates, Bryan Miller, is celebrating a huge victory tonight in passing a one handgun per month law. The state senate vote was 21-15, and now goes to Gov. Corzine for his signature to become law.

What's your opinion? Isn't this one of the most reasonable laws, one which should produce the desired benefits without too much inconvenience to gun owners?

In the video to which the Gun Guys provided a link, Bryan Miller talks about the tragic death of his brother which he explains was his motivation for getting involved in gun control. Do you think anti-gun folks who have suffered a personal loss due to gun violence are somehow less qualified to hold their opinions? I've heard this suggested about Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy. Do you think there's some decrease in functionality of the reasoning part of the brain in these folks? Might not the tragedy give increased focus and clarity?

What's your opinion.

Teen Shooting in Las Vegas - Shared Responsibility

The Las Vegas Fox affiliate carried the story.

A 19-year-old Las Vegas man accepted a plea deal today in the case of a drive-by shooting that left a high school freshman dead.

Ezekiel Williams' lawyer said his client has been promised a sentence of eight to 20 years for voluntary manslaughter with a deadly weapon and accessory to murder in the February 2008 slaying of 15-year-old Christopher Privett.

What happened was, Williams was driving the car while his passenger, 17-year-old Gerald Davison, shot and killed Privett as he and three friends walked home from Palo Verde High School. Williams admitted handing the gun to the shooter.

What's interesting to me is the shared responsibility. Apparently the courts felt the older teenager who passed the gun to Davison shared in the guilt for this murder. What about the girl? The story says there was a girl in the car as well who had gotten in an argument with the dead boy earlier in the day. Does she not share in the responsibility?

Maybe there's only so much guilt to go around. Direct involvement like passing the murder weapon immediately before the incident counts, but less direct involvement like whatever happened between the girl passenger and Privett is too far removed. In which case, whatever parental or societal influences might have played a factor couldn't possibly be mentioned as excuses or mitigation.

After interviewing the 17-year-old murderer, Metro Detective Clifford Mogg said, "He told detectives he didn't mean to kill anyone.” Is that difficult to believe? Is the idea that an individual who commits murder is not acting in isolation but rather in concert with numerous influences, some of them quite direct, too hard to accept? I say no. I say we lose nothing as a society by giving people like this the benefit of the doubt.

What's your opinion?

Help Save Troy Davis

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is appealing for help to save the life of Troy Davis who has been on Death Row for 18 years for a crime many believe he didn't commit. We discussed the case a few months ago when the Supreme Court refused to hear it. Now it's being reconsidered.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is today considering what to do, if anything, regarding the case of Troy Davis, and may issue its decision today, tomorrow, or some think most likely, on Monday, June 29.

As you know, Troy Davis was convicted of murdering a Georgia police officer in 1991. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony. These seven witnesses must be heard in a new evidentiary hearing. Read an Amnesty International report about this case here.

If you have not yet signed the on-line petition at www.iamtroy.com, please do so now, as these petitions will be printed and hand delivered on Monday morning.

Here's the other thing you can do right now to help save Troy's life:

Please call Georgia's Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm at 912-652-7308 and ask that he reopen Troy's case.

If you are a Georgia or Chatham County resident, please identify yourself on the call as a concerned resident. However, you do NOT need to be a Georgia resident to make the call! We want DA Chisolm to know that Troy has massive support across the country, so make the call yourself, and then please forward this widely and ask everyone you know to make this call.

If there is one phone call you make today, please make it to Larry Chisolm's office.

It's getting down to the wire. This may be the one call you make that can actually save a man's life. 912-652-7308. Please call now.

Some of my friends keep pointing out that I seem to be on the side of criminals and against the law abiding. To a certain extent that's true. It works like this. Law enforcement personnel and others in authority should be held to a higher standard, in my opinion. When they abuse their power, in addition to whatever legal or moral crimes may be involved, they're violating the public trust. To me, that's important.

Criminals on the other hand, especially addicted and abused ones, are already operating with two strikes against them. In many cases they're just trying to survive. There's no need to be excessively severe with people like this, except where public safety is at stake. We lose nothing by applying to them the same rules of presumed innocence that everyone's entitled to.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Icons of My Generation, R.I.P.

Years ago when I lived in Las Vegas, I saw Steve Martin's show on the Strip. He said, "Ah, yes, the poster of Farrah Fawcett. I've stared at it for hours, holding it up with one hand."



I once had a close encounter with the King of Pop. Read about it here.

Juvon C. Harris Found Guilty in Baltimore

The Baltimore Sun reports on the guilty verdict handed down in the case of a robbery turned to murder.

A week after going on trial on charges that he killed a man in a botched holdup and tried to kill another, Juvon C. Harris was found guilty Monday by a Baltimore County Circuit Court jury of all eight counts against him, including first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.

Harris, 28, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced July 30 by Judge John O. Hennegan, who presided over the trial. Prosecutors dropped their earlier intention to seek the death penalty for Harris, who was seen in a surveillance video fleeing the parking lot of Woodlawn's Windsor Inn early on July 1, 2007, immediately after two men had been shot there.

The scene was a frightening one. Harris approached the two victims in the parking lot, instructing them to get on the ground. He then pushed the gun into the face of Howard L. Hamlin hard enough to leave marks. Hamlin reacted, perhaps instinctively, by "slapping" the gun away, in his own words. It went off grazing his head and instantly killing his friend, Taavon J. Chambers.

The reason the prosecutors agreed not to pursue the death penalty was unclear. Could it have been the question of intent? Do you think Harris may have accidentally fired the guy when it was pushed away by Hamlin? Could that affect the outcome of the trial?

In a case like this it's impossible to tell whether Harris was going to pull the trigger at that very moment or if the swiping at the gun by the victim caused it to fire. Do you think it matters? I do. I think we need to give people the benefit of the doubt in all cases. Isn't that what "reasonable doubt" means? What's your opinion?

Please leave a comment.