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    Not Enough Day DrinkingMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 10:26am

    And all it took to convict Raja was for a man to die, the call to have been coincidentally recorded, public outcry, a four-year intermission between the killing and the trial, the ghost of Trayvon Martin to haunt the trial, and 30 years of Florida cops shooting black people and getting away with it, and a cop who wasn’t white.

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      NotTodayNot Enough Day Drinking
      3/07/19 10:30am

      ding, ding, fucking-ding!  

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      sararueful2Not Enough Day Drinking
      3/07/19 10:32am

      Yep, I was coming down here to say “who is of South Asian descent” needed to be up in that paragraph. Chad Worthington probably would have gotten off.

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    skefflesMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 10:38am

    Looks like someone forgot that being blue doesn’t compensate for not being white. I hope this encourages other non-white cops to both shape up and cop properly, but also recognize they are never going to be the same as white cops and start policing them too.

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      sTalkinggoat, first and last of his nameskeffles
      3/07/19 11:00am

      The problem with that is a POC with any kind of class identity just doesn’t become a cop in the first place. And if one manages to slip through they don’t last long.

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      Rooo sez BISH PLZskeffles
      3/07/19 11:32am

      This is basically it, and nearly all of us know it.

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    Rooo sez BISH PLZMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 11:29am

    Nouman, who is of South Asian descent, was remanded into police custody immediately after the trial. He faces life in prison.

    And there it is. Daniel Holtzclaw was also convicted of raping several victims whom he’d arrested on prostitution charges ... one could argue because he was half-Asian and not, shall we say, of other ethnic makeup, in front of a jury in Oklahoma.

    If either of those cops had been “full white”, one could further argue it’d never have happened. Not in DeSantis’ Florida. Not in Trump’s AmeriKKKa.

    Don’t @ me, trolls with no training in journalism, law, or social science analysis (basically all of you). No time for your trash today; reactionary so-called “conservatives” who are the stated parents of other real working journalists are already after me trying to harass me off other platforms, and you don’t have half their game.

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      sararueful2Rooo sez BISH PLZ
      3/07/19 11:43am

      And Exhibit C:

      https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/nyregion/officer-peter-liang-convicted-in-fatal-shooting-of-akai-gurley-in-brooklyn.html

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      Rooo sez BISH PLZsararueful2
      3/07/19 11:55am

      Thank you. I couldn’t remember his name (or perhaps I blocked it out).

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    Manitos, The Tiny Hands of TrumpMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 10:54am

    Nouman, who is of South Asian descent

    So as long as its minority cops shooting black people, we’ll see justice.

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      Rooo sez BISH PLZManitos, The Tiny Hands of Trump
      3/07/19 11:33am

      This. This is basically it, and nearly all of us know it.

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    ihadwordsMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 10:55am

    Yeah... you buried the lead deep on this one.

    Nouman, who is of South Asian descent

    He fell victim to the biggest downfall of any defendant... not being white.

    Justice only happened here because the jurors didn’t see themselves in the defendant. Had he been a white blue eyed cop, it would have been the same ol’ same ol’. Also if the Jury had a person of color on it, that would have also helped. Remember the good ol’ boy network only includes people who can pass the paper bag test. Oh, and yes... I have receipts.

    http://www.crf-usa.org/brown-v-board-50th-anniversary/the-color-of-justice.html

    A study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2012 seemed to confirm much of Johnson’s research. It examined data from felony jury trials in Florida from 2000 to 2010. The researchers found that

    (i) juries formed from all‑white jury pools convict black defendants significantly . . . more often than white defendants, and (ii) this gap in conviction rates is entirely eliminated when the jury pool includes at least one black member.

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      Rooo sez BISH PLZihadwords
      3/07/19 11:33am

      I think Michael was testing to see how many of us were really doing a close read.

      This is basically it, and nearly all of us know it.

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    decgeekMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 10:59am

    Nouman Raja

    Not exactly a white middle class American name.  Makes it a little bit easier for a jury to convict. 

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    BadOmbreMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 10:46am
    Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF

    jury convicted former Palm Beach Gardens police officer Nouman Raja for manslaughter with a firearm and first degree attempted murder.

    Now, help me out with this one. Are they saying the initial shots were manslaughter and the additional shots were attempted murder? Don’t they have this backwards, or did the second volley miss?

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      BensonDuboisBadOmbre
      3/07/19 12:34pm

      Attempted Murder—He tried to intentionally cause Corey Jones’ death by shooting him the first time; Corey Jones lived and ran away for a few feet before Raja murdered him by shooting him in the back.

      Manslaughter—Corey Jones died at Raja’s hands for any negligent reason—even if Raja caused Corey Jones to die and didn’t mean to do it.

      I know—it really doesn’t make sense for there to be a conviction for both because if you’re guilty of attempted murder, you should also be guilty of murder if your victim dies. Again, don’t know how hard it would be to prove Raja shot Corey Jones in the back with the intention of causing his life to end forever. But this is Florida with an all-White jury. The prosecution might have given the jury a way to wiggle out of finding Raja guilty if they went for the higher charge with more elements of proof. This way, there is no way Raja avoids being convicted of SOMETHING.

      Also, it was a way for the conviction to score higher for sentencing purposes, but in doing that, this asshole now has a decent avenue to appeal and get a new trial. Which, if he does, he could get a change of venue and get acquitted like the last Florida cop to be convicted of murdering a Black man 30 years ago.

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    BensonDuboisMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 12:18pm

    William Lozano’s 1989 conviction was overturned in 1990; he had a new trial in Orlando rather than Miami and was acquitted. Lozano’s murder of Clement Lloyd sparked the 2nd wave of race riots in Miami—the first being the riots after Arthur McDuffie was murdered (beaten to death) by police in 1980. Technically, no Florida police officer has ever been convicted AND imprisoned for murdering a Black man.

    Let’s see if Raja’s conviction sticks.

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    Shivaya NamahMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 5:26pm

    Hopefully this is the start of consistent successful prosecutions for extralegal misconduct.

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    Shivaya NamahMichael Harriot
    3/07/19 5:25pm

    Hopefully this is the start of consistent successful prosecutions for extralegal misconduct.

    Reply