How was I to know. . .

they were with the Russians, too:

One of several Twin Cities protests four days after the fatal police shooting of Philando Castile 16 months ago may have been organized in part by Russian hackers, according to national media accounts, before skeptical local organizers took over.

The reports by CNN and the Wall Street Journal alleged that Russian agents were behind eight Facebook accounts that publicized or financed at least 60 rallies in the United States, including one in the Twin Cities on July 10, 2016. The Journal said it examined archived versions of now-deleted Facebook posts and interviewed activists familiar with the events.

The locals are "skeptical":

Some local activists said Tuesday they didn’t believe it was Russians promoting the demonstration. Instead, they said, out-of-state protesters were trying to meddle.

One of the Facebook pages, hosted by a group called “Don’t Shoot,” publicized a demonstration scheduled for that day outside St. Paul police headquarters, recalled Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. She and other organizers were suspicious, saying St. Paul police were not involved in the Castile shooting, and that no one had heard of the group. “This was pretty crazy,” Gross said. “Who was calling this?”

The local General Defense Committee (GDC) of the International Workers of the World (IWW) and Gross’ group worried that protesters might not be safe, and both posted notices urging people not to attend.

The IWW would know. Everyone knows the Wobblies have nothing to do with the Russians.

Standing in the Shadows

There really aren't many mean streets in Fulton, but when the authorities arrive, things can happen, as we are learning:

The death of Justine Damond, who called 911 to report a possible crime only to be killed by a responding Minneapolis police officer, has left her grieving family, neighborhood and nation demanding answers in the latest police-involved shooting to thrust Minnesota into the international spotlight.

While many of the details about what happened Saturday night in the city's southwest corner have not been disclosed, this much was: She called to report a possible assault in the alley behind her house in one of the city's safest neighborhoods and was unarmed when officer Mohamed Noor shot her.

From what we're able to gather thus far, Noor shot Damond through the open window of the vehicle he was riding in with another officer, Matthew Harrity. If the details widely reported are true, Damond was talking with Harrity, who would have been driving the vehicle, when Noor shot Damond. Noor was apparently sitting in the passenger seat.

I don't know what happened, really. Three people know and one of them is dead. What I do know is incentives matter. This case played out quite differently than the shooting of Philando Castile, but because it happened not long after the verdict in that case, there's a tendency to look for parallels. The only parallel I can see is this: we give our police the power to use deadly force and officers are, not surprisingly, inclined to use that power.

Our founders were concerned about standing armies. A police force should not be a standing army, but on an operational level it's become increasingly difficult to discern the difference between a standing army and most police forces in this country. Police forces are, in the main, agents of the government and depending on the government in question, they can be a force of oppression. That's the sense many people in minority communities have about the police. While I'd like to say that sense is misguided, it's difficult to make that argument in the face of the evidence before us. Too often, the incentives are not directed at keeping the peace, but rather in getting a piece of the action. Incentives matter.

We have not yet heard the 911 call Justine Damond apparently made, but I imagine we will eventually. It may shed light on the assumptions Officers Noor and Harrity might have made as they arrived on the scene. We also don't know why anyone would consider a woman wearing pajamas to be a threat, but in a dark alley it's difficult to see what you think you see. We'll keep watching.

St. Anthony and Fulton

Alternatively, Philando and Justine:

A 40-year-old woman who family members said called 911 to report a possible assault in the alley behind her home Saturday night was fatally shot by a Minneapolis police officer.

The shooting happened at the end of the alley on W. 51st Street between Washburn and Xerxes avenues S. in the city’s Fulton neighborhood.

The woman, Justine Damond, from Sydney, Australia, and her fiancé lived in the 5000 block of Washburn.

Three sources with knowledge of the incident said Sunday that two officers in one squad car, responding to the 911 call, pulled into the alley. Damond, in her pajamas, went to the driver’s side door and was talking to the driver. The officer in the passenger seat pulled his gun and shot Damond through the driver’s side door, sources said. No weapon was found at the scene.

Well, it's bizarre. A few thoughts:

• I've written about St. Anthony, the community that employed the police officer who killed Philando Castile, and I will be writing more about it in the coming days. St. Anthony is a sleepy enclave, largely well-to-do, and my property borders on it. Fulton, the south Minneapolis neighborhood where the latest incident took place, is livelier than St. Anthony, but also largely well-to-do. 50th Street, one block to the north of where the shooting took place, is a busy but largely genteel thoroughfare with plenty of gentry retail to be found, with the commercial mecca of 50th and France about a half-mile to the west. It's a place where the violence of the city just doesn't happen much.
• My sister-in-law and her family lived in the area for years. Their house was in Linden Hills, about a half-mile to the north, in between Lake Harriet and Southwest High School. It's a high-demand area and houses that go on the market there are often sold before the sign goes up in the front yard. It's not a place where you would expect much violence.
• Fulton is the neighborhood that Betsy Hodges, the embattled mayor of Minneapolis, represented in the city council. Fulton, Linden Hills, Lynnhurst and the other neighborhoods in the area are among the nicest places in Minneapolis. They are illusions, places where wealth and privilege insulate people from the realities that obtain elsewhere. Much of what we'll see in the coming days will represent an effort to maintain the illusion. I'll be watching this case, too.

St. Anthony, Part Three

As we mentioned in the previous post, St. Anthony police patrol the streets of St. Anthony. They also patrol the streets of two other communities, Lauderdale and Falcon Heights. One of the streets that runs through both Lauderdale and Falcon Heights is Larpenteur Avenue:

Pathway

On the far left of the map is Highway 280, which is roughly the border between Minneapolis and St. Paul. To the left of 280 is Minneapolis. At the far right of this map is Fry Street, which is in Falcon Heights. It is on the edge of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. The intersection of Larpenteur and Fry is where Philando Castile died.

What Philando Castile did not know, and never would know, is the real reason he was stopped. As is often the case, the broken tail light on his car was a pretext, a reason to allow a cop to stop him when he was otherwise following the traffic laws.

A closer look at Larpenteur Avenue shows a local business, closer to Highway 280, in Lauderdale:

Scene of a crime

Two days prior to the traffic stop, and death, of Philando Castile, someone robbed the Super USA convenience store, located at the corner of Larpenteur and Eustis. The security camera captured this image:

The perpetrator

To the best of my knowledge, this man is still at large. He is not Philando Castile. Philando Castile is shown below:

The distance between the Super USA and the corner of Larpenteur and Fry is 1.7 miles:

A short trip

This section of Larpenteur Avenue is entirely under the jursidction of the St. Anthony Police Department. And because of what happened at one end of the road, two days prior, Philando Castile's life came to an end. More to come.

St. Anthony, Part Two

As I mentioned in the previous post, the primary purpose of the Saint Anthony Police Department is revenue collection. If you ask them, they'll give you the "serve and protect" story you get from most police departments, but as a practical matter it's really about the speeding tickets. Because St. Anthony provides police services to three different communities, it employs a larger force than a town its size typically would employ. And to pay the freight, writing tickets is a big part of the job.

We see St. Anthony cops all the time in our area. The main road to the south of our neighborhood is County Highway 93, which is known as County Road D in Ramsey County, which becomes 37th Avenue NE once it crosses into Hennepin County. County Road D is technically in the jurisdiction of New Brighton and Roseville, but becomes the jurisdiction of St. Anthony once you cross Highcrest Road. A screen shot from the map shows you how it works:

The main drag

As a result, it is common to see squad cars from all three communities on the road. The Shell gas station in my neighborhood, shown at the far top right of the map above, is a popular hangout for cops from all three areas and you can often find a St. Anthony squad car in the parking lot, even though the station itself is in New Brighton. If I stop for gas in the morning on my way to work, there's almost always a St. Anthony cop or three sitting at the counter in the window. I would wager Jeronimo Yanez was one of those cops in the window a year ago. Cops from all three departments might pull you over for a speeding ticket at different times, although for the St. Anthony cops, there's more money to be made about three miles to the south, on Larpenteur Avenue. And that's where we'll pick up the story next.

St. Anthony

Another pick at the bones of the Jeronimo Yanez trial...

It's a tough case for me, because St. Anthony Village is quite real to me. Many of the national observers pronouncing judgment on the matter would have a difficult time finding St. Anthony. Many people who live in the Twin Cities would have difficulty finding it, too. That's part of its allure. Most suburbs in the Twin Cities are accessible from the interstate highway system. My town, New Brighton, sits at the intersection of 35W and 694, which meet on the eastern edge of town. While 35W nicks the far southeast corner of town, no major highways go through St. Anthony; the busiest road in town is a 4 lane county highway that was once, many years ago, part of the old U.S. highway system. If you are going to find St. Anthony, you need to look for it.

No one will confuse St. Anthony for tonier enclaves like Edina. Generally it features post-war homes, comfortable and generally well-maintained. The population of the town skews older than most of the communities in the area. The city itself has about 9000 residents and their pride and joy is a small school district that produces some of the best-prepared kids in the state. The streets are safe and quiet. There is a retail area, Silver Lake Village, that is on the site of an early rival to Southdale, Apache Plaza. That mall was torn down in the 1990s and a "lifestyle center" development took its place. There are a few shops and a grocery store, along with a moribund Walmart, on the site, but it's not exactly bustling.

St. Anthony's police force, which employed Jeronimo Yanez, generally doesn't have much to do other than issue traffic tickets. They perform that task in their city, along with the neighboring towns of Lauderdale and Falcon Heights, which both contract with St. Anthony for police services. It was in Falcon Heights where Philando Castile died. Falcon Heights in similar to St. Anthony in some ways, but it also houses the State Fairgrounds, so at some points of the year it can be a busy place. Larpenteur Avenue, the road where the traffic stop occurred, is a busy thoroughfare with a significant retail presence to the east.

More to come.

Late to the party, but. . .

We have been traveling the last few days, primarily in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. A fair amount of news has come through since then, so a catch-up is in order.

• I'll probably watch the dashcam video of the Philando Castile/Jeronimo Yanez encounter, which went quite badly, at some point, although I try to avoid snuff films. From what I can gather, it's clear Yanez panicked and shot Castile. Is that murder? Probably not, which is why John Choi and his prosecutors went for manslaughter. Even so, it's a heavy lift for a conviction, especially when Yanez was able to have Earl Grey, one of the best lawyers in the Twin Cities, represent him. It's an injustice that Castile died that day, but there are no easy solutions to the issues surrounding this case. And man, are there issues. More to come on all that.
• Just about everywhere I traveled in the last few days, if there was a television on in the background it was tuned to CNN. In many cases, the sound on the television was turned down. Good thing, too. If you watch the screen and don't hear the sound, you can concentrate on the facial expressions and body language. What's evident is barely concealed rage. The parade of talking heads with unremitting scowls suggested that everyone involved would rather be doing something else. The obsession with Le Grand Orange is turning everyone on that network into Captain Ahab with somewhat better tailoring.
• In case you hadn't heard, the Republican (Karen Handel) won in the special election in Georgia. Another harpoon misses the Great Orange Whale, who swims along in the tears of his would-be tormentors. I probably shouldn't enjoy it, but to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, one must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Jon Ossoff's campaign without laughing.
• Pro tip -- if you want to visit Philadelphia and you only have an afternoon for sight-seeing, don't go on the day of the Pride Parade. Some of the worst traffic I've ever encountered.
• Pro tip two -- if you need to get across Washington, D.C., during evening rush hour, pick a day when severe thunderstorms aren't coming through. Also some of the worst traffic I've ever encountered.

More on the college visit aspect of our trip in a future post.

The Castile Case Comes to a Predictable End

The result I expected, up and down the line:

A jury found St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez not guilty Friday in the fatal shooting of Philando Castile, whose livestreamed death during a traffic stop stunned a nation.

Castile’s family called the decision proof of a dysfunctional criminal justice system, while prosecutors cautioned the public to respect the jury’s verdict “because that is the fundamental premise of the rule of law.”

“I am so disappointed in the state of Minnesota,” Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, said at a news conference shortly after the verdict was read in court about 2:45 p.m. “My son loved this state. He had one tattoo on his body and it was of the Twin Cities — the state of Minnesota with TC on it. My son loved this city and this city killed my son. And the murderer gets away.”

And the predictable aftermath:

Hours later, at the tail end of a protest march through the streets of St. Paul, hundreds of people headed out on Interstate 94 at Dale, shutting down the freeway. Over the course of about an hour, the crowd thinned out and was moved to a ramp near Marion before State Patrol officers moved in after 12:30 a.m. Saturday and began making 18 arrests. Among those arrested were reporters Susan Du of City Pages and David Clarey of the Minnesota Daily, who were covering the protest.

Where to begin? Well, a few preliminary thoughts:

• The prosecution made one huge tactical error, I thought. They didn’t present the BCA testimony that Yanez gave the day after the shooting as part of their case, because they were hoping to use it against Yanez during cross-examination when Yanez testified in his own behalf, but the judge didn’t allow it. I understand the strategy; the idea was to impugn Yanez’s testimony on the stand, but you can’t withhold evidence during one part of the trial and expect to pull it out of your hip pocket later on. Had the judge allowed the testimony at that point, it would have given Yanez’s attorneys a great shot at overturning a guilty verdict on appeal. As a matter of law, the judge’s decision was correct. Whether it served the cause of justice is another matter entirely.
• More generally, we've seen this before -- cops are given an enormous benefit of the doubt in most of their interactions. In nearly every case we've seen over the last five years, the cop has prevailed at trial. It's a high bar to clear.
• Blocking the highways doesn't help anyone's cause. I expect we'll be seeing a number of different highways blocked in the coming days here in the Twin Cities. I hope nothing happens that will lead to additional tragedy.
• I don't mean to minimize the grief of Castile's mother, but there was no way for Yanez to know how much her son loved Minnesota. What Yanez knew, or thought he knew at the time, was that there was an armed robbery suspect on the loose who bore at least a passing resemblance to Castile. We still don't know who that individual is, because apparently he hasn't been brought to justice yet. Based on every report we've seen, it wasn't Castile. Yanez didn't know that until much later.
• For its part, St. Anthony Village has ashcanned Yanez. I'm not surprised that happened. It's possible that the protests could come to St. Anthony in the coming days. As regular readers of this feature know, I live about a mile and a half from St. Anthony City Hall, so the potential unrest that we can expect could have a direct impact on us. We'll just have to see what happens.

The jury remains out

It's now been most of the week and we still don't have a verdict, or anything close to a verdict, in the trial of Jeronimo Yanez, the St. Anthony police officer who shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights:

Jurors concluded about 24 hours of deliberations in the manslaughter trial of officer Jeronimo Yanez without reaching a verdict, pushing talks into their fifth day Friday.

There was little activity Thursday before the jurors were recessed for the day about 4:30 p.m.

In a change from previous days, the jury had lunch catered in instead of leaving the Ramsey County Courthouse. The jury of five women and seven men, including two people of color, first appeared to be stalled Wednesday on whether Yanez is criminally culpable for last year’s fatal shooting of Philando Castile.

About 1:40 p.m. Thursday, Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, and her attorney Glenda Hatchett arrived at the eighth floor of the courthouse to await any developments, leaving about an hour before jurors when it became apparent that nothing would come that day.

The longer the jury is out, the higher the tension rises. The key issue remains unresolved -- it's not whether Yanez shot Castile, which is beyond dispute. What matters more is why Yanez stopped Castile in the first place:

Prosecutors argued that Yanez, who is Mexican-American, racially profiled Castile, a black man, when he stopped him for a nonworking brake light. Yanez testified that he also wanted to investigate whether Castile was a suspect in the armed robbery of a nearby convenience store four days earlier. Castile was never connected to the robbery.

Defense attorneys argued that Castile was culpably negligent in the shooting because he volunteered that he possessed a gun without disclosing that he had a permit to carry it, that he reached for it instead of keeping his hands visible, and that he was high on marijuana, rendering him incapable of following Yanez’s order not to reach for the gun. Yanez testified last week that he fired because he feared for his life.

We keep hearing that Castile was not connected to the robbery, but at that point Yanez could not have known that. We've touched on it before, but to this day the robbery remains unresolved.

I live about a mile and a half from St. Anthony's government complex. If the jury comes back with a not guilty verdict, we could see a Ferguson-type response to the verdict fairly close to home. Stay tuned.

Lightning Round -- 061217

Lot of scary stuff in the sky yesterday:

Green is never a good color

So time for a little lightning round:

• The jury will begin deliberations in the Jeronimo Yanez case today. Yanez, the St. Anthony police officer who shot and killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop last year, testified in his own defense on Friday. I wasn't in the courtroom, but apparently he was pretty compelling. I'm watching the case carefully, because any outcome that doesn't include a guilty verdict is going to mean things will get rough, potentially close to me. 
• Apparently Team Trump has decided that the way to stop the scandal mongering in Washington is to go on offense and start attacking the integrity of those conducting the investigations. I'm not sure that's going to work, but it's never been tried before, so we'll see. We'll be in the Washington, DC, next week for a brief visit, so it will be interesting to see how things look from there.
• I'm officially tired of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Just so you know.
• Joel Kotkin is always worth reading and his latest piece in the Orange County Register is particularly good. A taste: 

Unlike its failed predecessor, this new, greener socialism seeks not to weaken, but rather to preserve, the emerging class structure. Brown and his acolytes have slowed upward mobility by environment restrictions that have cramped home production of all kinds, particularly the building of moderate-cost single-family homes on the periphery. All of this, at a time when millennials nationwide, contrary to the assertion of Brown’s “smart growth” allies, are beginning to buy cars, homes and move to the suburbs.

In contrast, many in Sacramento appear to have disdain for expanding the “California dream” of property ownership. The state’s planners are creating policies that will ultimately lead to the effective socialization of the regulated housing market, as more people are unable to afford housing without subsidies. Increasingly, these efforts are being imposed with little or no public input by increasingly opaque regional agencies.

To these burdens, there are now growing calls for a single-payer health care system — which, in principle, is not a terrible idea, but it will include the undocumented, essentially inviting the poor to bring their sick relatives here. The state Senate passed the bill without identifying a funding source to pay the estimated $400 billion annual cost, leading even former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to describe it as “snake oil.” It may be more like hemlock for California’s middle-income earners, who, even with the cost of private health care removed, would have to fork over an estimated $50 billion to $100 billion a year in new taxes to pay for it.

• I don't know if you remember this joke from The Naked Gun:

Sometimes life imitates art:

Delta Airlines and Bank of America pulled out of their sponsorship of New York’s Public Theater on Sunday over a production of “Julius Caesar” that reimagines the main character as President Trump.

Shortly after Delta, who was a four-year sponsor, made its announcement, Bank of America yanked its support as well.

The Shakespeare in the Park play tells the story of the leader assassinated by Roman senators over the fear that he’s becoming too tyrannical, but rather than the original setting, the production stages Caesar (Gregg Henry) and his wife, Calpurnia, (Tina Benko) with Donald and Melania Trump lookalikes.

Where have you gone, Frank Drebin?

Yanez trial is ongoing

We're deep into the trial of Jeronimo Yanez, the St. Anthony cop who killed Philando Castile last summer. The prosecution is coming to the end of presenting its case, which is fairly strong:

Yanez, 29, a St. Anthony police officer, is charged with second-degree manslaughter for shooting Castile, 32, shortly after 9 p.m. last July 6, and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm for endangering Castile's passengers, girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and her daughter, then 4.

Noble testified that Yanez had few details, including height or weight, when he linked Castile to an armed robbery suspect whom police had documented with a description and photo.

A transcript of Yanez's car-to-car call that night was previously published in court, showing that Yanez called partner Joseph Kauser and said that Castile looked like the suspect because of his "wide-set nose."

No other "reasonable" officer would have considered Castile the suspect, Noble said. (Authorities have said he wasn't.)

"I mean, hundreds of black men had to have driven by," Noble said. "That's absurd."

Noble is Jeffrey Noble, a prosecution expert who is apparently a retired deputy police chief from Irvine, California. He's likely mistaken about that last part -- the Larpenteur Avenue area is actually well known in the black community as a place where you are likely to be pulled over for Driving While Black. But that's part of the subtext of this trial.

Here is a picture of the robbery suspect:

This is a picture of Castile:

Apparently these are two different men. To my knowledge, the convenience store robber is still out there, although the most recent report I can find dates back to October of last year. I still would like to know what's happening in that case.

As I've mentioned previously, I live on the border between St. Anthony and New Brighton. St. Anthony is very real to me. We'll continue to watch this trial carefully.

Lightning Round -- 040417

I've got nothing to say, but it's okay/Good morning, good morning, good morning. Well, that's not quite true. Commence:

• It's going to be a nuclear option on the Gorsuch nomination to the Supreme Court, apparently. Fine with me. If the Supreme Court is going to be the blunt instrument used to enforce raw governmental power, as it has been since at least Wickard v. Filburn, the Republicans might as well be forthright about it. 
• You can tell the Democrats are running out of stories to keep their Russia hacking the election meme going, if they are trotting out a Blackwater story. The way you can tell this is insane -- the date of the meeting was apparently January 11. There wasn't any reason to establish a back channel to Putin on Trump's behalf when Trump was going to be president in nine days. And consider the description of what happened: Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian. No formal role, unofficial envoy, unnamed official, unnamed Russian. This isn't a news story, but it's on the front page of the Strib's website. Wouldn't want to talk about Susan Rice, now would you?
• I continue to watch what's going to happen in the case of Jeronimo Yanez, the St. Anthony cop who is going to stand trial in the shooting of Philando Castile. It's all quite close to home for us. St. Anthony is literally just past our back yard. The judge in the case is considering a variety of defense motions today, so stay tuned.
• I hated the basketball game last night. The officiating crew called 27 fouls in the second half. The game was sloppy but not chippy in the least. Swallow the whistles a bit and let 'em play. 

Charges in Castile Case

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi made his decision yesterday -- Jeronimo Yanez will face charges in the shooting of Philando Castile:

Philando Castile’s fatal encounter last July with St. Anthony police Officer Jeronimo Yanez lasted only a minute, but quickly escalated from a “respectful and compliant” exchange to one steeped in confusion and fear.

In an extraordinary move by a Minnesota prosecutor, authorities said the officer, not the civilian, is to blame for the tragic events that turned a traffic stop in a Twin Cities suburb into a flash point in the national debate over racial profiling and police use of force.

Yanez pulled Castile, a 32-year-old, over at 9:05 p.m. July 9 on Larpenteur Avenue near Fry Street in Falcon Heights. By 9:06 p.m., the young officer had fired seven shots into Castile’s car, killing him as his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter watched.

For those actions, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said at a news conference Wednesday morning, Yanez will be charged with three felony counts — second-degree manslaughter and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm. He’s the first Minnesota officer charged in an on-duty killing in modern memory.

The number seven matters here, because it suggests that Yanez panicked. I am guessing the charge of second-degree manslaughter is designed to get a plea agreement. The definition of second-degree manslaughter is here:

609.205 MANSLAUGHTER IN THE SECOND DEGREE.
A person who causes the death of another by any of the following means is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both:
(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another; or(2) by shooting another with a firearm or other dangerous weapon as a result of negligently believing the other to be a deer or other animal; or
(3) by setting a spring gun, pit fall, deadfall, snare, or other like dangerous weapon or device; or
(4) by negligently or intentionally permitting any animal, known by the person to have vicious propensities or to have caused great or substantial bodily harm in the past, to run uncontrolled off the owner's premises, or negligently failing to keep it properly confined; or
(5) by committing or attempting to commit a violation of section 609.378 (neglect or endangerment of a child), and murder in the first, second, or third degree is not committed thereby.
If proven by a preponderance of the evidence, it shall be an affirmative defense to criminal liability under clause (4) that the victim provoked the animal to cause the victim's death.

Emphasis mine. The key word is unreasonable. What will a jury decide is reasonable? A lot hangs on the decision. I am, as I write this, about 100 feet away from St. Anthony Village. I will be watching events closely.

Charlotte Sometimes

The world is Rashomon:

 Authorities in Charlotte tried to quell public anger Wednesday after a police officer shot a black man, but a dusk prayer vigil turned into a second night of violence, with police firing tear gas at angry protesters and a man being critically wounded by gunfire. North Carolina's governor declared a state of emergency in the city.

The man was not shot by police who had massed in riot gear to keep the marchers outside an upscale downtown hotel, Charlotte officials announced on Twitter. City officials originally announced the man was dead but later reversed that statement and said he was on life support.

The second night of violent protests added Charlotte to the list of U.S. cities that have erupted in violence over the death of a black man at the hands of police.

With officials refusing to release any video of the Tuesday shooting of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott, anger built as two starkly different versions emerged: Police say Scott disregarded repeated demands to drop his gun, while neighborhood residents say he was holding a book, not a weapon, as he waited for his son to get off the school bus.

Emphasis mine. Do you know what happened? I don't. I do know this is happening:

Career opportunities

On Tuesday night, dozens of demonstrators threw rocks at police and reporters, damaged squad cars, closed part of Interstate 85, and looted and set on fire a stopped truck. Authorities used tear gas to break up the protests. Sixteen officers suffered minor injuries. One person was arrested.

Does that help? Probably not. But in most of these cases, that's not the point.

The violence broke out shortly after a woman who appeared to be Scott's daughter posted a profanity-laced, hourlong video on Facebook, saying her father had an unspecified disability and was unarmed. In the footage, she is at the cordoned-off shooting scene, yelling at officers.

"My daddy is dead!" the woman screams on the video, which has not been authenticated by The Associated Press.

It also doesn't help when the police don't understand the problem:

On Wednesday morning, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said: "It's time to change the narrative, because I can tell you from the facts that the story's a little bit different as to how it's been portrayed so far, especially through social media."

The police chief said officers were serving arrest warrants on another person when they saw Scott get out of a vehicle with a handgun. A black plainclothes officer in a vest emblazoned "Police" shot Scott after the officer and other uniformed members of the force made "loud, clear" demands that he drop the gun, the chief said.

Memo to Chief Putney -- you can present facts and evidence, but you're not going to change the narrative.

I also know things aren't over in St. Anthony, and that we continue to have issues throughout the country. It's always easier to look at the Other than to look in the mirror.

Milwaukee is still burning

More problems in Milwaukee:

Police said one person was shot at a Milwaukee protest on Sunday and officers used an armored vehicle to retrieve the injured victim and rush the person to a hospital, as tense skirmishes erupted for a second night following the police shooting of a black man.

Some two dozen officers in riot gear confronted about 150 people who blocked an intersection near where the black man was fatally shot Saturday afternoon, and more arrived. Police moved in to try to disperse the crowd and warned of arrests after protesters threw bottles and rocks at police.

The National Guard is ready to take the streets, if needed.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker put Wisconsin's National Guard on standby, and 125 Guard members reported to local armories to prepare for further instructions. Milwaukee police tweeted late Sunday that the National Guard had not been deployed.

Six businesses were burned in the unrest earlier in the weekend and 17 people people were arrested, [Milwaukee Police Chief Edward] Flynn said. Four officers were hurt from flying concrete and glass, although all of them had been released from hospital.

Meanwhile, the local alderman is complaining:

Milwaukee Alderman Khalif Rainey, who represents the neighborhood that erupted, said the city's black residents are "tired of living under this oppression."

"Now this is a warning cry. Where do we go from here? Where do we go as a community from here?" he asked.

Uh, Alderman Rainey? Aren't you part of the oppression? If the community wants to get someplace better, perhaps getting a better alderman would help.

As always, the fog of war is in evidence. What's been striking thus far is comparing the response to this incident with what has happened recently here. There's been almost no reportage or new information about the Philando Castile case and it's been essentially quiet for a month now. Perhaps things will go silent in Milwaukee as well, but I'm guessing not. One difference in this case will be the involvement of David Clarke, the Milwaukee County sheriff, who loves to be on television. How much Clarke can actually do is questionable, as the line of responsibility between municipal and county law enforcement is murky.

For his part, the dead man, Sylville Smith, sounds like a charmer:

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said Smith had been arrested 13 times. Online court records showed a range of charges against Smith, many of them misdemeanors.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Smith was also charged in a shooting and was later charged with pressuring the victim to withdraw testimony that identified Smith as the gunman. The charges were dropped because the victim recanted the identification and failed to appear in court, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern told the newspaper.

And that anecdote neatly encapsulates the problem in many cities. Victims of crimes are afraid to come forward and police aren't trusted. I don't know how you get out of the box.

Lightning Round -- 071816

The news hasn't been very good at all lately and it comes so fast that I'm finding it difficult to keep up. That's when you need a Lightning Round!

• Three police officers murdered in Baton Rouge, which was the scene of a controversial police-involved incident in which a suspect named Alton Sterling was killed during a struggle with police. The guy who killed the cops seems to be ex-military and a self-styled Black Panther. Meanwhile, another cop was shot in Milwaukee, although he survived because of his bullet-proof vest. I have a feeling this is going to get worse.
• The local Black Lives Matter was planning to protest at Rosedale Mall on Sunday, but the protest was canceled. Roseville is just south of us and our parish is there, so we were in the area after going to Mass. The police presence was, frankly, a little unnerving. I saw at least a half-dozen state patrol vehicles driving up and down Snelling Avenue, which borders Rosedale on the east and we even saw increased security at the neighboring HarMar Mall, which is down the road a half mile from Rosedale. According to the linked article, the planned protest was a diversion and that the real target is Falcon Heights, which is where Philando Castile was shot. I am glad that BLM stood down, especially in the wake of what's happening in Baton Rouge. Tensions are very high right now in our area.
• Meanwhile, it's been essentially radio silence on the Castile matter. Investigations are underway, but there's been little news in the last week or so. I still would like to know more about the robbery incident that took place in Lauderdale two days before Castile was killed, especially since the St. Anthony police officer who shot Castile apparently stopped him because he resembled the perps in the Lauderdale case.
• They've been building expensive new sporting venues all over the Twin Cities in recent years, but I'd not been to two of them before this weekend. Now I have. We were at a Drum Corps International show at TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday, and then we attended a Saints game at their tidy new ballpark in Lowertown on Sunday. TCF is an impressive facility and it was a good place to watch a competition. The sightlines in the stadium are terrific and the view of the skyline and the university itself are fantastic. The one problem was concession prices were ridiculous, but we enjoyed ourselves. The new ballpark in St. Paul is a great place to watch a game -- it's intimate and fits well into the existing neighborhood, which has a lot more bustle than it used to. I've lived in the Twin Cities for nearly a quarter century and we've never had much reason to spend time in the Lowertown area of downtown St. Paul; most of the major attractions (Xcel Energy Center, the History Center, the Science Museum) are on the west side of downtown and until recently, unless you had business in the area, it wasn't a place worth visiting. Gentrification is ongoing in Lowertown now, however, and it's got the same vibe you get in the Warehouse District in Minneapolis. I'm a suburban guy and it's not my milieu, but it was fun to visit. We'll get to see the new monstrosity where the Vikings play later on in the year.
• Meanwhile, I haven't even gotten to Turkey and Mike Pence. Maybe another time. Events are in the saddle.

Diminishing returns

I drive on 35W nearly every day. My morning commute brings me across the bridge usually between 6:35 - 6:45 a.m. If I'd left later yesterday, the commute would have been significantly longer:

Minnesota highways once again became protest grounds Wednesday, as dozens of people took to the southbound lanes of Interstate 35W near downtown Minneapolis at the peak of the morning commute, the latest public disruption in the wake of last week’s police killing of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights.

Police arrested 41 protesters who were charged with misdemeanors, including public nuisance and unlawful assembly.

The coalition, in a statement, said it condemned the killing of Castile and “believes this shutdown reinforces our belief that comfort and business as usual must be disrupted until substantive changes occur in our city and throughout the country.” The group also said it was demanding dismantling of police departments. “We believe that security for all of us does not lie in use of aggression and force.”

Here they are (photo from Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune)

Two quick observations:

• I think the protesters would do better to spend less time with Saul Alinsky and more time with Dale Carnegie. This is a stupid, petulant way to get one's point across. It's also perilous as hell, since southbound 35W has a lot of twists and turns as it approaches downtown Minneapolis and the cars traveling on that stretch of road often have to brake quickly when there's a slowdown. They were putting people's lives in danger, including the lives of black people, who use 35W quite a lot. If one truly believes that Black Lives Matter, this is an odd way to demonstrate that belief.
• If these folks think eliminating police forces is a good idea, they might want to think again. In the absence of force, eventually you'll have vigilantism. And a lot of the folks these people enjoy pissing off are heavily armed. Just sayin'.

Point of order

Regarding the Philando Castile case, I have two questions that I would hope an enterprising reporter might ask:

Q1. The police scanner audio we've heard indicates that the St. Anthony cops who stopped Castile were on the lookout for an armed robbery suspect who held up a gas station in nearby Lauderdale, one of the other small communities that contracts with the SAPD for law enforcement. This security camera picture shows the robber in action:

Who is this man?

Are the local police still on the lookout for the perpetrator of this robbery? If they are, it would be good to know, because we don't want armed robbery suspects out on the streets.

Q2. Does the gun this robber is holding match the gun that Castile had at the time Officers Yanez and Kauser stopped him? That would also be good to know.

Fog of War -- Part Three

The protesters came to St. Anthony yesterday and shut down Silver Lake Road, the main north-south thoroughfare through the village. As far as I can tell, things stayed peaceful, although I didn't go near the area, which is 1.4 miles from my house.

Things were far worse in St. Paul on Saturday night, where I-94 got shut down for about five hours and someone was throwing various items from the Dale Street overpass bridge at the cops who were on the expressway. Eventually we got the familiar visuals:

The Fog of War -- or a smoke bomb

Reports from the scene indicate that 21 officers were injured by the flying debris, which included chunks of concrete and rebar.

We are now hearing from the lawyer for Jeronimo Yanez, the cop who shot Philando Castile. He's claiming the presence of Castile's gun was the factor. We've heard that Castile had a carry permit. We've heard a lot of things, frankly. We still don't know what's true.

There's no point in making the same arguments over and over -- it really doesn't matter who is to blame for the current state of affairs, since no one takes responsibility for their own actions. What I worry about now is what happens to St. Anthony. We may learn that the police department deserves all the opprobrium now being heaped upon it. Perhaps the citizens of St. Anthony should have raised alarms before, even though the policing tactics that the SAPD uses are in place in countless other communities. Perhaps the lawyer for Janez is correct. We don't know if the protesters are staying around or if they're going to go home. We don't know if opportunists will blend among the protesters and use the discord to burn and loot, as happened in Ferguson, and Baltimore, and so many other places. We'll find that all out. The war is here.

Fog of War -- Part Two

Why should we wait to offer two many opinions about the Philando Castile case? I'll give you a few articles that explain why:

First, consider this backgrounder from the Star Tribune:

Their names are still enshrined at their alma mater as Baton of Honor winners.

The faculty at Minnesota State University, Mankato’s law enforcement program chose Jeronimo Yanez and Joseph Kauser from about 500 students as the best in their class — an award given to promising future cops for their smarts, respect and leadership qualities.

The longtime classmates and friends-turned-colleagues graduated together in 2010. Two years later, both wore the gun and badge for the St. Anthony Police Department — their first jobs in law enforcement.

They were on duty together Wednesday evening when they pulled over Philando Castile, his passenger, Diamond Reynolds, and her 4-year-old daughter in a traffic stop. The encounter would spark grief and outrage across the world after Yanez shot Castile four times as he sat in the driver’s seat — the aftermath broadcast on Facebook by Reynolds.

How does someone go from being the star pupil to being the guy who blew someone away on a traffic stop? Maybe this is the reason:

Olson said on that day three years ago, he expected the St. Anthony officer to stand just behind the driver’s side door at the traffic stop, which is generally standard practice. Instead, the officer stood about 3 feet behind his SUV and conducted the interview through Olson’s driver’s-side mirror.

“His voice had the tremor of fear,” Olson said. “He couldn’t see my hands. He couldn’t see if anyone was in the car. I thought: This is dangerous for both of us.”

Eventually the officer asked Olson for his license and registration, but he couldn’t see Olson while he was digging in the glove box.

“I realized I could have had a grenade on the seat and he’d have no idea,” Olson said.

He eventually got a ticket, but Olson said he was troubled enough that about two years ago he went to talk with John Ohl, who was then St. Anthony’s police chief. He wanted Ohl to provide better training for his officers during traffic stops. Instead, he said Ohl praised the officer.

“I realized he wasn’t listening,” he said.

The Olson in question is Joe Olson, the retired Hamline University law professor who helped to write the state's concealed-carry law, which is very much a bone of contention in this case because:

Philando Castile had a valid permit to carry a gun when he was shot and killed by a St. Anthony police officer, a source confirmed to the Star Tribune Friday.

We've heard that Castile was pulled over for a broken tail light. But is that true?

When Philando Castile was pulled over Wednesday night by officers Jeronimo Yanez and Joseph Kauser, purportedly for a broken tail light according to the video account of the aftermath of his being shot and killed by Yanez made by passenger Diamond Reynolds, the officers' real reason for wanting to pull them over and check I.D.s is because they thought he was a robbery suspect, according to scanner audio obtained by KARE 11 NBC TV in Minneapolis.

The station did verify the license plate mentioned was that of the car Castile was driving, and the "locations mentioned also correspond" to the stop. They did not get police to authoritatively state that it was indeed scanner audio preceding the incident.

An officer says "I'm going to stop a car and check I.D.s. I have reason to pull it over, the two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery. The driver looks more like one of our suspects just 'cause of the wide-set nose." A minute and a half later, "shots fired" is said on the audio.

So what do you know about the case, really? I could believe all four stories are true. But what does that mean?

This much I know -- St. Anthony is real to me. The village itself is 100 feet to my right as I write these words. The St. Anthony police have a reputation for being better at writing tickets than solving crimes, but that's a reputation, not necessarily a fact. If you do even a cursory search on Google, you can find all sorts of things about the case, and about Castile himself, that are wildly contradictory. Some of what's out there is most certainly false, but can you sort it out, especially if you're viewing the matter from thousands of miles away?

We don't know anything yet.