I was disgusted and angry to read that the progressive-left District Attorney in Austin, Texas has dropped charges against 17 cops - after forcing them to live through a legal and financial hell for two years as he tried any and every way he could to prosecute them for merely doing their jobs. In case you don't remember the incident, it was connected to the George Floyd-related riots all over the country.
The DA's case was always extremely weak, and he's obviously decided that he can't win in court. He's now withdrawn the charges.
A progressive district attorney in Austin, Texas dropped indictments against 17 police officers involved in quelling Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 in a move Austin cops past and present tell Fox News Digital was a political smear from the beginning by a top prosecutor determined to demonize police regardless of the effect on the lives of law enforcement.
Travis County District Attorney José Garza announced Monday his office dismissed 17 indictments against police officers after a grand jury indicted 19 of them in February 2022 on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after non-lethal rounds were fired into the crowd.
“Our community is safer when our community trusts enforcement. When it believes law enforcement follows that law and protects the people who live here,” Garza said at the time. “There cannot be trust if there is no accountability when law enforcement breaks the law.”
The indictments were filed despite the officers being exonerated of wrongdoing by the Austin Police Department and critics of Garza, who is backed by liberal mega donor George Soros, pointed to his campaign promises to prosecute police officers and progressive ideology accusing him of launching a “war on cops.”
“This has nothing to do with justice, has nothing do with any wrongdoing,” Austin Police officer Justin Berry, one of the indicted officers who had his charges dropped last week, told Fox News Digital in 2022. “This is simply about politics and a political agenda that has taken place with these radical liberal district attorneys.”
There's more at the link.
Of course, there are many other police officers and agencies across the country who've had to face the same sort of politically motivated legal issues. It's never been about justice, but about intimidating law enforcement agencies and personnel so that they don't interfere with "mob justice".
Who is going to compensate these officers for their legal expenses over the past two years? Who is going to put right the damage done to their reputations in law enforcement circles? Once an officer has been "tarred with the brush" of a criminal charge resulting from him doing his job, his professional future is in jeopardy, even if he's not actually tried or convicted. Even a "not guilty" verdict, which should clear his yardarm completely, isn't good enough. I have a friend who had to endure that ordeal, and was found not guilty; but despite that, he still could not get an "honorable" retirement classification, because of the legal cloud still hanging over his head from the case. To my mind, that's a miscarriage of justice, to put it mildly: but there's nothing he can do about it. It's disgusting.
I'm very glad this prosecution has collapsed . . . but there are others elsewhere in the country that are proceeding, or have resulted in officers being convicted of "offenses" or "crimes" that, IMHO, weren't crimes at all. This is a plague we have yet to deal with effectively. The sooner we find a solution to it, the better.
Peter
The process is the punishment, in many cases.
ReplyDeletecf. Trump, Palin, and many other Republicans.
ReplyDeleteThis type of abuse will continue until the DAs are held personally accountable, with the guilty party going to prison or subject to asset forfeiture. EdC
ReplyDeleteJust being charged can lead to getting their credentials removed. And as Anonymous said above, the process is the punishment.
ReplyDeleteAnd the police have a huge union with power and money to support them. Think about what the same type of DA/Prosecutor/State Attorney can and has done against private citizens who defended themselves. Who are often 'cleared' initially but between 6 weeks and 6 months later, here come the charges, and often with modifiers like 'hate crime' that leave the innocent with no rights for years, sometimes even after being cleared.
The worst thing that happens with this type of oppression is the attrition of good officers with the knowledge of their job. Strapped police forces hire incompetent officers, or rookies without mentoring by qualified officers. With any shortfall, citizens pay the price with increased crime. Ultimately, good, productive citizens move away, businesses suffer, and the result is urban decay.
ReplyDeleteThis wouldn't happen to be the same Austin PD that gleefully allowed antifa to threaten innocent lives and then dragged away their victim in chains when he defended himself from a premeditated murder attempt, would it?
ReplyDeleteThose gestapo animals belong in front of a firing squad, not running around brutalizing innocent Americans with their Blackshirt buddies.
Their union is probably footing the legal bills.
ReplyDeleteThe community is safer when they can trust the prosecuting attorney too. None of these weak on crime Soros attorneys meet that requirement.
ReplyDeleteUnlike you or I who would be financially devastated by this form of lawfare the vast vast majority of cops have their defense costs covered by their union or often by the taxpayers. So yes...they may have ha a stressful spell because of this they weren't utterly destroyed by this event. An if a cop prevails in court any personal expenditures are often reimbursed,..at taxpayer expense. Unlike the typical citizen who is unjustly targeted by the system. The legal system is corrupt. Irredeemably broken.
ReplyDeleteI'm an Aussie, not a US citizen, and very curious how this sort of legal shenanigans can occur.
ReplyDeleteIt seems your District Attorneys have the power to destroy anyone in your country who has charges brought against them in their particular District. I'm guessing DAs are the ones who lead a prosecution, or have the ultimate power to decide whether a prosecution should go ahead?
So the question is (from this foreigner) how do these people become appointed as DAs? I've read about "Soros-funded" DAs so I'm guessing that they are elected like politicians, and thus are extremely partisan because one wing of the political beast supports them in their election campaign?
I'm particularly curious because it seems what happens in one of our nations will happen in the other a few months to year later. IE gun control in Canada and Australia (and to a lesser extent NZ) seem to be in some sort of lock-step. The gun grabbers try something in one nation, and if it succeeds it appears soon after in the other nation.
Curious minds are curious I suppose.
You are seeing it accurately.
ReplyDeleteAttorneys General are among the most powerful elected politicians, as they set the policies for criminal enforcement in their districts.
Sorts bought DA races in many states to clear the way for the non-prosecution of crimes by leftist organizations like Antifa and BLM (who were originally supported by the Revolutionary Communist Party out of Chicago), and non-charging or pleading down of crimes committed by preferred racial groups.
These actions directly reduce police morale and efficiency, especially when the DA charges police with crimes for doing their jobs.
This is why major US cities have become such hellholes of crime, despair, and, murder.
Soros' purchase of Secretary of State offices (which are usually placeholder offices) in contested states allowed those SofS to keep stolen votes secret, as it is usually the SofS who makes the complaint about election irregularities. See: 2020 elections.
Also look at: SecondCityCop.blogspot.com and CWB.con both are Chicago police and crime blogs.
Thanks for your interest. John in Indy
The other Chicago site that I follow is actually CWBChicago.com .
ReplyDeleteJohn in Indy