tvc184

It sounds like self defense to me. It is a good thing he had (probably) uninterested witnesses.

I commented on another Internet forum on this a good while back when the story first came to light. At the time there was no indictment and the case is pretty much been dismissed by the local prosecutor. I looked into the case and said that it clearly looked like a cover-up for a former police officer in the county. I thought it was corruption and the guys should be indicted. It was a while back but it seems like I caught some grief and backlash for my opinion. Not long after I made those comments, the state police stepped in, looked at the evidence and indicted them in about 30 seconds. If I remember correctly they filed charges on the district attorney for misconduct for a covering up such an obvious crime. That alone should say something about this case I feel like they may get away with murder but I do believe it is murder. It was so egregious that I think they changed the state law immediately afterwards, making such a citizens arrest illegal. I read the law in that state before I made my comments in the other forum. Knowing that each state is different I wanted to look it up before I made my conclusion. It seems clear to me they had racial issues and had it been a white guy we would have never heard about it because they would not have shot him and probably would not have chased him. I hope that they are convicted but self-defense is sometimes hard to negate. They are claiming citizens arrest but even if they were doing so lawfully, and I do not think they were, why did they pull a shotgun on an apparently unarmed teenager who was fleeing when they outnumbered him? As far as the guy filming, he was an accomplice if it is ruled a murder. When Arbery was running away, the guy doing the filming was making phone calls to tell him which way he was running. Assuming the verdict is murder, he definitely participated by helping them catch up with Arbery. Let’s play what if. What if a person is shoplifting at Walmart with nothing further to go on, can a person follow that suspect into the parking lot and point a shotgun at him? That would seem like aggravated assault and unjustified force in my opinion. Texas law gives anyone the right to make a citizens arrest for theft but what gives them the right to threaten deadly force when there is no such indication of danger from the person being arrested for a nonviolent crime? Some people will make the comparison between this and Rittenhouse. It would be like comparing apples to rocks.

I have to hand it to you. You can state absolutely nothing and claim it as fact. Your comment about seeing what you want to see is very appropriate. Almost anyone can read your statements and see that exact situation. Let’s face it, you appear to be angry that Rittenhouse complied with all of the laws and a jury found the same thing. Even the judge realized that there was no violation claimed of carrying a rifle in the public by Rittenhouse. But, you say what you want to say and believe what you want to believe. Or maybe just trolling…

Do you actually see that somewhere in the law, as convoluted as Wisconsin law is, or is that just your opinion? Some states have laws that are so messed up I don’t think even lawyers can understand them. Texas laws used to be fairly simplistic and very easy to understand even for the average person however in the last 15 or 20 years, they have started to add some gibberish in some areas. An 18 or 19-year-old are teenagers and can legally carry long guns almost anywhere in Wisconsin. Is there a different law for target practice for a 17 year old than there is for 18 year old adult? Like maybe does it say a 17-year-old teenager is not allowed to carry weapons around other humans but an 18-year-old can? How about a 21 year old? I thought all weapons were dangerous and harmful to other humans. Is there a distinction in Wisconsin law between a 20 and 21 year old…. or a 17 year old and an 18 year old? I’m not even sure what your point is. If your point is that Rittenhouse should not have carried the weapon, great. I have said that in a couple of responses in various forums. It isn’t that he should not have been arm to protect himself but why go there in the first place? That has nothing to do with him lawfully defending himself from an unlawful felony attack by other people. Way before I was ever a police officer, I asked several long time police officers that I knew a hypothetical question. If I was a unlawfully carrying a weapon under Texas law by having a handgun with me and I shot and killed a guy that would otherwise been ruled as self-defense, would I be held for murder because of the weapon. The answer was always the same. Your right to protect your own life has nothing to do with an unlawful weapon. I would likely be charged with the weapon but not with homicide. You can simply look at New York as one of the most obvious cases. I don’t think there is anywhere in the country that has more strict gun laws than New York and in particular New York City. There is a United States Supreme court case which might be ruled on this week on that very issue from NY. Way back in 1984 Bernhard Goetz shot four teenagers on a subway who he said was trying to rob him. A few days later he turned himself in. A grand jury refused to indict him except on weapons charges. It was against the law to have a weapon but he still had the authority under New York law to protect himself. That did not sit well politically so they brought it to a second grand jury who under political pressure indicted him. He went to trial and a jury acquitted him of shooting all four people. He was convicted of the unlawful possession of a weapon charge. Unlawfully carrying a weapon or doing so even if lawful but not the smartest thing to do, does not negate lawful self defense.

If he was in Texas, he would be looking at the death penalty. Just sayin’…..

You’ll have to ask the people who make laws. I think it goes back to the old days and if you were going to commit a crime, you would conceal the weapon until the last minute and a handgun is easy to conceal where a rifle or shotgun is not. Some states to this day say is against the law to carry a concealed weapon. You could put a pistol on your hip line in a holster as long as it is visible and it is legal but if you cover it with a T-shirt, it becomes a felony. Why does the federal law say that an 18-year-old can possess a handgun and even buy one from another private citizen but the same legally purchased and carried handgun by the 18-year-old cannot be bought in a store such as Academy Sporting Goods. Does that make sense? An 18-year-old cannot go in the store and purchase a handgun but he could meet me in the parking lot of the same store and I could sell him one and it would be legal. Again, you need to ask the legislators.

There is a difference. If you go waving money and jewelry around at 2AM you know that you were drawing attention to yourself and asking to be attacked. Rittenhouse was one of several people with A.R. 15‘s openly carried and I really don’t think he was inviting people to attack him. He was not smart but likely neither were the other people carrying A.R. 15‘s openly that did not get involved in any kind of incident. I’ve got some strong opinions about rioters and the use of deadly force to stop them however I’m not going to go anywhere near a riot. For example Texas law gives the authority to use deadly force to stop an arson if necessary. I don’t care if you told me ahead of time that I would be cleared, I’m not going into a deadly force situation if I don’t have to. I seriously doubt the 17 year old kid had any clue as to the outcome that night. If you go flashing money and jewelry around in certain areas of town, you can almost guarantee the outcome. I know that you are aware but I spent 10 years on Swat, I’ve taught firearms including tactical firearms at the police academy for 30 years. I have qualified with and carry machine guns on duty and I would not have gone anywhere near that situation. Was the 17 year old kid immature? Absolutely.

And Dershowitz is generally seen as a leftist. He is hardly they dyed in the wool conservative Republican. I don’t always agree with Dershowitz’s opinion however he backs it up with the law and does not seem to always draw sides based on his politics.

I think they have a pretty wide latitude on use of force. In fact the public might be kind of shocked. Maybe the biggest case is Graham v. Connor. Graham was having a medical crisis for insulin shock. He ran into a convenience store to get some orange juice to get sugar into his blood but saw a line and immediately ran outside. He jumped in a car driven by a friend and he sped off to go to the next store. A police officer saw it and thought maybe he had witnessed an armed robbery because the guy ran in the store he came out a short time later in a hurry. The officer call for back up and stopped the vehicle with Graham. In his intoxication like the state from the hypoglycemia, he was kind of incoherent and the officers kicked the crap out of him. I think he had a broken ankle, some bruises about his head, and injured wrist, etc. Oops, it was not an armed robbery but a medical crisis. A completely innocent man who was having a medical crisis was thrashed by the police and sued and it went to United States Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court said, basically….. “Oh, well”. They came up with a term “objective reasonableness” saying that you had to put yourself in a position of an officer having to make a “split second” decision. They said it was easy with 20/20 hindsight to make a different decision however the police don’t have that luxury. In another case in front of the Supreme Court was Mullenix v. Luna that came out only six years ago this month. Texas DPS trooper Mullenix was involved in a high-speed chase. The driver of the car called Dispatch and he said he had a gun and he would shoot any police officer that tried to stop him and they needed to disengage in the chase. Mullenix position himself on an overpass up ahead and requested permission to fire on the car to disable it. His supervisor said “standby” and see if the spike strips work. The car hit a spike strips however Trooper Mullenix open the fire anyway. He said he was trying to shoot the engine or the radiator to disable the vehicle. Instead four of the six shots fired from his A.R. 15 hit the driver. The driver flipped the car and it was determined that the four shots for the A.R. 15 killed him. The family sued and it went to the Supreme Court. In an 8-1 decision the Supreme Court said that Mullenix was covered by qualified immunity and could not be sued. That is just two cases. In one an innocent person was beaten up by the police who thought they had witnessed a major crime but made a mistake. In the other a DPS trooper was told not to fire on a car by his supervisor and did anyway and instead of shooting the car, he shot the driver. In 9-0 and 8-1 decisions, the Supreme Court ruled in favor the police. It should be noted that these were not clear-cut cases where the officer’s life was in danger but quite the opposite. After the investigations it was found out that the officers made mistakes, yet in unanimous and nearly unanimous decisions the police were found not to be liable. In both of those cases however, the Supreme Court judges put themselves in a place of the officers and said, we understand how they drew that conclusion. I am wondering what information they had that justified shooting into a car a block away from a crime scene when nobody in the car was found to have a weapon or to be involved whatsoever. I think it is a little different than a guy jumping out of the car as a suspected armed robber and fighting with the police or a guy in a high-speed chase being witnessed by a trooper and calling in a threat to kill the police. The facts are not out yet but they need a mighty convincing argument to fire into a vehicle that is simply driving down the road. Even if I suspect was in it, in my opinion that does not justify opening fire.

How about Andrew Coffee IV who was found not guilty on the same day as Rittenhouse after he shot and killed a police officer who was part of a team serving a valid warrant? [Hidden Content]#

Yes.

I am not sure what you mean by the comment but is there a problem with an AR and self-defense?

It is not against federal law for a 17-year-old to possess a long gun. It may be against the law for the person who provided the gun but federal law allows a parent or guardian to give a gun to a juvenile. The Wisconsin law is kind of convoluted but I do not think it is against the law to carry a rifle or shotgun at 17 years of age in Wisconsin. That is why that charge will dismissed by the judge. In Texas making a readily dischargeable firearm recklessly accessible to a child only applies to a person under 17 years of age. Then the law only applies if the gun is loaded.

The AR15 was kept at another person’s home or storage in Kenosha. Much has been made about him crossing state lines however the US Constitution gives us the right to go anywhere in this country. In fact Rittenhouse lived about 20 miles away and worked in Kenosha and had family members living there. It would be a little more than driving from Beaumont to Port Arthur. If you want to add a state line scenario, it would be like driving from Orange, Texas to Vinton, Louisiana. The way it is portrayed on the Internet you would think somebody drove from Oklahoma to California to be involved in a protest.

Rittenhouse did not cross state line with a gun. He certainly did not do so to defend businesses. But hey, it’s on the Internet. I am not sure about Wisconsin law but in Texas it would not matter. In Texas you can use deadly force under some circumstances to defend property belonging to someone else even when they did not ask for help. Defending your home against intruders depends on the circumstances, even if it is the police. A little over two months ago a grand jury refused to indict a man who shot a Texas DPS trooper through the door after the man identified himself as a trooper but was in plain clothes. The trooper was reported to be knocking or pounding on the door and the man shot the officer through the door and was cleared of charges. [Hidden Content]

Notwithstanding the fact that several people there had openly carry rifles. Why were they not attacked?

I found the CNN issue of claiming Zimmerman made a racial slur on 911 call and then (like ABC and NBC) recanted. [Hidden Content] Since this was brought up about Trayvon Martin and Rittenhouse, can we see (or even agree) that the media reports outright lies? People repeat such false media statements as facts and it is self perpetuating. We see it still today with Rittenhouse. There are still people that believe lies put out intentionally by the media about Zimmerman. I have shown ABC, NBC and CNN putting out unquestionably false information. After they were caught, every one of them recanted their “news”. I can guarantee that there are people today that will claim Zimmerman called in on a black kid, had no injuries and made racial slurs on the 911 call, all of which are false by the three major news outlets’ on admissions. CNN and others ran wild with the story of Nicholas Sandmann taunting Native Americans along with other white male Catholic students…. until it was (again) found out to be false. I think CNN and the Washington Post have settled out of court for up to $250 Million for their false statements. And yet, here we are at the Rittenhouse protests, with a repeat of the same false information that is again put out by the national media. There is free enterprise money to be made by the media. It depends on viewership and clicks on Internet sites. To get more money or for political agendas or both, much of the media routinely puts out false information. We can watch it case after case. It would not be that big of a deal if people saw the false news stories and realize them for what they are. The problem lies when people believe the original reports that fit their own opinions (likely gained by other false rhetoric) and then ignore when the truth is revealed.

According to this article by the NY Post, It is all a hoax, like most of the accusations about Rittenhouse. If somebody says something and then a second person repeats it, it becomes fact to many people. [Hidden Content]

And here is the story about ABC altering the video to not show Zimmerman‘s injury. This is a quote from that story… “ABC News said "no abrasions or blood can be seen in the video." [Hidden Content] Yet again, a national news outlet has to apologize for falsifying a news story. Again, how many people saw this original report and…

Here is a huge problem with the media. I found the report from 9 years ago from NBC where they admit that the 911 recording was doctored. How many people who heard this new story, still believe that Zimmerman called in on a black guy? I mean Martin was black but Zimmerman never mentioned it in his call until asked by the dispatcher. This is a quote from the following news story…. “Obviously, the editing can hugely prejudice the viewer into thinking that Zimmerman has definitely engaged in racial profiling when he followed Trayvon Martin. The actual transcript doesn't rule out the possibility of racial profiling, but it certainly doesn't confirm it.” Ya think!!?? [Hidden Content]

I will readily concede that a probably immature 17-year-old kid should not have gone into a riot. It does not matter what good intent he may have had to help save businesses by putting out fires, attending to injured people, etc. Like probably 99+% of the people in Kenosha did, he should have stayed home. That does not negate his lawful right of self defense. Zimmerman was in a neighborhood watch. To that extent people patrol and call the police and report suspicious activity. I ran such a neighborhood watch and some people were actually giving police radios to call and suspicious activity. Zimmerman saw a kid who was not recognized in the neighborhood/apartments and called the police. Martin apparently saw that he was being watched and fled on foot. Zimmerman walked quickly (you could hear on the 911 recording) to try to see where Martin ran to. The dispatcher told him to stop and he did so and you can clearly hear it on the recording. He was no longer out of breath and there was no more wind and running noise. Zimmerman told the dispatcher that he was walking back to his truck and was then attacked. There is no evidence to the contrary and in fact the 911 recording refutes the claims that Zimmerman chased down Martin… which would almost be impossible. After the verdict was announced live on television, one jar spoke with the media as the others did not want to. It was an old woman jury and the one lady said, we are really wanted to convict him but there was no evidence to do so. She basically said that they wanted someone held accountable because it was a death. I think the same situation is happening with Rittenhouse where people want somebody held responsible. There were people responsible. It was at the very least the three people that attacked Rittenhouse and tried to kill or seriously injure him. Several claims were made by the media about Zimmerman that were later proven as falls and in a couple of cases, intentionally false. I watched some of the original news reports and quickly noticed that Zimmerman had an injury to the back of his head. That was in a still photograph but on a (if I remember correctly, ABC) news report they covered it up with the ABC logo and change the lighting. It was later stated by the news media as an accident. Then (I believe NBC) played a recording of the 911 call where Zimmerman is reported to have said he was following a black guy. That was false. The news media edited the tape to make it sound like that. In fact Zimmerman never said that he was following a black guy it was only giving a clothing description. The dispatcher then routinely ask, did he see the race of the person and Zimmerman said, he is black. The media edited out the conversation in between and made it appear as though Zimmerman was calling in on a black guy only which he was not. He only answered a direct question from the dispatcher. I believe the producer in that particular incident was terminated. I believe it was CNN that the end came out with a story that Zimmerman had made a racial slur on the 911 recording which was somewhat garbled by the wind or background noise. After making this report, a few days later they brought in an expert in cleaning up garbled recordings and it was found that Zimmerman had not made the racial slur which was claimed. Naturally they issued an apology for their mistake. Besides being terribly irresponsible and possibly civilly liable, the media fans this kind of hatred by what appears to be in this cases an intentional altering or covering up of evidence. Many people see the original report and assume that is the end of the story. In this case we had three national news outlets who are supposed to be respected, who gave false information in some cases, intentionally.

And like the Zimmerman case, this was political and should have never seen the inside of a courtroom.

From the evidence that I saw, Martin attacked Zimmerman. There was no evidence brought that Zimmerman attacked Martin. The 911 recording which I believe is still on YouTube, tells all you need to know without further evidence to the contrary. There was none. of course with speculation we could make up all kinds of scenarios but there was no evidence to back any up. A person does not have to think anything good about George Zimmerman to realize that the original district attorney in the case was correct, there was no evidence of murder beyond a reasonable doubt that overcame self-defense. It took the state and a special prosecutor to come in and announce an indictment without calling a grand jury. In fact Angela Corey made a public statement that she would not bring the case to a grand jury when the actual district attorney of that county had announced that he would bring the case to the graduate the next week. Corey had to quickly move to indict on her word only (allowed in FL) because she knew that the grand jury would likely return a No Bill. Is Zimmerman a good guy and a hero? Not in the least on either count. There is no evidence that Zimmerman harassed or even confronted Martin though. You are allowed that speculation but that is all it is.

I hope he does like Sandman and as sues as the crap out of some news outlets. This case was nothing but politics from the first night. The charges should have never been filed. The fact that about 80% of the country was sweating out a not guilty verdict in itself is an outrage. The other 20% either believed the outright fake news stories or for racial or political reasons, wanted an innocent person convicted. I don’t know if it is correct (because I don’t believe everything I read until I see something to back it up) but I read that Kyle Rittenhouse had charges brought against him within 48 hours. Assuming that is a true statement, that is outrageous. The police had not even interviewed all the witnesses by the then and were surely not finished with the investigation but the district attorney for his own reasoning (politics) decided that they did not need to look at the police investigation. Do we need further proof that this was politics? The Kenosha Wisconsin district attorney about a week ago was given the annual award for the best prosecutor in the state of Wisconsin. That’s right folks, the man who oversaw the office that indicted an innocent person, it appears before all of the facts were in, was just awarded prosecutor of the year for the entire state. Go figure. [Hidden Content]

The problem with any of these studies is that we have a virus which probably has a survival rate in excess of 98%. Going back two years and reading peoples’ experiences, it seems that many people have flu like symptoms for two or three days and then recover, sometimes relatively quickly. Anyone with such a result, could see anything as the reasoning for the recovery. A person who does not normally drink milk could’ve had a bowl of cereal with a cup of milk in it and then recovered from Covid. The logical conclusion is there, milk was the answer. If a significant number of people in a Third World country were taking ivermectin and then recovered from Covid… at about 98%…. the ivermectin was a logical conclusion but is it statistically any different? If Covid had a 40% fatality rate and then people taking ivermectin or some other “cure” and the fatality rate dropped to maybe 5%, they would probably be a compelling case for that cure. With the survival rate of Covid so high, I think it would be difficult to prove something works or there’s something does not work. I would lean towards something not working if there was statically very little evidence of a much higher survival rate.