Police Officers are Rarely Prosecuted For Shooting People

     Police agencies have developed policies that generally permit officers to use force when they reasonably fear imminent physical harm. In 1989, the U. S. Supreme Court shaped the standard that governs the use of deadly force. According to the ruling in that case, the use of deadly force must be evaluated through the "perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."

     Since then, prosecutors usually side with officers in police-involved shooting cases. Prosecutors and grand jurors are reluctant to second guess a police officer's decision to use deadly force. Many of the cases that don't result in criminal charges involve armed suspects who are shot during confrontations with the police. But even an officer who repeatedly shoots an unarmed person may avoid prosecution in cases where he reasonably believed himself to be under risk of serious bodily injury or death.

Pandemic Policing : Uneven and Chaotic

     On Sunday afternoon, April 5, 2020, 33-year-old Matt Mooney and his wife were playing T-ball with their 6-year-old daughter in Donelson Park in the town of Brighton, Colorado. At the time, no other people were in the vicinity.

     According to the sign posted at the park entrance, people were allowed to use the park "To engage in outdoor activity individually, or in groups of no more than four persons. The park remains open for walking, hiking, biking, running and similar activities provided that individuals comply with social distancing requirements (6 feet)."

     When three Brighton Police officers approached the Mooney family that Sunday afternoon, Mr. Mooney, because he and his family were complying with the rules of the park, was not concerned. The sight of the officers, however, worried his daughter who said, "Daddy I don't want you to get arrested." Assuring his daughter that she had nothing to fear, the father replied, "There's no way they're going to arrest me, I've done nothing wrong."

     When one of the officers asked Mr. Mooney for identification, the stunned father asked why he had to identify himself to the police. What had he done that was  illegal? The officer informed Mr. Mooney that the park was closed and the he was violating the state's social distancing guidelines.

     As Mr. Mooney tried to explain that the park was open, and that he and his family were obeying its restrictions, the officer, in front of Mooney's wife and daughter, placed him into handcuffs and led him to a patrol car.

     From a distance, an onlooker who happened to be former city councilman Kirby Wallin, recorded the police confrontation and arrest on his cellphone.

     After sitting in the patrol car ten minutes with the police officer (who was not wearing a face mask), Mr. Mooney was allowed to rejoin his family in the park. To justify the arrest, the police officer muttered something about how COVID-19 policing was something new, something police officers were just learning to cope with. The officer did not, however, offer an apology. (They rarely do, it's not in their DNA.)

     A spokesperson for the Brighton Police Department issued a statement that the agency was looking into the matter.

     While police officers in big cities like Los Angeles and New York City are not allowed to arrest grocery store looters, a police officer in Brighton, Colorado arrested a man playing in a park with his daughter. In some parts of the country inmates walk out of prison into a cop-fee criminal paradise, in other places, law obeying citizens are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being arrested. 

Spreading the Word--And the Virus: Civil Rights Versus Public Health

     On March 25, 2020, the authorities in Hillsborough County, Florida issued an order, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, that prohibited the gathering of more than ten people. At the time, Florida had more than 5,000 coronavirus cases.

     On Sunday, March 29, 2020, 58-year-old Rodney Howard-Browne, pastor of the River of Tampa Bay Pentecostal megachurch, held two services in violation of the Hillsborough County COVID-19 group restriction law.

     That Sunday, Pastor Howard-Browne, on his Facebook livestream video broadcast, in open defiance of the Hillsborough County COVID-19 order, said, "I have to do this to protect the congregation not from the virus, but from tyrannical government."

     The day after the Sunday church services, and Howard-Browne's livestream broadcast, the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office issued a warrant for the pastor's arrest. Howard-Browne was charged with the misdemeanor offenses of violating a quarantine order during a public health emergency and unlawful assembly.

     After being taken into custody, the pastor posted his $500 bail and was released from custody.

     On Wednesday, April 1, 2020, on his livestream Facebook broadcast, the River of Tampa Bay pastor announced that the church would be closed until further notice. By now, there were 8,000 cases of COVID-19 in the state.

     On his April 1, 2020 livestream program, Pastor Howard-Browne, portraying himself as a crusading civil rights leader, called the criminal charges against him "bogus" and criticized Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister for "caving" to outside political pressure. Regarding his arrest and the closing of his church, the pastor said, "It will be on his [Sheriff Chronister's] record that he shut down a food ministry that feeds up to 1,000 families every week.

     Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was not the only religious leader to hold religious services in violation of a COVID-19 group restriction order. On April 5, 2020, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Reverend Tony Spell of the Life Tabernacle Church, held Palm Sunday services. In response to being charged with violating the state's gathering ban, Reverend Spell said, "We don't get our rights to worship freely from the government. We get those from God. We'd rather obey God than man."

Cases For Home Schooling

     In Tucson, Arizona, a judge sentenced elementary teacher Joseph Chanecka, 44, to seven years in prison and lifetime probation after the defendant pleaded guilty to possessing 300,000 child pornographic images on his computer. The judge could have sentenced Chanecka to 25 years behind bars but gave him a break because he had already lost his home, fiancee, and their newborn son. Chanecka said he was "extremely sorry" for his "foolish behavior."

     In Toms River, New Jersey, detectives arrested a 38-year-old elementary computer science teacher charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child, and one count of second degree sexual assault. On the same day, in Orlando, Florida, a 50-year-old elementary teacher was arrested for child molestation. This teacher was already in custody for downloading images of child pornography.

     In Shawnee, Oklahoma, police arrested a former "Teacher of the Year" for taking photographs of some of her third grade students dancing around in bras and panties. (Bras?) The kids were attending a pizza party at the teacher's home.

     In Philadelphia, members of a police special victims unit arrested three boys--ages ten and eleven--on charges of attempted rape, deviant sexual intercourse, and unlawful restraint in connection with an incident that allegedly took place in an elementary school restroom. The complainant was an 8-year-old boy the defendants had allegedly bullied. After this incident, students in the West Philadelphia school had to go the the restroom in pairs.

     A tenured fourth grade teacher at the Wilson Elementary School in Granite City, Illinois was charged with possessing heroin and drug paraphernalia. She posted her $15,000 bond and was released.

     In Boone County West Virginia, a kindergarten teacher, after being pulled over for running a stop sign, consented to a search of her car which led to a charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. The teacher admitted to consuming hydrocodone while on her lunch break.

     In Alabama, it's a violation of the state's ethics law for a legislator to accept a gift from a citizen. The law was expanded to include public school teachers and their students. According to the director of  the Alabama Ethics Commission, "Something of relatively insignificant value--a candle, a coffee mug--is fine. It just can't be a $50 gift to Cosco or Target." Education spokesperson Kathy Kilgor told reporters that elementary school teachers do not like this new rule. "That was a little bit, I think, hurtful, condescending, to think we couldn't accept something from a caring student. That's kind of important to them. Not only is it hurtful to us, it's hurtful to the child."
 
     A second grade teacher in Nanuet, New York broke the news to her students that the Santa thing was a crock. I assume this educator believed it's never to early to lay life's truths on her naive students. You know, prepare them for the "real world." But why did she stop with the Santa myth? Why didn't she tell them that in a few years at least half of them will be obese, on drugs, under-employed and divorced? And that all of them would eventually die? After that, none of them would give a crap about Santa and his flying reindeer.         

COVID-19 Scofflaws

     In April 2020, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Angela Bisig issued a court order requiring a Louisville, Kentucky woman who lived with a person diagnosed with COVID-19 and another individual who had not been tested, to remain in quarantine. Members of this woman's family, after the judge's court order, informed health authorities that this person, referred to as D. L., had ignored the order. As a result, the judge asked the Department of Corrections to fit D. L. with a global positioning device. Under the court order, D. L. was required to wear the monitor for the next 14 days. If D. L. left her house during that period, a prosecutor would charge her with a criminal offense.

     Judge Bisig, a few days before D. L. was fitted with the ankle monitor, had ordered the two other residents of the Louisville home stay inside for 14 days after receiving information that they had refused to self-quarantine. 

Who Said, " People are dying that have never died before?"

Over the past few weeks, Facebook posts shared tens of thousands of times attribute the following quote regarding the COVID-19 pandemic to both President Trump and Joe Biden: "People are dying that have never died before." Neither Trump or Biden said anything like this. In fact, the quote is from a 1930 letter written by the American novelist, Ernest Hemingway.

The First Coronavirus-Involved Criminal Homicide Case

     On Saturday, March 28, 2020, at two in the afternoon, Janie Marshall from the Williamsville section of Brooklyn, New York was in the emergency room at the Woodhill Medical Center in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of the borough. As the 86-year-old stood in a hallway waiting to be treated for a bowel obstruction, she touched a metal stand near a chair on which 32-year-old Cassandra Lundy was seated. Lundy was awaiting psychiatric treatment. Without warning, the psychiatric patient leaped from her chair and smacked Janie Marshall in the face, knocking the elderly woman off her feet. When she fell, the victim's head bounced off the floor.

     When questioned in the emergency room by a hospital police officer, Cassandra Lundy said, regarding the woman she had smacked to the ground, "She didn't stay more than six feet away." Lundy was referring to, of course, the COVID-19 policy of social distancing. The police officer issued Lundy a summons ( ticket) for disorderly conduct. The assailant left the hospital without being treated, or arrested for the brutal assault of an 86-year-old woman.

     The assault had been captured on a hospital surveillance camera.

     About three and a half hours later, while awaiting a CT scan, Janie Marshall died.

     Hospital personnel, claiming they were swamped with coronavirus patients, didn't notify Janie Marshall's family about her death until ten-thirty that night. And when they did, they told a family member she had died of heart failure. It's not clear how the hospital would have known this since the autopsy had not been conducted. Moreover, there was no mention of the fact Janie Marshall had died after being assaulted by another hospital patient.

     On Monday, March 30, 2020, a forensic pathologist with the New York City Medical Examiner's Officer performed the Marshall autopsy and ruled that the victim had died from heart disease with blunt force trauma as a contributing factor. For some reason, this cause of death determination was backward: In fact, Jamie Marshall had died of blunt force trauma with heart disease as a contributing factor.

     Following the autopsy, Cassandra Lundy was charged with manslaughter and assault. However, officers with the NYPD didn't take her into custody until Thursday, April 2, 2020.

     Cassandra Lundy had been arrested 17 times for offenses such as criminal trespass, drug possession, and assault. One of the assault cases included an incident where she strangled a person. Information regarding her mental health history and whether or not she had served time in prison was not made public. Reportage did not reveal if bail had been set or if she was being held in custody.

     Janie Marshall, born in South Carolina, moved to New York City when she was 17. She earned a bachelor's degree from City College, and was one of the first African-American women to work an accounting job for the Social Security Administration. She had 12 siblings, and had never married.

Trump University

     In May 2005, Donald Trump added a new service to the far reaching and diverse Trump brand. (Bottled water, neckties, golf courses, resorts, hotels, office buildings, condominiums--you name it.) Aspiring entrepreneurs in search of their fortunes could enroll at Trump University, an online educational institution that offered courses and seminars in real estate, asset management, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation. Trump University tuition ranged from $1,500 to $35,000. This was a lot of money for a "university" that didn't confer college credits or an accredited degree. Enrollees knew this, of course. They were attracted to the Trump name and all it stood for.

     Donald Trump himself appeared in television ads for the school that led prospective students to believe that the course instructors had been handpicked by him. The targeted customers were promised a free, 90-minute seminar where they would learn how to make money in real estate through a "systematic method of investing." The free seminar acted as a pitch for the three-day real estate seminar that cost $1,495. The Trump school also offered the so-called "Trump Elite" educational packages that included personal mentorship programs that cost between $10,000 and $35,000.

     Trump University, in June 2010, changed its name to The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative after bureaucrats with the New York State Department of Education declared the use of the word "university" in the company name misleading. The state authorities also felt that because the institution wasn't licensed, accredited, or bonded by the state, it was not a legal operation.

     In May 2011, six years after the founding of Trump University, the New York Attorney General's Office, under Eric T. Schneiderman, launched an investigation of Trump's online educational service. State investigators were looking for evidence of "illegal business practices." The attorney general opened the case against Trump after Trump University graduates from New York and four other states complained they had been misled by deceptive advertising. (According to Attorney General Schneiderman, some of the "Trump Elites" thought they had purchased the right to meet Donald Trump in person. Instead, they were photographed next to a live-size poster of the man. At this point, The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative had essentially ceased doing business.

     The state of New York, in August 2013, filed a $40 million civil suit against the Trump institution. In its quest for restitution, the attorney general's office accused Trump and his operatives of illegal business practices in the form of "false promises." In the suit the plaintiff described Trump University as "an elaborate bait-and-switch" operation.

     Attorney General Schneiderman, in a statement released to the media, said that Donald Trump and his people had made false promises to persuade more than 5,000 students--including 600 New Yorkers--"to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn't afford for lessons they never got."  According to the attorney general, "Trump University engaged in deception at every stage of consumers' advancement through costly programs, and caused real financial harm. Trump University, with Donald Trump's knowledge and participation relied on Trump's name recognition and celebrity status to take advantage of consumers who believed in the Trump brand. No one, no matter how rich or famous they are, has a right to scam hardworking New Yorkers. Anyone who does should expect to be held accountable."

     As could be expected, the Trump organization went on the offensive. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told an Associated Press reporter that he had testimonials from 11,000 former students who had been "extremely satisfied" (odd combination of words) with Trump University. According to attorney Cohen, the attorney general's illegal business practices suit was laden with "falsehoods."

     George Sorial, another Trump lawyer, accused Attorney General Schneiderman of being politically motivated. According to Sorial, Schneiderman had filed the suit after Donald Trump refused to contribute to his campaign. "This [the lawsuit] is tantamount to extortion," he said.

     In April 2018, the Trump organization paid $25 million to settle two class actions that had been brought by former students as well as the illegal practice suit filed by New York State Attorney General Schneiderman. Trump University was gone, money was paid, and the bureaucrats were satisfied.

The Daunting Task of Writing a Book

     Writing a book is a strange job

     "Here you go," a publisher says at the onset, handing you a salary of sorts, and a deadline, "we'll see you in two years." And there you go indeed, in a state of high alarm without any day-to-day ballast--no appointments, no tasks assigned each morning, no office colleagues to act as sounding boards, no clue as to what you are doing: equipped solely with a single idea, which you cling to like driftwood in a great, dark sea.

Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad, 1997

O.J. Simpson: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Some writers of letters and a lot of kids don't seem to care if I'm guilty or innocent. They just want to believe in me….When I speak to kids, I say that you have to accept responsibility for your own actions…I say to everybody that if I had committed this crime, I would have had to take responsibility for my actions….

O.J. Simpson, I Want to Tell You, 1994 [Letter to a young fan following his arrest for double murder.]