- Mar 11, 2015
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We Say Some Things Are Racist For a Reason.
Because they are.
Derek Chauvin’s dope-fiend defense is part of an old playbook. But it’s outdated.
Derek Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, will try to make the case next week that fentanyl and methamphetamine, not his client, killed George Floyd. He’s following a well-worn playbook that has succeeded in the past — but may have outlived its usefulness.
Many White police officers have beaten the rap on excessive-use-of-force charges by invoking a Black suspect’s apparent use of narcotics. But such testimony may not carry as much baggage in an age when drug use has lost some of its stigma, the public increasingly recognizes that addiction is a disease and the opioid epidemic means that millions of people, across the socioeconomic spectrum, have friends or family members who have struggled.
Almost five years ago, in the Minneapolis suburb of Falcon Heights, Officer Jeronimo Yanez fatally shot Philando Castile, an adored school cafeteria manager, about 60 seconds after pulling him over. Yanez claimed he was on hair-trigger alert after smelling weed in the vehicle and seeing a child in the back seat. “I thought if he has the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the 5-year-old girl,” he told investigators, “then what care does he give about me?”
Yanez was acquitted on all charges.
Two months after Castile was killed, White officer Betty Jo Shelby shot aspiring gospel singer Terence Crutcher in Tulsa. Prosecutors said Crutcher didn’t resist during the traffic stop, but Shelby said the unarmed Black man was being aggressive because he was under the influence of PCP, a hallucinogenic drug that an autopsy showed was in his system.
Shelby, too, was acquitted.
The dope-fiend defense has even worked without evidence of dope. In 1992, four Los Angeles cops were acquitted for the brutal beating, caught on video, of Rodney King after one testified that they feared the motorist was on PCP and that this would give him “Hulk-like strength.” His blood tested negative for PCP.
And despite all the evidence of police consistently lying on police reports we have people right here willing to believe whatever the police say.when it pertains to blacks.
Because they are.
Derek Chauvin’s dope-fiend defense is part of an old playbook. But it’s outdated.
Derek Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, will try to make the case next week that fentanyl and methamphetamine, not his client, killed George Floyd. He’s following a well-worn playbook that has succeeded in the past — but may have outlived its usefulness.
Many White police officers have beaten the rap on excessive-use-of-force charges by invoking a Black suspect’s apparent use of narcotics. But such testimony may not carry as much baggage in an age when drug use has lost some of its stigma, the public increasingly recognizes that addiction is a disease and the opioid epidemic means that millions of people, across the socioeconomic spectrum, have friends or family members who have struggled.
Almost five years ago, in the Minneapolis suburb of Falcon Heights, Officer Jeronimo Yanez fatally shot Philando Castile, an adored school cafeteria manager, about 60 seconds after pulling him over. Yanez claimed he was on hair-trigger alert after smelling weed in the vehicle and seeing a child in the back seat. “I thought if he has the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the 5-year-old girl,” he told investigators, “then what care does he give about me?”
Yanez was acquitted on all charges.
Two months after Castile was killed, White officer Betty Jo Shelby shot aspiring gospel singer Terence Crutcher in Tulsa. Prosecutors said Crutcher didn’t resist during the traffic stop, but Shelby said the unarmed Black man was being aggressive because he was under the influence of PCP, a hallucinogenic drug that an autopsy showed was in his system.
Shelby, too, was acquitted.
The dope-fiend defense has even worked without evidence of dope. In 1992, four Los Angeles cops were acquitted for the brutal beating, caught on video, of Rodney King after one testified that they feared the motorist was on PCP and that this would give him “Hulk-like strength.” His blood tested negative for PCP.
And despite all the evidence of police consistently lying on police reports we have people right here willing to believe whatever the police say.when it pertains to blacks.