“Texas only has Capital Murder. Here is the story of the officer in Dallas who took the elevator to the wrong floor in her apartment and killed the tenant in the apartment above hers. Door was open and she thought she was being robbed. A long, sad story. [It] certainly was not in any way deliberate. She was not offered Manslaughter and was convicted of Capital Murder. I sense CYA by the DA in Minnesota. Bet that the outcome planned is a deal for a guilty plea of Manslaughter.”
—LouisianaVoice reader, a native of Louisiana now living in Texas.
Louisiana Voice 
An excellent juxtaposition of the 2 cases. I can only hope his last conclusion is incorrect, particularly since there is compelling video evidence this was not manslaughter and former and potential victims will not accept such a plea.
A slight correction. Amber Guyger, the policewoman, was convicted of murder, not capital murder. The difference in Texas between capital murder and murder is the punishment imposed for each. Capital murder is punished with either a life sentence without parole or the death penalty, while murder is punished with a prison term of 5 to 99 years or life imprisonment.
A person commits the offense of murder in Texas if the person 1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual or 2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.
I just don’t know how anyone could keep an unarmed handcuffed-person pinned down by three grown men like they did. I’m pretty sure that the liquid one sees on the ground under the police vehicle is urine where the dead gentleman lost control of his bladder. All four of the officers contributed to this wrongful killing and they should all be charged with murder. There is no reasonable explanation, justification or defense for what they did. A jury should decide their fates.
The time has come to face up to a hard fact: many of the law enforcement personnel in this country are the wrong people to be in law enforcement. Not all, of course, but many “officers” should not have authority over others, much less carry weapons. Such people should be excluded from public safety and law enforcement – not hired in the first place and terminated when found to be unfit for service. A close relative was recently brutalized while in custody in a so-called progressive state, where a bit of research shows frequent death and injury in custody, and no one is doing a thing about it.
The unrest throughout the country was sparked by yet another street execution by cop – an officer who should have been removed long ago after multiple complaints of brutality. Our police agencies are full of the wrong people, people we have seen over the past two days drive police cars and horses into crowds, tackle, throw down and beat people whose only crime was being present at a peaceful demonstration, lob paint bullets at people standing on their porches on a quiet street while demanding the residents go inside, on and on. Much of the response to protest over police violence has been met with more violence, by poorly trained and poorly chosen officers. Death and brutalization at the hands of law enforcement personnel is commonplace and takes place in every jurisdiction in this country.
I say this as someone whose family of police officers and officials would be horrified at what is going on in this country. Fifty years ago my father taught human relations at the police academy in New Orleans, where a million people visit every year for Mardi Gras, where a majority of police officers know how to successfully handle crowds, but where, sadly, police brutality and malfeasance are still commonplace.
The fact that racism and other -isms, brutality and death at the hands of law enforcement personnel are common, unchecked, and pervasive, indicates that the wrong people are being hired, by the wrong management, who continue to hire the wrong people and look the other way when atrocities are directed at those who should be protected and served.
Earthmother, I wonder if the Increased violent behavior toward civilians by police officers is caused in part by the number of former military being officers. If one served in Afghanistan &/or Iraq could it make that officer more aggressive, suffer PTSD and more inclined to use lethal force, rather than to de-escalate. Just a thought.
Military, particularly those who serve in combat, endure a staggering amount of training on the rules of engagement, treatment of prisoners, the Geneva convention, et al. Every engagement begins with a safety brief, and ends with a review and official report forwarded to the chain of command. If someone operates outside these boundaries, they are held accountable and must answer for their actions. It’s not a perfect system, but it is designed to constantly improve based on a system that includes clear oversight. You might see some of these successful procedures in law enforcement, but it is hit-and-miss at best.
Both military and law enforcement could use improvement on better recognizing the effects of PTSD and its treatment; but the military has taken clear steps to address both.
My personal observations have been that the most successful law enforcement units appear to benefit from the standardization that is seen in military operations. I’ve seen stark differences in views of what law enforcement is supposed to do from Peace Officers serving different organizations within the same area. I will submit that military veteran law enforcement officers bring far more from their military training & experience than their civilian contemporaries entering the profession. One of the most critical is that all honorably discharged military are accustomed to complying with the UCMJ requirement to report unauthorized or illegal conduct; the failure of which can very well result in themselves facing disciplinary charges.
Bottom line; Military veterans are very well trained to conduct “violent” operations and any idea that they as a group are “loose cannons” is short-sighted and more than a little uninformed.
r/
Master Chief, USN, (ret.)
OIF Combat veteran
Jaded – you may well be right, which is all the more reason for pre-hire psychological testing and exclusion of those with serious mental illness. However, after World War II many vets became police officers, including two of my uncles, who both rose to NOPD superintendent, a cousin, and my father, who was a reserve officer of rank, and who taught human relations at the police academy. The two chiefs Giarrusso introduced humanitarian reforms, diversity in hiring, and intolerance for police brutality to NOPD. Years later many of those reforms went by the wayside, unfortunately, and now NOPD is much like any other urban force, perhaps for just the reason you cited.
Any trial(s) coming from this will take awhile. Just guessing but probably one of the first things the defense will push for is a change in venue saying the accused can’t get a fair trial in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The problem with that is where do they think they would get a trial where no or little news was seen by potential jurors?
About 40 years ago I watched a documentary on police brutality and racism. I don’t remember whether it was on public or commercial television. Some of you may remember it. An interview with a 30-ish police officer in Houston has stuck with me ever since and I believe what he said then has relevance today – I don’t know the extent, but what he said has to be true of at least a significant number of law enforcement officers.
The two major things I took away from his interview {which reflected unusual and potentially career-damaging honesty}:
1. He never considered himself a racist before becoming a police officer, but acknowledged he now was.
2. Try as he might to avoid it, he reached the point fairly early on where he trusted most of his fellow police officers, but very few, if any civilians.
He considered each of these a natural consequence of the job.
If a significant number of police officers experience one or both these things, I don’t believe they can be trained out as long as they are working the streets. Maybe the 20 year retirement for which most are eligible is too long and should, at the least, be mandatory. Maybe these tendencies can somehow be preempted with early and constant training. I honestly have no idea.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/10/15/police-with-military-experience-more-likely-to-shoot