Rant #3,062: Guilty Until Proven Innocent

I do not know how to approach the latest police demonstration of force, one which led to the death of a young man who on the surface, seemed to be the All-American boy.

Tyre Nichols seemed to be pretty much the opposite of many of those other victims in these police-involved deaths.

We are being told that he was enigmatic, friendly, very much into his skating, and a fine young man who was going to make it in this world.

He had two parents who brought him up the right way, and they were still a presence in his life to the day he died.

But something happened, something that led to tragedy.

Five Memphis, Tenn., police officers stopped Nichols because he was “driving erratically,” which we have yet to have spelled out as to what this actually means in this case.

Anyway, the five cops—part of a division specifically set up to quell street crimes—pulled him over, and then all hell seemed to break loose, leading to a beating that resulted in Nichols’ death.

This incident brings up other similar incidents—including the Rodney King episode of a generation ago--but this one appears to so different than that one that you really cannot compare the two.

King was a known troublemaker, while this kid appeared to not be one.

And in the latest incident, all of the five police officers who have since been fired and arrested for their actions are black.

Now for those looking to start fires, you have a lot of gas with this latest incident, but one thing you don’t have is the “systemic racism” charge … you have something much worse.

I have heard people blurt out on the news shows and write on social media that the most disturbing thing about this entire incident is that the five police officers involved were all black and they enacted their rage against a fellow black man.

These people said that makes it all the more worse, black against black, as if black cops should automatically give black perpetrators a break, because they are of the same race.

Worse yet, they say that black cops who put on the uniform automatically take on the characteristics of white cops, or the oppressees becoming the oppressors simply by putting on a police uniform.

This is just so racist that I cannot believe that people actually believe this nonsense.

The main theme here is that there are good cops and bad cops and they span the race line.

I would say that 99 percent of police are as good as they can be, honest to the core and realizing how important their jobs are to the community that they police.

But there is that 1 percent—black and white and yellow and brown officers—who don’t value their badge and their jobs very highly, and abuse the privilege of being police officers.

Is that what we have here? What does this have to do with “brothers” giving one of their own “brothers” a break, as I have heard and read some people say?

There is disturbing video of the lasted incident, but we all know that things go on in such incidents that are never captured on video, because while video does show a lot of the scene, because of placement and other issues, video cannot show everything.

And that is the five cops’ defense, that what is not shown on the video demonstrates why they had to go to such great lengths to subdue Nichols.

They claim that not only did he run away—which is clearly shown on the video—but that the reason that he was beaten to a pulp is that he reached for one of the officer’s guns, which is not shown on the video.

And in this case, two of the officers’ video camera did not work or weren’t turned on, so what you have is less than what should be out there to look at to see what really happened and why.

There clearly had to be something that forced the police officers—five of them, not just one—to do what they did, but based on the video alone, it appears that they simply beat this guy to a pulp for reasons beyond the scope of the available video.

Something had to set them off—was it simply overheated testosterone or did something happen that is not shown on the video?

The cops have already been convicted by the media and much of the public—I actually heard a news reporter say flat out that the cops “murdered” this young man, which is just so wrong to say at this point in time—and the five accused officers will have their day in court to prove what they did and why they did it.

And the last time I looked, this country has been built upon the belief of “innocent until proven guilty,” and there is just so much more to this story that the rapidity that some have convicted the police in the court of public law is alarming.

Protests have sprung up in some major cities, and while the family of the young man have asked for peaceful protests, there has been some violence, including in New York City, where there were arrests for some violent acts including the destruction of a police car by a supposed protestor.

And yes, the race mongers of the world have now come out in force, just craving the scent of another racist, anti-police opportunity, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, who will deliverer the eulogy for the young man during the funeral.

Sorry, the family asks for calm and peace during the protests, but then allows this generation’s No. 1 race monger to perform the eulogy for their son?

That action doesn’t speak for calm and peace in my book; you don’t allow a rabble rouser to do this unless you want to pour gas on an already burning flame.

The bottom line is this: with the media and the court of public opinion already demonizing these five police officers in a story with as many holes in it as a slice of rancid Swiss cheese, will the cops be able to get a fair trial …

And what really happened during this incident, beyond what we see on the police video?

That is really what will bring true justice to this case, and that is what is most important here, not jumping to conclusions based on a police video that probably doesn’t show everything we need to know before convicting these cops like they already have been in the court of public opinion.

And like in other such incidents, if they are found to be guilty, they will get theirs, but they will get theirs by a judge and a jury of their peers, not a lynch mob that is simply looking for blood like thirsty vampires on the prowl.