Long overdue but thanks very much for this info, Robert. I've heard medical professionals allude to the fact that they know for certain which patients are non-citizens and always wondered how this was possible in California where citizenship status is virtually a protected category.
You are correct, Yngvi--I misspoke. What I meant to say was the United States has never had an official language.
Thanks for querying this point Rip and let me be perfectly clear that I agree entirely with what you've said. Also, full disclosure: I haven't seen the entire 8 minute video, only the clips that have circulated on the news wires. In case it wasn't clear from my original post, these scum deserve all the punishment that's coming their way.
However,
proving malice on the part of a
white police officer who murders a black man in an all white court in Minneapolis--one of the most systemically racist cities in the US--is likely not going to happen. As a reminder, when the Philando Castille case happened, police chiefs from all over the county almost uniformly condemned
the actions of the piece of shit that shot Castille 7 times at point blank range in front of his girlfriend and infant child for no good reason at all. In that case,
the white officer that shot an innocent black man was acquitted, because, well, racism. (Compare this to when the black Muslim Minneapolis police officer shot the innocent white woman a year later and
got 12.5 years, lest anybody accuse me of race-bating).
To reiterate, I agree completely that what those cops did was inexcusable, racist, and unquestionably malicious. But how I feel about the world and what I know about it are two different things. Not only did I live in Minneapolis for 5 years, but I'm also the son of a deputy city attorney; I know both Minneapolis and the insidious and unrelenting racism of the criminal justice system intimately well. As unfortunate as this reality is, I simply don't see it as being very likely that these cops will get anything worse than a slap on the wrist when all is said and done.
Especially considering that so far, even after the city has been burning for three days, only one of the officers involved has been arrested and he was charged with murder in the 3rd degree, which is somewhere below involuntary manslaughter according to Minnesota law: "without intent to effect the death of any person, caus[ing] the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life". Like I said initially, if anything, they'll stick him with negligence and he'll get a unjustly light punishment, as unfortunate as this likely scenario is. As it stands now, the case against him does not look very strong, even on the watered-down charges that have already been brought against him, considering
the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's autopsy has essentially exonerated him of any blame in Mr. Floyd's death.