Winner in the Ghetto Lottery

There is a quote made famous by Tom Wolfe in Bonfire of the Vanities and attributed to Sol Wachtler a former Chief Judge in New York state. He is a former judge because he got indicted, plead guilty and did fifteen months at Club Fed. It just goes to show how one’s personal corruption colors their view other events.

district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”

Sol Wachtler, the former chief judge of New York state, 1985

Taken at face value, Wachtler would have the reader believe that the criminal justice system is monolithic and subject to the whims of those in power. Oops, the Grand Jury in Rochester, New York didn’t get the message.

A grand jury in New York decided Tuesday that no charges would be filed against police officers in Rochester who detained a mentally ill black man, Daniel Prude, 41, last year, who later died. The incident led to riots in the city last summer.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/02/24/grand-jury-declines-to-charge-rochester-police-in-daniel-prude-death/

The State Attorney General is not happy. Her tame Grand Jury didn’t act like they were supposed to.

“We concluded that there was sufficient evidence surrounding Mr. Prude’s death to warrant presenting the case to a grand jury, and we presented the most comprehensive case possible,” 

New York Attorney General Letitia James 

Look at her quote. I don’t have a problem with it. She presented the best case she could make. It wasn’t enough and the Grand Jury refused to indict. They evidently felt that there was insufficient probable cause to support the charge. That’s their job. Think of it as a poker game. In order to get into the game one has to have “probable cause” or “ante up.” The Grand Jury found James’ ante lacking, so she doesn’t get to play. If the Grand Jury is right there is no way that James could meet the higher standard, “beyond a reasonable doubt” to obtain a conviction. If that is the case than a resulting trial is not a search for the truth but a PR exercise to amuse the masses.

I suspect that the Grand Jurors looked at the incident using the “reasonable man” as the standard for judging police actions. Were the actions of the police those that a reasonable person might take, faced with similar circumstances? The reasonable man standard allows for the fact that potential responses and results may not result in perfect outcomes. Perfect outcomes only result upon second guessing and never leaving the sidelines to actually participate.

Ideally, Prude shouldn’t have died. Course, Prude shouldn’t have ingested PCP. Also high on the list of things not to do, run down the street screaming, while naked. It is never a good idea to fight multiple police officers.

As is typical of liberals, James complains because her efforts, evidence and witnesses didn’t make the cut. Typical, rather than present information sufficient to cross the bar, James wants to lower it.

“The criminal justice system has frustrated efforts to hold law enforcement officers accountable for the unjustified killing of unarmed African Americans. What binds these cases is a tragic loss of life in circumstances in which the death could have been avoided,” James said.

New York Attorney General Letitia James 

Daniel Prude died as a result of a confrontation with police. His actions triggered all that followed. The confrontation was triggered by a “mental health crisis, possibly brought on by his recreational use of PCP.” The cops came and they restrained him with minimum force, no Tasers, no nightsticks, and no chokeholds. But he died anyway. Sucks to be him.

There are some terms that just don’t apply to people in the midst of a PCP induced rage. Terms such as; rational thought, reasoned consideration, pain and compliance. I watched an emergency room physician conduct a “Babinski test” on a PCP user. He announced to the two cops and a paramedic trying to hold the turd down on the exam table, that according to the Babinski test the patient was paralyzed and unable to move. All the time we were trying not to get bucked off.

Hey Letitia wanna bitch how about complaining about the lack of community mental health response? It may be the ultimate irony that where a liberal shrew is undone because reasonable is not in her vocabulary.

Some people are never happy. Thanks to the efforts of the Rochester Police, Prude is no longer a mentally ill drug abuser. On the plus side, the Prude family just hit the ghetto lottery, Daniel Prude is worth a hell of lot more dead, than he ever was alive.