Notes From A Crisis Nation

There’s so much going on that I want to comment on, and I’ve run out of time today. Let me toss them out there to bring them to your attention. I have way too much to do today to get ready for book promotion, and no time to comment on these below. I just spent two hours approving comments from last night. But I think these items below are important, and that you should know about them.

ITEM: Radley Balko says that the Kentucky authorities are not being forthcoming about the events that led to Breonna Taylor’s death. He writes in the form of debunking questions from defenders of the police. Excerpt:

“This was not a no-knock warrant.”

It absolutely was. It says so right on the warrant. Moreover, the portion of the warrant authorizing a no-knock entry cited only cut-and-pasted information from the four other warrants that were part of the same investigation. This is a violation of a requirement set by the Supreme Court that no-knock warrants should be granted when police can present evidence that a particular suspect is a risk to shoot at police or destroy evidence if they knock and announce. They didn’t do that.

The police claim they were told after the fact to disregard the no-knock portion and instead knock and announce themselves, because, by that point, someone had determined that Taylor was a “soft target” — not a threat, and not a major player in the drug investigation. But there are problems with this account. If Taylor was a “soft target,” why not surround the house, get on a megaphone, and ask her to come out with her hands up? Why still take down her door with a battering ram? Why still serve the warrant in the middle of the night?

“The police knocked and announced themselves, and a witness heard them.”

In what was probably the most frustrating part of Cameron’s press event, he cited a single witness who claimed to have heard the officers identify themselves as police. I spoke with Taylor’s lawyers in June, who at that time had interviewed 11 of her neighbors. Many lived in the same apartment building as Taylor. According to the lawyers, no neighbor heard an announcement. The New York Times interviewed 12 neighbors. They found one — just one — who heard an announcement. And he only heard one announcement. He also told the paper that with all the commotion, it’s entirely possible that Walker and Taylor didn’t hear that announcement. Cameron neglected to mention any of this.

Moreover, in a CNN interview Wednesday night, Walker’s attorney, Steven Romines, said the witness to whom Cameron was referring initially said he did not hear the police announce themselves. And he repeated that assertion in a second interview. It was only after his third interview that he finally said he heard an announcement. That’s critical context that Cameron neglected to mention.

ITEM: This e-mail came in from a Czech reader:

Anytime I read your posts about Kyle Rittenhouse I wonder if you Americans realize how absolutely crazy these stories sound to people from outside of the USA. I understand that there is right and wrong usage of gun and that it is important to search for the truth in each case of fatal shooting. But I find it hard to find any sympathy for any person running around the streets with a semi-automatic weapon no matter what the reasons behind this are.

If you were to show up (just show up, not shooting or aiming at anyone) with such a weapon in my country (Czech Republic) it would warrant immediate response from a special police unit. The same applies to all European countries pretty much. I have watched the video in your latest piece on the subject and it doesn’t do much in convincing me in rooting for Kyle Rittenhouse or any other person involved in these incidents.

What I see when I watch the video is scenes that seem to be only possible in the USA and third world countries. The number of deaths just feels like reaping the fruit of loose gun policy and grown up people playing army on the streets. I actually find some understanding for people attacking or even aiming guns at Rittenhouse. For all they knew he just shot someone and was running around with what looks like a machine gun. Still all of them are playing the same game of running around the town with guns out on the open… feels insane to me.

Obviously it turns out his victims are/were bad people with criminal records and all the violence surrounding it is reprehensible. But to me anyone carrying a weapon to protests is part of a problem and in such an intense atmosphere I find it hard to look for nuances and distinguish good guys from bad guys within the hammock that took place that night. I also find Kyle’s demeanor sort of coldblooded. I imagine that a person who just shot someone is shaken with horror, not running around calmly explaining “I hat to shoot him” and then being ready to shoot some more. Of course I know that in these circumstances people react differently but this sure feels like a person who came there ready to use his gun.

I live in Central Europe and I am closely watching protests in Belarus. They actually have a dictator ruling over them yet the protests there are nothing like what we see in the USA. I understand people might find sympathy for Rittenhouse (I don’t) but I absolutely don’t understand how people are making hero of him. You live by a sword you need to be ready to take consequences…

Anyway thank you for your blog and for covering all kinds of topics including the controversial ones