The sentencing of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger for the murder of a Caribbean immigrant in his home has become another media-administered ink blot test.
Guyger was sentenced in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday by the same jury that convicted her a day earlier of murdering Jean.
The 31-year-old was off duty from the Dallas Police Department but still in uniform when she fatally shot the 26-year-old accountant in his own home in September 2018.
Guyger said she mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, which was one floor below, and that she thought he was an intruder when she opened fire.
Guyger’s trial is such a perfect case study in how multiculturalism throws sand in the judiciary’s gears, some law school professor would’ve had to invent it if it hadn’t really happened.
A white female Texan cop guns down a black male immigrant in his living room. Consulting the Progressive Stack, what do you think the outcome should’ve been?
Whatever our rulers’ secular religion dictates, the result was that Guyger received a murder conviction carrying a maximum life sentence. Instead she got ten years, a Bible from the judge, and hugs from the victim’s brother and the judge.
The judge who presided over Amber Guyger’s murder trial presented her with a Bible and gave her a hug just moments after the brother of slain accountant Botham Jean embraced the sobbing cop.
I’ve seen this story framed as everything from a triumph of feminism to a model of Christian mercy to a brazen display of racism. Parsing whether it’s one, or none, or all three is nigh impossible.
Welcome to Clown World.
For a bit of perspective, keep in mind that James Fields got life in prison plus 419 years because a morbidly obese woman had a heart attack near his car.
As for Amber Guyger, her ten-year sentence seems to have pleased no one. Feminists would rather see her get off scot-free. Meanwhile, the usual suspects are raising Cain over the latest example of the courts treating a murderous white cop with kid gloves.
One guy who does seem to have pure motive here is the victim’s brother Brandt.
In an astonishing act of compassion, Jean’s 18-year-old brother, Brandt, had asked the judge if he could also hug Guyger after she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Brandt and a sobbing Guyger then both stood up, met in front of the bench and embraced for a long period of time. The judge and the majority of the courtroom wiped away tears as they hugged.
‘If you truly are sorry, I forgive you. I know if you go to God and ask him he will forgive you,’ Brandt said to Guyger in the courtroom.
‘I love you just like anyone else. I’m not going to say I hope you rot and die just like my brother did. I want the best for you. I don’t even want you to go to jail.’
My only comment on Brandt’s prodigious outpouring of mercy is that mercy perfects justice, and letting a convicted murderer entirely off the hook wouldn’t serve anyone.
What to make of this total cluster? I don’t know. But let’s try a little thought experiment.
- What if our police weren’t so militarized?
- What if there were no female police officers?
- Or judges?
- What if Jean had finished his studies and returned to St. Lucia?
This is an all of the above situation. Yes in a sane world a cop killing someone who was just sitting on his couch eating ice cream would be a simple case of murder devoid of any socio-political considerations. Unfortunately, we live in clown-world where everything has to be made to fit the narrative. Also unfortunately, the story lends itself to that purpose. If the genders had been reversed, or the jobs had been reversed, everyone's view of the story would be different. That shouldn't be the case, as you have person A killing person B in person B's living room, but that's the way it is.
It is what it is.
And we'll be getting lots more of it.
I would say this:
It does not affect me, I sm not on the jury, don't know the victim lr their fsmily or thr killer or their family and wasn't present at the trial and did not see all of the evidence or arguments presented.
All I can really say id that the willingness of a man to show mercy to his brother's killer is touching.
But none of it really has to do with me.
Part of the problem of the 24 hour news cycle is we're all privvy to relativdly bland murder cases like this, and it turns into a circus.
That's a vital point. The press' job isn't to inform. It's to gin up outrage.
That's my take on this.
There's so much shit-stirring and mudflinging that looking at things objectively can sometimes be difficult. Especially with a press that causes the problem to begin with.
Aside from the atheists that want to sue over this. They can pound sand.
I hadn't heard about that. What possible grounds do they have for a lawsuit besides muh feelz?
It sounds callous, but people die every day. This was an open and shut murder case with a surprisingly light sentencing, but so what? That stuff happens and while I can pontificate I wasn't there and don't know why they decided making it so light was a good idea.
Nor is that my problem. Another family's – two families, really – tragedy is not my business.
The judge presenting the Bible. It's really just that petty.
It's the Freedom From Religion Foundation, aka Captain Fedora and the Neckbeard Squad. I should've known.
Looks like they filed a complaint with the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct claiming the judge "overstepped her judicial authority."
These people deserve each other. I'm making popcorn.
I’m making duck fat fried popcorn, it’s quite delicious you should try some
I hadn't read up on it before, but apparently Judge Kemp gave Miss Guyger one of her own Bibles. I wonder if it was something Judge Kemp always had in mind to do, or something inspired by the grace that Brandt offered Miss Guyger. In any case, I hope the commission puts this complaint at the very bottom of the stack and leaves it there into the paper rots.
They should do that with literally anything that these neckbeards scribe out
"What if our police weren't so militarized?"
I think militarization is more a symptom than a cause, though a bad symptom. I think the major issue is something often called the Officer Safety Paradigm.
Back in the day, it was commonly accepted that the officer was putting his life on the line. 99% of the job is boredom occasionally punctuated by the other 1%: a**hole puckering confrontations and situations. And guys really did accept that. But now, with the Officer Safety Paradigm, the mantra is 'Officer Safety/We all go home at the end of the day". This then leads to an Us/Them paradigm and the militarization: military uniform style, armor, weapons, vehicles and most importantly: mindset. It is rationalized that the cops need such things to "Get Everyone Home At The End Of The Day." And then, should force, deadly or otherwise, be used, it is about Articulation. Can you articulate how you feared for your life? Articulation: one of the dirtiest, most insidious secrets in Law Enforcement training and culture.
I consider Officer Safety a cancer. When I was an FTO, I would try to break boots out of that Officer Safety brainwashing they received in the Academy. Needless to say, there was plenty of push back from all levels. But my FTO, back in the Stone Age and I trained people the way I had been trained.
So, while we give lip service to officers putting their life on the line (and don't get me wrong, they still do, every single day), we privately give a lot more lip service to a philosophy that often puts more emphasis on protecting the officers than the people they are supposed to protect.
"What if there were no female police officers?"
Well, if that were the case, the Officer Safety culture wouldn't be quite so bad. Women, in my not so humble opinion, are more likely to A) Panic in the face of superior mass, force or numbers and B) Are more likely to use force or the threat of force in an unnecessary fashion. If I were to say that out loud where I work, the punishment would be swift and severe. But here, I can say it.
Of all the female officers I have worked with over the years I can name one (and only one) who I would trust to be able to defend herself or her partner in a physical confrontation without having to resort to weapons, be they baton, taser, OC, or firearm. And she wasn't very large either, or strong. She was smart. Extremely so.
"Or judges?"
Can't speak to this too awful much except to say that instead of a male/female problem, I have a feeling that it has more to do with Law School and the way attorneys are indoctrinated.
From what little I have read, this woman was one of the growing number of people, due to Affirmative Action, quotas, feminism, nepotism or any other of a host of issues, should never have been allowed to wield authority in the form of a shield and firearm.
She didn't realize that she didn't need a key to walk into the same apartment that she theoretically locked earlier that day.
She didn't know what apartment she was walking in to and she didn't recognize it was the wrong one once inside, with, we can assume, different decor and furnishings.
She encountered a man sitting and eating ice cream in a chair. No matter his race or size, she lacked the judgment and the poise to take in the situation properly. How do we know? When faced with it, she resorted to lethal force.
She didn't help administer first aid until EMTs and back up arrived.
And her excuse for not being cognizant of these things is being exhausted. Oh, and sexting on the phone with a married coworker.
I have encountered boots like this before, men and women both, and I have done my best to scare or intimidate them right out of a job. That's right: Bullying has its place. Because if they can't take it from me, a guy who has been assigned to train them and keep them safe and teach them how to keep others safe, they sure as sh*t can't take it from your garden variety thug or mope.
OSP gets people killed. It needs to be discontinued.
Female officers who aren't riding desks are only there for diversity points. The evidence backs up your observation that they are more likely to panic. It should also go without saying that they're less able to safely subdue dangerous suspects. Look at the recent video of the officer in California having her gun pried from her hands by a perp who then almost shot her.
Also, people are willing to lose a few men. OSP would likely be less intense without women in frontline roles.
Brian
What's OSP? And why does it get people killed?
xavier
Read Emmett's comment.
"She didn't realize that she didn't need a key to walk into the same apartment that she theoretically locked earlier that day."
According to at least one article I read, Botham Jean's door had already been damaged as to make it look like forced entry had been enacted. Guyger was thus not totally without reason to think that someone had broken in.
That said — and speaking as someone very much guilty of walking around with his nose in his cellphone himself — it strikes me that the real problem is that someone carrying a weapon should not be allowing himself to be distracted from direct attention to the present moment by *anything*. If texting while driving is dangerous, texting while armed should be considered equally dangerous. If you're not paying attention, you're going to react to unexpected events on reflex and autopilot, and that gets people killed.
I'd support a full smart phone ban if it meant permanently restoring and securing the right to bear arms.
Pardon my language, but this is just another episode of “pussy priveldge” that has existed in the courts for decades now. Equality for the sexes in permissions and access, but a separate rule book when dealing with responsibilities and correction. We all know if this officer hadn’t been male, there would be no Bibles, or hugs, or sentences of 10 years or less.
I want to say Heartiste once had a post that was a comparison of the crimes and their average sentencing broken down by sex and race. In every category the average sentencing for women was near the lowest legal sentencing for that crime, while the average for men was closer to the maximum.
We keep calling this clown world, but I get a feeling we grew up in the Circus and only now we have started to notice the weird guys in white face with red noses.
Man, do I miss Roissy.
Same here. His website is up again at this location
https://heartiste.org/
But he has not posted since May 9, 2019. Looks like he just prefers posting on Gab than doing any long form writing. Which is a shame.
Thanks for the link!