Someone is trying to ignite a war between the U.S. and Russia. Fromer Navy SEAL John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) is caught in the middle in Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (2021). Why willingly start a war? (Spoiler alert). Because without an external enemy, Americans are turning on each other instead.
There is plenty of that outside the movies. Two Trump loyalists on Thursday faced justice for making threats against a federal judge and government officials, Marcy Wheeler reports:
In DC, QAnoner Frank Caporusso pled guilty to threatening Emmet Sullivan because of his decisions in the Mike Flynn case. His statement of facts admitted that he called Sullivan’s chamber and warned,
We are professionals. We are trained military people. We will be on rooftops. You will not be safe. A hot piece of lead will cut through your skull. You bastard. You will be killed, and I don’t give a fuck who you are. Back out of this bullshit before it’s too late, or we’ll start cutting down your staff. This is not a threat. This is a promise.
Caporusso could receive 18-24 months in prison, with credit for time served since August.
And the second?
In New York, a jury found Trump supporter Brendan Hunt guilty of making death threats against government officials, including calling for the execution of AOC, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi on December 6. On January 8, he called to return to DC with guns to “slaughter these motherfuckers.” On January 12, in response to a General Flynn Parler text calling on people to act responsibly, Hunt responded, “enough with the ‘trust the plan’ bullshit. lets go, jan 20, bring your guns.”
Wheeler believes that because he went to trial rather than pleading, Hunt’s sentence could be longer than Caporusso’s.
Hate crimes
In Feb. 2020, three coastal South Georgia men grabbed guns and jumped into vehicles to hunt down a Black jogger as though they were on safari. The men will face hate crimes charges over the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man (New York Times):
The suspects — Travis McMichael, 35; his father, Gregory McMichael, 65; and William Bryan, 51, all of whom are white — were each charged with one count of interference with Mr. Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race. They were also charged with one count of attempted kidnapping.
Travis and Gregory McMichael were also charged with one count each of using, carrying and brandishing a firearm. Travis McMichael is accused of shooting Mr. Arbery.
The men intimidated Mr. Arbery “because of Arbery’s race and color,” the eight-page indictment said.
“As Arbery was running on a public street in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Ga., Travis McMichael and Gregory McMichael armed themselves with firearms, got into a truck and chased Arbery through the public streets of the neighborhood while yelling at Arbery, using their truck to cut off his route and threatening him with firearms,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Arbery’s killing happened months before the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year set off a national wave of protests against police violence.
Local prosecutors filed no charges against the Georgia men after the killing. Then in May 2020, a New York Times article and a video surfaced that presssured the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to get involved and make arrests. On Wednesday, federal authorities indicted the three on federal hate crime charges and for attempted kidnapping.
The case resonated in troubling and familiar ways, raising questions about racial profiling, the interpretation of self-defense laws and the wisdom of citizen policing.
Exactly one year after Mr. Arbery was killed, his mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, filed a lawsuit against prosecutors, law enforcement officers and the three men charged with murdering her son. The lawsuit accuses the parties of engaging in an orchestrated cover-up in the aftermath of the shooting, and of depriving Mr. Arbery of his constitutional rights.
The jury is out
Georgetown law professor Paul Butler believes the conviction of Derek Chauvin for Floyd’s murder was not the real test of whether U.S. justice is ready to hold police accountable for killing Black men. Three other former Minneapolis police officers are set to go to trial in August for their roles in Floyd’s murder. Prosecutors in these cases will find it harder to convince a jury that their conduct was criminal.
“A guilty verdict against these three would be even more significant than the jury’s conviction of Chauvin, because it would punish a far more routine form of police misconduct: active support for, or pretending not to see, another officer abusing his or her badge,” Butler writes.
J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao did more than just watch as Chauvin killed Floyd, the state alleges; they participated.
Kueng and Lane were rookies. It was Kueng’s third shift and Lane’s fourth day as an officer. Chauvin was Kueng’s training officer, Butler explains:
Their defense will emphasize their efforts to help Floyd. After Floyd went silent and his body limp, Kueng told Chauvin he could not detect a pulse. Lane asked whether they should roll Floyd on his side, but Chauvin declined. Thao apparently had no physical contact with Floyd as he was being held down by the other officers.
None of those are formal defenses to aiding and abetting, but the sympathy that jurors frequently feel for police officers in difficult situations is more likely to be invoked here than for Chauvin. In addition, both Kueng and Thao are people of color, which may help rebut the concerns about racism that, after Floyd’s death, launched the biggest social justice protests in the United States since the civil rights movement.
Butler concludes with a reflection on :
In my view, this is a case where any conviction and punishment — even a short prison sentence — would be better than none. It would be a step in dismantling the blue wall of silence under which first responders close ranks when they see another officer doing wrong — refusing to intervene even when it would be lifesaving.
Dismantling the blue wall might save lives. But it won’t unwind the paranoia, the hate, or the “Animal Farm” reasoning that some lives are more equal than others.