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Andrew Branca on the Tyre Nichols beating — 17 Comments

1. I’ve now read or seen 2 analyses, each by a person having experience and deserving respect in this area of the law. Both agree that there the videos that have been made public do not support a charge, let alone a conviction, for an unlawful homicide.

   However, both analyses ignore the earliest part of this situation that has so far been publicized, namely the officers ripping Tyre Nichols out of his vehicle.

   That does not appear to be consistent with proper police procedure for what has so far been described as a traffic violation stop, and appears consistent with police officers who intend to deliver an unlawful beat down under the color of law. The fact that that unlawful beat down led to a death is tough luck for the officer perpetrators, and qualifies them for charges of unlawful homicide.

   However, note that I use the word “appeal.” I think we need more information regarding what, if anything, led to that traffic stop.

   That being said, I think the 2 analyses I refer to are just plain premature.

2. However, note that I use the word “appeal appear.”

3. I sincerely hope Branca posts a written version soon.

4. John Hinderaker recommends a report from one of their colleagues at AEI.
   https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/02/a-balanced-view-of-the-tyre-nichols-case.php
   “At AmericanExperiment.org, my colleague David Zimmer provides just that. David came to our organization after 33 years in the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department. He knows what he is talking about.”

5. Police are caught doing their job OR doing it poorly OR making mistakes (often under incredible pressure)…AND/OR THEY’RE FRAMED AND/OR ENTIRELY MISREPRESENTED.
   – Huge outcry.
   – Rant hysterically about defunding the police.
   – Police tried and imprisoned, get fired or decide to quit.
   – Thugs are hired instead.
   – Thugs act like thugs.
   Rinse and repeat:
   – Huge outcry.
   – Rant hysterically about defunding the police.
   – Police imprisoned, get fired or decide quit.
   – …
   – …
   Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

   Just another way to destroy a neighborhood/town/city/country!
   Indeed, let us count the ways….

6. Andrew Branca writes that Tyre “violently resisted arrest”.
   I can see no evidence of that in the videos. Indeed it sounds like Monty Python level mis-statement. “He violently hit my fist with his head”.

7. “…let us count the ways…”
   Hey, another way!
   “DEI Has Already Killed Public Education;
   “Leftist indoctrination begins in elementary school and continues through college graduation.”—
   https://spectator.org/dei-has-already-killed-public-education/

   Desantis is pushing back.
   One can only hope that he will succeed and that his success will encourage and empower other governors who care about the children in their state to act.

8. I don’t recall the Justine Damond case getting this much ink.

9. Excellent summary at the Power Line link.

10. Indeed, things are very much “going to plan”…
    “NYPD sees largest staff exodus in decades with leaders ‘refusing to acknowledge’ mounting crisis: union boss;
    “Some 3,701 members of the NYPD quit or retired last year, a high not hit since 2002”—
    https://www.foxnews.com/us/nypd-sees-largest-staff-exodus-decades-as-leaders-refusing-acknowledge-mounting-crisis-union-boss

11. finding a way to tick off everyone

    https://www.takimag.com/article/blacks-behaving-badly-in-memphis/

    yes they operated like the duke (isaac hayes) gang in escape from new york

12. I still cannot get my head around why he resisted. Of course the LA Times has suggested sainthood but why this happened is still a mystery to me. The autopsy drug screen may be revealing.

13. maybe he knew their rep, as with the ramparts cops, the backstory to this affair is still crowded in mystery,

14. Speculation on the run-up to the stop. The presence of multiple officers and vehicles, plus at least one of those vehicles is positioned to block the suspect vehicle from moving, support the possibility of a vehicle pursuit. (Yes, those occur sometimes without dispatch being aware of them.) If the team rides 2-deep then a couple of cars yields a crowd of cops.

    If there was a pursuit and they finally got him stopped and blocked (damage to the vehicles would shed light on the order in which that occurred), the usual thing would be to get to the driver and remove him from the car and shut down the motor. From the video– it appears one officer is leaning deep into the car with the door open making me think that the driver- Tyre – is under the officer, possible reaching for something on the passenger side…. Moves like that almost always escalate a situation like this. It might indicate that it was Tyre who got this ball rolling and the video released thus far is just the final act.

    None of this excuses the kicking. Cops are often the ones who catch most of the Mace/OC once it is deployed (ask me how I know). Bottom line, much more information needs to be seen before real decisions are made. The actual charging documents will make for interesting reading, when they are available.

15. @ Barry > “Desantis is pushing back.
    One can only hope that he will succeed and that his success will encourage and empower other governors who care about the children in their state to act.”

    He’s got some work to do, per Chris Rufo.

    https://www.city-journal.org/florida-state-university-adopts-dei-programming

    Officially, Florida State officials have claimed in a recent report to Governor Ron DeSantis that they support 23 separate DEI programs and initiatives. But beneath the surface, the ideology has embedded itself everywhere in the university.

    I have obtained documents through public searches and Sunshine Law requests that reveal a sprawling bureaucracy, dedicated to promoting left-wing racial narratives, including a seemingly endless array of programs, departments, trainings, certificates, committees, statements, grants, groups, clubs, reports, and initiatives.
    …
    At the administrative level, the DEI bureaucracy also serves as a filter to exclude anyone who does not commit to social-justice ideology. Some departments at FSU now require potential faculty to submit “diversity statements”—best understood as loyalty oaths to left-wing racialism—as part of the application process. Likewise, some academic programs also require graduate students to pledge allegiance to DEI in order to gain admission into the department.

    The result of all these programs is a racial and ideological spoils system, in which groups are rewarded or punished based on their identity and political orientation, rather than their academic merit. Following this system of race-based judgment, Florida State even offers scholarships that explicitly exclude white students. The Delores Auzenne Assistantship for Minorities, for example, is designated solely for “African-American, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, and Native-American” graduate students—no European-Americans need apply.

    The end goal of DEI ideology is to move everyone in the university’s orbit toward partisan political activism. In the Social Justice Ally Training, the university makes its desire clear: participants are directly encouraged to engage in “structural change activism” and “lobbying for policy change,” including “petition drives, picketing, performance art, teach-ins, vigils, overloading administrative systems, rent withholding, strikes, walk-outs, protests, marches, blacklisting, slow downs, sit downs, dumping, [and] demonstrations.”

    Knowledge, it seems, has been displaced as the core mission of this university. At Florida State, the diversity commissars have busied themselves making radical politics—administrated by the bureaucracy and imposed downward on students, faculty, and staff—the highest principle.

    If DEI were kudzu …

16. Democrat “heroes”, maybe. The officers are members of a specialized unit assembled to mitigate social and criminal progress in urbane domains. There is a question if DIE (Diversity,Inequity,Exclusion) and similar policies (e.g. Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter or SS BLM) was a cause and effect.

17. Maybe not as all as complicated as it seems, but maybe one of the oldest stories in the history of humanity.
    Reports today that Newsweek and a TN paper are asking the department to comment about a “personal relationship” between one of the officers and the dead man.
    (Dead man apparently involved w officer’s wife. Or ex-wife.
    ?A “teach him a lesson” gone very very bad?)

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