(Stillness in the Storm Editor) The following article is quite shocking, but it highlights the corruption of the justice system—something that affects us all. The question of why the world is such a crazy place is often asked at some point during life, especially when considering if a truly good and just God exists. If a police officer can taser a person to death, and get away with it, how can the universe be fundamentally good?
In my attempts to gain an understanding of that question, I think the answer is simple in principle yet complex incomprehension. The short answer is, the world is such a crazy place because, in the aggregate, we let it get that way. Our purpose in this life is to make the world a better place—we are the force of divine intervention in this sense. If if you don’t believe in a Creator personality, surely you recognize that your actions play a part in shaping the world we live in. Thus, if everyone took up their personal responsibility, what could be done to improve the situation?
Of course, a single individual is not responsible for global suffering and hardship, especially in relation to police brutality. But when good people do nothing, evil flourishes. There are some issues that manifest through collective indifference, and as such, only collective action can remedy them. But initiating that collective action can be challenging, yet nonetheless worthy of our efforts.
What should become apparent as you review the following is that the legal and justice systems are corrupt almost beyond comprehension. Police have well-nigh complete immunity for crimes they commit, while judges and lawyers work their own forms of corruption, either covering up police violence or engaging in prison-for-profit schemes.
For most people, reckoning with injustice results in frustration, anger, and indignation—all healthy reactions.
Psychologically, when something manifests in life that we don’t value or desire, we experience negative emotions that are designed to enhance perception for data gathering so as to inform consciousness to correct the situation. In this case, most people value justice, the honoring of individual rights and the fair and just application of law, as such, when injustice is observed, we get mad.
But what comes next?
From here, we have to do something with our indignation, we have to find a viable solution, which resolves the conceptual conflict and imparts emotional stability.
What is the solution?
I would argue, the solution to injustice is justice. But the problem is, as a people, we’ve invested our rights of justice into untrustworthy hands—our institutions of justice are corrupt and ineffective. Almost everyone acknowledges the defunct nature of the justice system, yet we do little about it partially because it’s a complex problem to solve.
Systemic problems require holistic solutions. That means we, as a people, need to unite for change. And use logic, reason, and critical thinking to formulate viable practical solutions.
Here are some steps I think that would move us forward toward meaningful change:
First, we have to take time to understand the fullness of the problems at hand—or else in our effort to enact solutions, we’ll make things worse.
Second, we need to seek out and work with like-minded people. Cooperation is a must, which requires the ability to set aside minor conflicts in an attempt to broker effective alliances.
Third, we need to learn how to discuss controversial issues without getting emotionally triggered. We can’t allow disagreement about other issues to hinder unity with respect to solving bigger issues, like injustice. We can debate how amazing or horrible Donald Trump is after we’ve stopped human trafficking and put an end to systemic pedophilia. Divide and conquer programs abound—most of us have fallen prey to their influence. Thus, we must learn tolerance and forgiveness so we can unite around the more pressing issues.
Fourth, we need to have deep and comprehensive discussions, wherein each individual shares their experience, knowledge, and values. This provides an explicit form of negotiation that will develop rapport and cohesion around the focus of reforming the justice system. In general, the greater the challenge, the more the group that faces it needs to bond at a deep level, consider the strength of wartime heroes that bonded during times of oppression. Love is the answer in this sense, we must restore the human family.
Finally, we need to learn what true justice is, and how a just and fair legal system is supposed to work. We need to gain knowledge of true law and restore it in the hearts and minds of the people.
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Make no mistake, solving this problem of injustice is a massive undertaking, requiring patience, dedication, and long-game strategies. And while most people have avoided the difficulty of this task, there are those who are willing and able to make great strides for justice.
Our children will thank us for making the world a better place when we take up the Great Work of Restoring the Rule of Law.
In my opinion, the core solution to almost every problem we face is to form effective community groups—sometimes called think tanks. And when it comes to problems, the lack of proper rule of law is the grandmother of them all.
In time, we’ll make great strides, if we’re willing to start the effort.
As I recently heard in a TV show, “The steps you take don’t need to be big. They just need to take you in the right direction.”
– Justin
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Source – The Free Thought Project
by Matt Agorist, June 24th, 2018
A federal judge has ruled that a police officer acted with excessive force when he tasered a teen’s genitals—repeatedly—until the teen eventually died.
As the Free Thought Project reported last year, police were caught on video tasering a young man’s testicles and his body — until he died. Then, in June of 2017, we learned that although the Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson found that the officers involved had committed a crime during their torture — they cannot be charged. After a series of horrifying experiences, however, the family has finally seen some semblance of justice as a federal judge ruled this week that the family’s lawsuit can proceed against police.
Last year, to add insult to unaccountable injury and death, according to court documents, the cops defended their tactics, calling their torturous acts that fateful night, standard procedure.
Before the lawsuit was allowed to proceed by the federal judge this week, Mesquite police officers Jack Fyall, Richard Houston, Alan Gafford, Zachary Scott, William Heidelburg and Bill Hedgpeth, the ones responsible for the death of Graham Dyer, asked the judge to dismiss it.
“If I could go back in time and have this case, it would be indicted,” said Michael Snipes, the first assistant district attorney. “We would have pursued criminally negligent homicide charges.”
Showing that this lawsuit is only a partial victory, however, these charges cannot be brought now — in spite of the family only recently finding out about their son’s horrifying death — cops kept the footage of it secret long enough for the statute of limitations to expire.
As My Statesmen reported at the time, such charges cannot be brought more than three years after the incident, which came to the district attorney’s attention as the result of an American-Statesman investigation earlier in the year. And while there is no such limitation on the higher charge of manslaughter, Snipes said the officers’ behavior that contributed to Graham’s death didn’t reach the level of a knowing disregard for his life.
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Even though the judge agreed that police had not been negligent in caring for Graham, she still allowed the lawsuit to continue.
But, to Kathy Dyer, the negligence is glaring. “If I had seen Graham behaving like that I would have gotten him to the hospital as quickly as possible,” she said. “Simple as that. Anyone else would do the same for anyone they care even a little bit about. But they didn’t do that for Graham. No one was there to help. How do you justify that?”
On August 14, 2013, Kathy and Robert Dyer got a phone call one night that is every parent’s nightmare — their son, Graham, was in the hospital. The 18-year-old boy had been severely injured during a struggle with police and was fighting for his life — a fight he would lose.
When Kathy and Robert got to the hospital that night, police refused to let them see their son. “They said he was in serious trouble — that he had felony charges for assaulting an officer,” Kathy recalled.
Graham had taken LSD that night and his friends called police after he had a bad reaction to it. Police claimed Graham injured himself as they drove him to jail. While the video does show Graham flailing back and forth, police failed to mention to the parents that they’d tortured him, repeatedly, with a taser — including deploying it on his genitalia. It is for this reason that only one of the cops will be sued in the lawsuit—Gafford—who conducted the torture.
Even though they were originally inclined to believe police, Dyer’s parents continued to ask more and more questions, like what were all those “chicken feet” scratches all over Graham’s body? Or, why did the emergency room doctor’s notes say Graham appeared to be a victim of assault?
However, when Kathy and Robert went down to the Mesquite police department, they were not given answers to any of their questions — because police weren’t required to answer any of them. For years, police would keep the details of Graham’s death a secret.
According to the ridiculous state law, police departments aren’t required to hand over records for any incidents that don’t result in a conviction. Since police killed Graham before he was able to stand trial for his alleged crimes, they were shielded from handing over the evidence.
For years, the Dyers would fight to get this information from police. Eventually, because of their persistence, the Dyers finally obtained the video footage from their son’s last hours alive. When they viewed it for the first time, they realized everything police said that happened that night was a lie.
Those chicken feet scratches, they would learn, were from taser prongs.
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The family hired Susan Hutchison to build a civil rights case against the department. During her investigation, horrifying details emerged.
As My Statesman reports, Hutchison said the additional information contained more troubling details about Graham’s interaction with the police. Taser records indicated four officers shocked him multiple times, she said. As Graham is being stunned with a Taser in the back seat of the cruiser, one can be heard saying: “Mother[expletive], I’m going to kill you.”
And kill him they did.
At one point in the horrifying video, an officer is seen sadistically deploying the taser directly on Graham’s penis. It’s as if these officers enjoyed causing harm to this clearly distressed boy.
When asked about the use of the tasers, the department wrote it off as standard procedure.
“A Taser was deployed in an effort to control decedent, prevent escape and prevent him from injuring himself,” the city stated in court documents, adding the officer had been aiming for Graham’s leg and it was dark.
In court filings released last year, the officer seen shocking Graham in the groin explains that what appears to be occurring in the video isn’t what really happened, according to the Statesmen. And the officer who issued the death threat dismisses it as a “control tactic.”
However, in the video, we can clearly see the cop hold the taser to Graham’s genitals. This is, by no means, standard procedure to ‘prevent suspects from hurting themselves.’
Police are denying reality and claim that despite video evidence showing them taser the young man in the genitals, they never tasered the young man in the genitals.
In an affidavit describing his recollection of what occurred that night, Gafford, a 17-year police veteran, stated that no matter what appears to be happening in the video, he didn’t shock Graham in the crotch, according to a report out of the Statesman.
“I attempted to apply (my) Taser in a drive stun mode to stop his violent resistance and ended up tasing him in the upper thigh,” Gafford wrote. “Although the night vision video camera appears to depict this was in the groin area, it was the upper inner thigh.”
Scott, a police officer for 7 years, added that when he said, “I’m going to kill you,” it was only an attempt to control the teenager.
“I used harsh language during that stop out of frustration and also as a control tactic as I have learned that sometimes harsh language will get a person’s attention and achieve some cooperation,” he wrote.“Unfortunately, it did not work with Mr. Dyer.”
Even with this lawsuit, the Dyers keep hitting roadblocks in holding these cops accountable, like the statute of limitations protecting the criminal cops who killed their son.
As Hutchison said, police departments “In effect, have complete immunity and no accountability—at least in Texas.”
The Dyers aren’t even going after money. As My Statesman reports, Robert said his goal for the lawsuit is modest: “I just want them to say they fucked up.”
“I’m not saying doing LSD wasn’t stupid,” Kathy said. “And things happen. But this should have never happened.”
In spite of this selfless family getting railroaded by the corrupt system, they have taken action to make sure this doesn’t happen to other families.
As the Statesmen reports, Kathy and Robert testified in front of legislators in support of a bill that could help other families in their position.
Sponsored by Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, House Bill 3234 would have compelled law enforcement agencies to release their investigative records if, like Graham, the suspect had died, or, if not, gave his consent to their release. The couple’s emotional testimony appeared to move several of the lawmakers on the state House Committee on Government Transparency and Operation.
However, thanks to the police state worship in Texas, the bill only made it out of committee and then died.
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It is NOT negligence, it is out-right MURDER!! I just broke into tears when I saw this. There is so much inhumanity and cruelty going on in this world that I just don’t want to live in it anymore. And, when I see that there is also NO Justice either, my anger and then ultimate despair deepens.