LA Riots: 20 Years Later

I was in high school when the riots happened.  They affected me quite a bit and, while I was living in Florida at the time, they unfolded on CNN in nonstop coverage.  The riots reinforced my belief in firearm ownership and how fragile civilization and order are, particularly among the lower classes.  It wasn’t simply that crime exploded, but that any kind of united action against the police quickly overwhelmed the forces of law and order.  The riots lasted more than a week.  And we watched people getting beaten up and stores burned and looted and, most dramatically, complete shamelessness.  Joking and laughing as fires were lit and defenseless people were dragged from their cars and pummeled.

I was also struck by the stupidity and nihilism of it.  What kind of person burns down his own neighborhood?  Pounds someone into near death in a wolf pack?  I wondered from time to time during my years in Chicago if they could happen there too.  In the early 90s, the racial tension in Chicago was palatable.  Whatever illusions I had about racial harmony and the like after growing up in a comfortable suburb were totally destroyed by the LA Riots, the widespread racial divide over the OJ verdict a few years later, and the day-to-day anti-white hostility often seen on the South Side of Chicago. I was living in one world, and the mostly minority underclass might as well be from another planet.  I don’t know what profound lessons are to be learned from all this other than the fact that liberalism is wrong and built on lies and disinformation. 

Twenty years later, it’s amazing how the riots have been mostly forgotten.  Or covered up. 100 year old lynchings and the Jena Six get CNN specials, but the riots, not so much.  There’s not much that can be said positively about them, after all.  Burning down neighborhoods, shooting fireman, and racist killings of white and Asians are not exactly the stuff of romance and memory.  It was the symbolic equal and symbolic opposite of the civil rights movement.  As official racism, segregation, and overt discrimination ended, a new set of problems emerged that were characterized by illegitimacy, violence, and extreme hostility among the underclass.  The LA Riots just showed these things in extreme relief. The riots complicate what for liberal America is their greatest triumph.

Each age has its unique sins. But on one side of the divide we have Jackie Robinson and those dignified lunch counter protesters, well dressed, nonviolent, and polite in the face of cruelty.  On the other, we have brutality and hatred, the mirror image of the racist order that liberalism endlessly reminds us of to the eternal shame of America.

The Los Angeles Riots were horrible. And, based on how easily the same groups just got riled up over Trayvon Martin, we don’t seem to have accrued social capital–in spite of intervening events–to prevent something like the riots from happening again.

Medicine is Exaggerating the “Drop in Crime”

There’s a lot of celebration over our falling crime rate. Even Steve Sailer suggests the LA Riots may have fostered serious introspection in the black community over violent trends. Of course, this doesn’t square with recent phenomena like the flash mob riots and the like.

What if things are getting worse in the sense of more shootings and other aggravated assaults, but medical technology is saving lives that would have been murders only five or ten years ago? What if we’re having a moral meltdown masked by the resources and skill of the medical profession?

Consider the graph below re: shooting and homicide statistics in San Francisco. While shootings are up, up, and up, deaths are steady.  A higher proportion of shooting victims are surviving.  But they’re still shot, and it’s still a pretty serious thing to be shot, and even survivors are often bound to wheelchairs or otherwise out of commission.

Dave Grossman discussed this in his book On Killing a few years ago.  It’s always worth keeping in mind when homicide–the rarest of crimes–is discussed.  Many aggravated assaults would have been murders until very recently, and they’ve not fallen nearly as much.

Zimmerman: Key Witness “Dee Dee” Tweets a Lot!

An epic post on the identity, frame of mind, and other details associated with Trayvon’s alleged girlfriend DeeDee.  Kids these days apparently twitter every single thing they do, every emotional twist and turn, everything!  I can’t relate to this at all.  Yet this does make it much easier to get to know people and check their alibis.  Turns out DeeDee was probably not Trayvon’s girlfriend, not too traumatized (out shopping and picking baby names with new boyfriend days after Trayvon’s death), not hospitalized, not concerned about Trayvon’s dropped call, and not doing any of the things nor was she at any of the places described by Benjamin Crump.

Zimmerman: Bail Hearing

I thought O’Mara managed this situation brilliantly.

One, he humanized Zimmerman.  His soft voice on the witness stand, his calm conviction, and the bullying treatment of prosecutors will generate a great deal of sympathy simply based on the arrogant tone of the prosecutors.  While Angela Corey pretended to be objective (while threatening Zimmerman with 30 years), the trial prosecutors’ tone would have been more appropriate for a Ted Bundy; their emotions far outstrip the evidence.  Two, O’Mara tore major holes in the prosecution’s case, not least in showing their use of loaded language like “profiled” had no real defense, in showing that they had no evidence to contradict Zimmerman’s account of how the fight started and what happened, and in showing their affidavit was skewed completely and included what can only be called lies by omission.  Also, the prosecutors showed some real weakness in  making such a huge deal about Trayvon’s “right to be there,” which is true, but does not include a right to start wailing on people.  They also made a big deal about Zimmerman’s very minor run ins with the law over seven years ago, which sound perfectly explainable as either youthful hot-headedness or mistaken identity and, of course, would not ordinarily be admissible in trial.

And, of course, the bloody skull picture came out.  It fully supports Zimmerman’s account and is quite dramatic. This story is as much about the media as anything else, and it would be interesting to know how long ABC sat on this one:

This is an injury that one could die from. You see bleeding and a contusion.  People get punched in the face and die all the time, sometimes after one or two punches.  People certainly get stomped and pounded into concrete and die. Remember Reginald Denny.  If the beating recipient doesn’t die, often they’re injured for life, paralyzed, or a hell of a lot dumber when the whole business began. Zimmerman did not have to endure that.  Indeed, it sounds as if he endured quite a bit before he pulled the trigger based on the minute or so of screaming on one of the 911 calls.  But even if these particular injuries are not that bad–and they don’t seem so, quite yet–they appear to be the product of a serious beating with a seriously dangerous feature:  head meeting concrete.

This story will get dropped or ignored as the evidence starts to support Zimmerman.  Even black and liberal national opinion prefers a more clear cut “good guy” and “bad guy” than all this.  They didn’t go to bat for Crystal Magnum and they won’t here either.  Some of the hardcore agitators may continue to bitch and moan, but even many blacks, particularly black opinion makers, will say, “we only wanted an arrest, and this is what happens when you act like a knucklehead.”

Zimmerman Case: Lies by Omission?

In addition to its overall sloppiness, the state’s attorney’s affidavit in support of murder charges has a number of fairly egregious omissions, in particular the eyewitness account of Zimmerman being beat up, Zimmerman’s own testimony of being beaten up and attacked, and other factors supporting his self defense claims.

Florida criminal lawyer, Kevin Moot, writes the following, which seems directly relevant regarding “lies by omission” in a charging affidavit:

[T]he affidavit omits material evidence, as well as misstates a known fact. For instance, the affidavit claims that a police dispatcher “instructed” Zimmerman not to follow Martin. However, in the recorded phone conversation, the police dispatcher merely tells Zimmerman: “we don’t need you to do that.” While this may seem like a minor discrepancy, it is clearly inaccurate to state that the dispatcher “instructed” Zimmerman not to follow Martin. At a minimum, this misstatement of fact evinces a disregard for accuracy. What’s worse, the affidavit never makes mention of the 911 caller, who claimed that (1) Zimmerman yelled for help; and (2) that Martin as on top of Zimmerman, “beating up” on Zimmerman.While the affidavit claims that Zimmerman “admitted [to] shooting Martin,” the affidavit omits that Zimmerman claimed to have shot Martin in self-defense.

These omissions potentially render the Probable Cause Affidavit legally insufficient, and entitle Zimmerman to an evidentiary hearing on the sufficiency of probable cause. As the Florida Supreme Court held in Johnson v. State, 660 So. 2d 648 (Fla. 1995), if omitted material is added to an affidavit and thus defeats probable cause; and if the omission resulted from intentional or reckless police conduct with the intent to deceive, then a defendant is entitled to an evidentiary hearing.

Obama’s Miscalculation

Pat Buchanan says what I tried to say a few weeks ago though with a more practical focus on electoral politics than I did:

Obama foolishly inserted himself into this volatile case weeks ago, and injected the issue of race. Expressing empathy with the family of Trayvon Martin, Obama flashed a signal of racial solidarity:

“If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”

Obama also implied that he shares the liberal perspective that America is a country where black kids must walk in daily fear of white racist vigilantes.

“All of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.”

Translation: The death of Trayvon tells us something is wrong with America.

“And if Zimmerman, Trayvon, race, guns and stand-your-ground become voting issues this fall, how good is that for Barack Obama?”

Let’s hope, like the Cambridge Cop incident, he alienates the right kind of people and screws up his election.  For better or worse–much worse for Zimmerman–this case ain’t going anywhere for a while.

Some Big Unanswered Questions in the Zimmerman Case

Why Didn’t Martin Family Know What Happened Earlier?  Trayvon was supposedly buying tea and skittles for his little brother.  He went to store and never came back.  Later that night–but earlyish, 7:30–there’s a shooting in the complex.  Tons of cop cars appear and likely stick around for hours.  People mill about and talk about what happened.  His father and his fiancee, according to some reports, come back from a date later that night. In other reports–including their words the day after the shooting--it sounds like they were there all along.   But they don’t find out he’s dead until the next day.  Now they say they were looking all night.  Regardless, whether early or late, they come home or they are home and there is no Trayvon.  How old is this little brother? Why didn’t Traci Martin say, “Hey little man, where’s your brother?” Why didn’t little brother say, “Hey dad, Trayvon didn’t come home, and some crazy stuff went down here earlier tonight.”  It doesn’t make sense.  I read here it’s Brandi Green’s kid, Chad, and he’s 14.  He should have known what happened or at least been concerned by Trayvon’s absence, no?  My guess is some combination of Chad, Brandi, and Traci were not there, didn’t come until very late or the next day, or were getting high, or Trayvon was gone a few days and unsupervised, or they were doing something else embarassing which is why they didn’t really look for Trayvon that night, whether they were there or not.

Who Commits a Murder When He Knows the Cops are Coming Because He Called Them?  Zimmerman calls cops and knows they’re on way. Why in hell’s name would he also proceed to intentionally kill Travyon in accord with the second degree murder charge?  Does that make sense?  And does it make sense he’d start a fistfight under those circumstances, if his aim was to kill, and he had a gun on him the whole time?  If he started fight–since we’re all analyzing the depth of his head gash on the jail video–how many contusions, bruises, gashes and the like appear on the angelic Trayvon in his autopsy?  In other words, did Zimmerman land any punches?  And, if no, can he in any world be called the aggressor?

The Top Secret 7-11 Visit.  Travyon supposedly went to the store to get “tea and skittles” for his younger brother.  Where’s the video of him at that store?  Why isn’t the “last scene of his young life tragically cut short” not being played on endless loop on the TV news?  Why hasn’t clerk been interviewed?  Does this information exist? Is something embarrassing on the tape? Did he shoplift?  Was he home with his Dad “watching NBA” or home alone, since other accounts say folks on a date, or home with this unnamed younger brother? See above.  Is this story–which originated with Benjamin Crump, the occasionally dishonest family lawyer–a  bunch of nonsense to make the 17 year old Trayvon appear both noble and childlike?  Don’t know.  Some say the video’s been turned over to investigators.  But the media should be looking into all this, but they’re so lazy and prejudiced on this it’s not even funny.