CRIMES CAUGHT ON CAMERA — Real And Imagined

Many people are worried about the slowly and at times not so slowly encroaching total surveillance state, but it has a definite up side. In the crime field, CCTV in particular has probably led to as many exonerations as convictions. Increasingly, mobile phones are being used to both indict and exculpate, especially by the public. Three very recent cases in the news from the United States are all being played out with a racial angle, but this is what we have come to expect from a media that often shows no semblance of impartiality.

The most tragic and outrageous of these cases concerns four police officers in Minnesota – three of whom happened to be white – and a black victim named George Floyd. Here is the video. If you regularly watch the news on YouTube you will probably remember the case of Eric Garner in New York with which this case is being compared. Although that happened way back in 2014, it was only last year that the final chapter was played out, with one police officer being fired and not a single indictment. The victim’s family received a massive out-of-court settlement, but with only one person receiving a minimal punishment, there was clearly no deterrent for heavy-handed policing, and this is the result. The Floyd case is on the face of it far worse than the Garner case because Eric Garner was grossly overweight and had serious health issues. And nobody knelt on his neck. Where is that in the policing manual?

The second incident concerned two people named Cooper: Amy Cooper was walking her dog in New York’s Central Park while Christian Cooper was bird-watching. Here is the incident with the de rigueur racial narrative by Good Morning America. Was there really a racial motive to this? Let’s put it another way, if you are a white dude, would you like to share an empty elevator with this woman? Of course not. Shortly after the incident, she was sacked from her post as head of Insurance Investment Solutions at the international company Franklin Templeton.

This may seem harsh, but it probably had little or nothing to do with race. Her 9-1-1 call was almost certainly not the proverbial moment of madness, and it is quite likely the company was looking for an excuse to get rid of her without facing one of those spurious law suits in Ellen Pao fashion. All the same, it is difficult not to feel sorry for her, just don’t get too close.

If innocent blacks feel they are targeted unfairly by police officers and madwomen, a lot of guilty ones are targeted nowadays because they record their crimes. If you haven’t seen the following footage of Jaden Hayden (pictured) abusing an elderly man in a Detroit nursing home, be warned, it is explicit.

As might be expected, the same people who were keen to attach the race card to the previous two incidents have been silent on this one, while those of the opposite political persuasion have done just the opposite. But this lowlife will garner little sympathy from other blacks. Police Chief James Craig reported his arrest, and at least one black YouTuber has suggested prison is too good for this guy. Granted he deserves a long stretch inside, but he is clearly both of very low intelligence and seriously wrong in the head. All the same, it was nice of him to video his crimes, although it would have been nicer if he hadn’t committed them in the first place.