There were three concurrent trials of police officers involved in shootings over the past few weeks. The trial of a St. Anthony, MN police officer and a Milwaukee, WI cop both resulted in Not Guilty verdicts, while in Cincinnati, Ohio a second trial of a former University of Cincinnati Police Officer will result in another hung jury. The Hamilton County, Ohio Prosecutor’s Office announced that they will hold a press conference next week when they will decide whether or not they will seeking a third trial. The Judge read a statement from the jury stating that they were evenly split.
Local television markets in all of the affected cities have hired legal “experts” to provide analysis to their viewers as to what is happening in these trials. The problem is that those experts attempt to apply State criminal standards to these cases and all they are really doing is further confusing a frustrated public.
Police officers are, by necessity, held to a different standard than the public at large. If all were held to the same standard, when a person refuses to submit to an arrest the officer would be required by law to walk away. By placing their hands on the arrested person, the officer(s) would be guilty of the crime of assault. That is the primary reason that the United States Supreme Court felt it necessary to give a national standard by which all Courts are bound.
What differentiates Cincinnati from other cases of recent note is that the prosecution chose to reduce the video evidence into milliseconds. In a frame-by-frame view, it is clear that the officer was not actually entangled into the vehicle. But that does not change the “perception” of the officer that his life was in imminent danger as the human mind cannot process information in milliseconds. Allowing that evidence would appear to violate the standard set by the Supreme Court and it should never had been admitted.
The people screaming for a third trial have no real interest in getting justice in this case. They only want revenge for their own real or perceived biases against law enforcement officers and the system as a whole.