The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Crazy People Are Dangerous (and Keep Getting Shot by Cops in Detroit)

Posted on | December 10, 2022 | 2 Comments

Last month, infamous legal pest Geoffrey Fieger filed two separate $50 million lawsuits against Detroit police for the fatal shootings of two mentally ill residents, Ki’azia Miller, 27 and Porter Burks, 20.

There’s a word for this, and that word is shakedown. It is a near-certainty that neither of these lawsuits will ever see the inside of a courtroom; instead, the city will negotiate a settlement with the plaintiffs, perhaps somewhere in the range of $2 million to $5 million per victim, and Feiger will collect his 50% commission, adding millions more to his multimillionaire status. Being a legal pest is quite a lucrative racket, but while a lawyer can grow rich from the proceeds of suing police departments — a direct transfer of wealth from taxpayers — the question needs to be asked whether this kind of “justice” actually does anything to improve law enforcement or the treatment of the mentally ill.

Before we discuss these shootings, or the policy implications involved, let’s first note that Detroit is in Wayne County, named for Revolution War hero and frontier fighter Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne (who, of course, is nowadays denounced by liberals as a racist). With a population of around 1.8 million, Wayne County is the largest county in Michigan and “the 19th-most populous county in the United States.” However, Wayne County has been losing population for the last half-century, and at the 2020 census had nearly 900,000 fewer residents than it did in 1970, a decline of 32.7% in 50 years. The population of Wayne County is 48% white and 37% black. Of the county’s 669,277 black residents at the 2020 census, the majority of them (493,212) lived in Detroit, a city whose population is 82% black. So it makes very little sense to claim that the police in Detroit are racist, and if these lawsuits result in a settlement, that money will be subtracted from the budget of a majority-black city. Maybe the black taxpayers in Detroit should ask themselves what “justice” there is in making Geoffrey Fieger richer. But I digress . . .

Did I mention that Wayne County is a Democratic Party stronghold? In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won Michigan by a margin of less than 3%, with 2,804,040 votes (50.6%) to President Trump’s 2,649,852 (47.8%). In Wayne County, Biden got 597,170 votes (68% of the county total) to Trump’s 264,553 votes (30%). You see that Biden’s margin in Wayne County (332,617) was more twice the size of his statewide margin (154,188) — i.e., Biden won Detroit, and Trump won the rest of the state. Detroit is the urban Democratic tail that wags the statewide Republican dog. Keep this in mind, as we consider the state of affairs in Detroit, where cops are shooting crazy people.

Porter Burks “was believed to have been experiencing a schizophrenic episode Oct. 2 while wandering his neighborhood on the city’s west side with a 3.5-inch knife. Concerned for Burks’ safety, his older brother had called police asking for help and for Burks to be admitted to a hospital.” Five Detroit police officers fired 38 rounds, 19 of which hit Burks. No charges will be filed against the cops involved:

[Wayne County Prosecutor Kym] Worthy sided with police . . . echoing Detroit Police Chief James White’s claim that responding officers had minimal time to “eliminate the threat.”
“The police spent a significant amount of time trying to get him to drop his weapon,” Worthy wrote in a statement. “He suddenly ran at them with the knife and covered the distance between them in approximately three seconds. Eyewitnesses to the shooting were interviewed and indicated that the police did all that they could to de-escalate the situation before Mr. Burks charged at the police.”

Prosecutor Kym Worthy (let); Police Chief James White (right)

I’m just going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Kym Worthy and James White are not racists who want to kill innocent black people.

Which brings us to the case of Ki’azia Miller:

The lawsuit alleges officers failed to execute the de-escalation tactics Detroit police are trained in — at least one officer was a member of Detroit Police’s Crisis Intervention Team.
Instead, three officers shot four rounds at Miller, and officers allegedly surrounded the home with assault rifles, according to the lawsuit. Miller’s family previously held a vigil for their loved one, demanding justice.
“It was obvious that the easily agitated 27-year-old Ms. Miller, who was dressed only in her underwear, was in the midst of a mental health crisis,” Fieger wrote in the lawsuit.
The officers ”were in no immediate danger while brutally taking down, assaulting, and fatally shooting four times the underwear-clad, mentally ill, and unarmed Ms. Miller who just assured the officers she did not, and was not going to, harm anyone,” Fieger continued. . . .
Miller’s mother, Lakisha Washington-Meeks, called police on Nov. 10 asking for help for her daughter, who she said was experiencing a mental crisis and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Washington-Meeks told police that Miller had hit her young child and was armed with knives, a bat and a gun. . . .
Detroit Police Chief James White said he had concerns regarding the killing and previously announced recommending the unpaid suspensions of three officers, including supervisor Sgt. Marvin Anthony. Another unidentified supervisor was taken off the streets and assigned desk work.
The Detroit Board of Police Commissioners denied White’s recommendation to have Anthony’s suspension be without pay.
No officers have been charged in Miller’s death.

We haven’t yet heard from the prosecutor’s office, but in the meantime, permit me to suggest that if you call 911 to report that your schizophrenic daughter is behaving violently and is “armed with knives, a bat and a gun,” and if she’s running around in her underwear ranting like a lunatic when the cops show up . . . Well, Crazy People Are Dangerous.

 



 

Category: Crime, Michigan

Comments

2 Responses to “Crazy People Are Dangerous (and Keep Getting Shot by Cops in Detroit)”

  1. Why would anyone want to become a cop these days? – THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.
    December 10th, 2022 @ 12:14 pm

    […] of course, attacks on the legitimacy of the police continue, from shakedown lawsuits in Detroit to the George Soros-sponsored, cop-hating defense lawyer serving as Philadelphia’s District […]

  2. FMJRA 2.0: Rogers Hornsby Was Right About That, Anyway : The Other McCain
    December 18th, 2022 @ 12:37 am

    […] Crazy People Are Dangerous (and Keep Getting Shot by Cops in Detroit) 357 Magnum EBL […]