Category: Minnesota

The $250,000,000 Scandal That’s Wrecking Minnesota Democrats

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There haven’t been many public polls in the Minnesota governor’s race, but Republican challenger Scott Jensen is within striking distance of Democrat incumbent Gov. Tim Walz, who is now dealing with fallout from what federal prosecutors call “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged to date”:

The Department of Justice announced today federal criminal charges against 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally-funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic. . . .
“This was a brazen scheme of staggering proportions,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger for the District of Minnesota. “These defendants exploited a program designed to provide nutritious food to needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, they prioritized their own greed, stealing more than a quarter of a billion dollars in federal funds to purchase luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property abroad. I commend the work of the skilled investigators and prosecutors who unraveled the lies, deception, and mountains of false documentation to bring this complex case to light.”
The 47 defendants are charged across six separate indictments and three criminal informations with charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, and bribery.
As outlined in the charging documents, the defendants devised and carried out a massive scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program. The defendants obtained, misappropriated, and laundered millions of dollars in program funds that were intended as reimbursements for the cost of serving meals to children. The defendants exploited changes in the program intended to ensure underserved children received adequate nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than feed children, the defendants enriched themselves by fraudulently misappropriating millions of dollars in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.

The question is now being asked: What did Tim Walz know, and when did he know it? And his answers so far seem kind of shaky.

No one has claimed that Walz personally benefited from this fraudulent scheme, but rather that his administration failed to properly supervise the expenditure of federal funds through this “child nutrition” program run by the non-profit Feeding Our Future:

Aimee Bock’s organization was keeping a low profile as it handled millions in government money when the video appeared on Facebook in January.
It purportedly showed one of Bock’s employees receiving an astonishing wedding present: an ornamental cart, laden with so much gold that guests gathered around to see it up close.
Abdihakim Nur, a Somali activist and blogger who shot the video, said he heard the gold came from food vendors who were getting rich off the money they collected through Bock’s nonprofit, Feeding Our Future.
Nur was appalled, and his video created a stir in the Somali community.
“We cannot close our eyes to such corruption which will put our entire community’s name in the news as fraudsters and criminals when we only have a few bad apples,” Nur posted.
Five days later, the FBI raided Bock’s home and a sprawling government investigation went public.

Well done, Mr. Nur! Because, if you read the indictment, here are the names of the 47 people charged in this criminal scheme:

  • Aimee Marie Bock
  • Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh
  • Salim Ahmed Said
  • Abdulkadir Nur Salah
  • Ahmed Sharif Omar-Hashim
  • Abdi Nur Salah
  • Abdihakim Ali Ahmed
  • Ahmed Mohamed Artan
  • Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud
  • Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir
  • Asad Mohamed Abshir
  • Hamdi Hussein Omar
  • Ahmed Abdullahi Ghedi
  • Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed
  • Abdiaziz Shafii Farah
  • Mohamed Jama Ismail
  • Mahad Ibrahim
  • Abdimajid Mohamed Nur
  • Said Shafii Farah
  • Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin
  • Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff
  • Hayat Mohamed Nur
  • Qamar Ahmed Hassan
  • Sahra Mohamed Nur
  • Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud
  • Filsan Mumin Hassan
  • Guhaad Hashi Said
  • Abdullahe Nur Jesow
  • Abdul Abubakar Ali
  • Yusuf Bashir Ali
  • Haji Osman Salad
  • Fahad Nur
  • Anab Artan Awad
  • Sharmarke Issa
  • Farhiya Mohamud
  • Liban Yasin Alishire
  • Ahmed Yasin Ali
  • Khadar Jigre Adan
  • Sharmake Jama
  • Ayan Jama
  • Asha Jama
  • Fartun Jama
  • Mustafa Jama
  • Zamzam Jama
  • Bekam Addissu Merdassa
  • Hadith Yusuf Ahmed
  • Hanna Marekegn

Probably not a lot of Trump voters on that list, if you get my drift.

In defending themselves against accusations of administrative negligence, Walz and the state department of education say they tried to cut off payment to Feeding Our Future, but that the non-profit responded with a lawsuit falsely claiming racial discrimination.

Wait a minute — Democrats admitting that false cries of “racism” are used to exploit the system? Wow, it’s a new day in America.

But look at that list of names again. Regardless of the details of how Walz’s administration handled this, do you think the average voter in rural Minnesota can’t add 2+2 and find that the sum is 4?

“Let’s give millions of dollars in taxpayer money to Somalis” — that’s what this “child nutrition” program was really about, and which party do you think this political payola was meant to benefit? The problem was that the corruption was just too blatant, what with the “luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property,” to say nothing of the “ornamental cart laden with gold,” and at some point somebody at Minnesota’s department of education got worried about it. Eventually, they tipped the feds to their concerns and tried to halt the payments to Aimee Bock’s organization, but when this was answered by a racial discrimination lawsuit, they restarted the payments, and the “child nutrition” bonanza continued right up until the feds raided Bock.

The gubernatorial race in Minnesota is very close, and this scandal works entirely to the advantage of Republicans. Furthermore, there’s a toss-up House race in Minnesota’s 2nd District, where GOP challenger Tyler Kistner — who barely lost in 2020 — is trying again to oust Democrat Rep. Angie Craig. Now we learn that Somalis have been looting the taxpayers to the tune of $250 million, and you’ve got to think that scandal doesn’t help the Democrat incumbent in this House campaign.




 

Crazy People Are Dangerous

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Minneapolis has proved itself a lucrative source of income for Ben Crump, who got his share of a $27 million settlement on a wrongful death claim in the George Floyd case, so now he’s back for another bite with the case of 20-year-old Andrew “Tekie” Sundberg. It is unknown what led to Sundberg’s mental health crisis prior to the six-hour armed standoff that began about 9:30 p.m. when a neighbor (about whom, more in a minute) called 911 to report that Sundberg had fired a gun through the walls of her apartment. Sundberg then holed up in his third-floor apartment while police evacuated the building, set up a perimeter and tried to negotiate his surrender. This continued until about 4:30 a.m. Thursday, when two SWAT team snipers posted on a nearby roof shot Sundberg.

“Tekie” was 4 years old when he was adopted from Ethiopia by Mark and Cindy Sundberg, who said in a statement:

Like millions in America and worldwide, Tekle struggled with his mental health. While we have received very little information thus far, by all accounts, it sounds like our Tekle was suffering from a mental health crisis. . . . The family has been given very little information about why Tekle’s mental health crisis became a death sentence.

Was this basically a “suicide by cop” situation? Trust me, it’s not just black people that get shot by cops in such situations. How many YouTube videos have I watched of bodycam footage where the cops are trying to “de-escalate,” pleading with the suspect — “Just drop the knife, man, so we can talk” — before he finally charges at them and gets shot? This kind of scenario is common enough that I’ve seen it play out dozens of times on YouTube, and involves crazy people of all races and ethnicities, so I can definitely say Cindy Sundberg is wrong about this:

Cindy Sundberg, who is white, said she believes her son would still be alive if he was white like her biological children.
“Everyone knows had it been a white person in that building, they would have talked him out, they would have waited,” she said.

Not true, but so far, we don’t know what it was that prompted the SWAT team snipers to shoot, and it would be irresponsible to speculate. But what went wrong with Tekie?

Steve Scofield coached Sundberg for two years when he was in 7th and 8th grade, and remembered him as a “sweet” kid. Tekle and Scofield’s son were friends.
“He had a big heart, really sweet kid,” Scofield said. “When I saw him a couple years ago when he was an adult, we hugged. He always struck me as a really sweet, misunderstood kid.” . . .
“I just feel like he didn’t get the support he needed, because the Tekle that I knew was just the sweetest kid,” Scofield said. “Every time I saw him, we hugged and we just exchanged kind words. He seemed like a really sweet person to me.”
He last saw Sundberg a few years ago.
“A few years ago my wife and I were out eating and he just happened to work at the restaurant,” Scofield said. “As usual, I gave him a big hug. We talked for a few minutes, and just asked how he was doing. That was the last I saw him.”

His parents said he “struggled with mental health” without getting more specific, and Tekie’s former soccer coach said that Tekie was working at a restaurant “a couple years ago,” so what can explain this descent into deadly madness? When protesters held a “Justice for Tekie” rally outside the apartment building where he was killed, they were interrupted by the woman whose 911 call led to the SWAT standoff:

A Minneapolis mother of two was seen on video confronting protesters who gathered outside of an apartment building where a Black man, Andrew “Teckle” Sundberg, was shot and killed by police last Thursday.
“This is not a George Floyd situation. George Floyd was unarmed. This is not okay,” the mother, identified as Arabella Foss-Yarbrough, was seen on video yelling at a group of protesters on Saturday.
Foss-Yarbrough was the neighbor of Sundberg, and said he shot up her apartment Wednesday evening while she was cooking for her 2- and 4-year-old sons, Fox 9 reported. She said the bullets ripped through her apartment, and nearly left her family dead or injured. . . .
“My kids have to deal with this and probably have a mental illness now because they almost lost their lives. There’s bullet holes in my kitchen because he sat in the f–ing hallway watching me move,” she said while confronting the protesters. “He tried to kill me in front of my kids.” . . .
Foss-Yarbrough called police during the shooting on Wednesday, who helped the family escape. As police responded to evacuate the building, “officers started taking fire,” according to a search warrant. The incident led to a six-hour standoff between police and Sundberg, which ended when two Minneapolis snipers shot the 20-year-old.
“I have Black children; I am a woman of color!” Foss-Yarbrough, who is of Black, white and Native descent according to the star Tribune, yelled at the demonstrators. “If I would have lost my life, would you guys do this for me?”

Yeah, where’s her “social justice”? No matter how much sympathy one might have for “Tekie” Sundberg, the fact remains that he was armed and had fired shots that endangered this woman and her children. However, the incident that precipitated this standoff was not the first time Andrea Foss-Yarbrough had a problem with “Tekie” Sundberg. According to a GoFundMe page set up by her older sister, Sundberg “had been harassing her and stalking [Foss-Yarbrough] for months.” Gosh, isn’t it strange that the media covering this case haven’t followed up on that clue? If I were an editor at a local newspaper in Minneapolis, I’d be expecting my reporters to follow that lead and get to the bottom of it: What was the nature of Sundberg’s “harrassing . . . and stalking behavior” toward this woman? Was it some sort of erotic fixation? Were there other neighbors who felt threatened by Sundberg’s behavior? What about his employment situation? Was he still working? Had he been under psychiatric care? Was there a diagnosis of his mental illness? Was he off his meds?

But we don’t have answers to any of those questions, because apparently the local media in Minneapolis doesn’t know how to follow-up on leads, so all we can say now is what we’ve been saying for years:

CRAZY PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS!




 

The Logical Conclusion of ‘Social Justice’

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When mobs rioted in Minneapolis last year, the chaos and destruction became a fundraising opportunity for the Minneapolis Freedom Fund (MFF), an organization dedicated to keeping criminals on the street. Simply put, MFF bail suspects out of jail, no questions asked:

The non-profit Minnesota Freedom Fund says this system of bail is “unjust,” and that wealth should never determine who is kept in jail, which is exactly what the American bail system does. In 2016, the non-profit formed and began raising funds and bailing Minnesota residents out of jail.
“We have always prioritized those who are unable to pay for freedom and face the greatest level of danger and marginalization,” wrote Greg Lewin, MFF interim director. . . .
“Putting it bluntly, cash bail is an abusive system that criminalizes poverty and takes a disproportionate toll on Black people, indigenous people, and people of color. It doesn’t matter whether you are guilty or innocent – if you cannot afford to post your bail, you will stay in jail until your trial,” wrote MFF’s Lewin. . . .
“Our goal has always been to free as many people as possible and then put ourselves out of business by ending pretrial detention,” Lewin wrote. . . .
For MFF, it’s not about the crime, but the system.
“I often don’t even look at a charge when I bail someone out,” Lewin said. “I will see it after I pay the bill because it is not the point. The point is the system we are fighting.”

It is an abuse of language on a grand scale to say that requiring bail “criminalizes poverty.” The Eighth Amendment of our Constitution reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Interestingly enough, that language is borrowed from the English Bill of Rights of 1689, a statement inspired by the punishment of Titus Oates, the perjurer who fabricated “The Popish Plot” and sent innocent men to their deaths.

Who can say whether the bail requirement in any particular case is “excessive”? Over the years, the question has been examined by legislatures, courts and commissions. Certainly the intent is not to “criminalize poverty” and, as our Constitution also guarantees (Sixth Amendment) the right to a speedy trial, our nation’s jails are not filled with innocent men languishing behind bars for no good reason.

If you know anything about how the criminal justice system actually works, the real cost of bail is usually 10% of the amount assessed. You go to a bail bondsman, sign an agreement that makes you liable for the entire amount if you don’t show up in court, and pay 10% up front. So if bail is assessed at $10,000, you (or your family members) only have to come up with $1,000 — not an “excessive” amount. There was an entire reality show, Dog The Bounty Hunter, about rounding up bail-jumpers who skipped out after signing bond agreements.

This is the “system” which MFF is “fighting.” Why are they fighting the system? Because the system works — MFF is run by radicals who want to destroy America, period, and destroying the criminal justice system is merely part of that radical agenda. When I say that the existing bail system works, what I mean is that, because the vast majority of criminals in America’s jails are actually guilty, bailing them out between the time of their arrest and the time of their trial would only grant them more opportunity to commit crimes. Simple question: Why do you think nobody who actually knows them is willing to bail them out?

Suppose your son or your brother, whom you know to be a law-abiding citizen in general, goes to a party and gets into a drunken fight that results in him being arrested on an assault charge. Such things happen when people get drunk at parties, and you don’t condone this behavior, but this is the first time your son or brother has ever had any problem with the law, and it is reasonable for you to hope that he will be able to get a plea deal to avoid prison. So his bail is set at $5,000 and you go to the bail bondsman, sign the agreement and pay $500 so he can go back to work while he awaits trial. This is the “system.” It works.

The system also works (or, at least it did, before the “social justice” mob got involved) in terms of keeping career criminals behind bars. Most serious crime in America is committed by a comparative handful of habitual criminals who cycle in and out of the criminal justice system. They’re either behind bars or they’re committing crimes — never once in their lives have they done anything else. So the 18-year-old is convicted of robbery, sent to prison for a couple of years, gets back on the street and within a matter of weeks or months, is arrested again. Is anyone who knows this 20-year-old felon going to bail him out? Probably not, and therefore he will remain locked up in jail until he cops a plea deal and goes to prison, where he belongs. Problem solved — the system works.

Unless you’re a criminal, or the kind of radical who wants to destroy America, there’s nothing wrong with our bail system. And turning loose dangerous criminals has serious consequences:

A bail fund promoted by Vice President Kamala Harris helped lead to the release of an alleged Minneapolis domestic abuser — who has been charged with murder in a road-rage slaying.
George Howard, 47, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder for allegedly shooting Luis Damian Martinez Ortiz, 38, during a road-rage incident on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis on Aug. 29, KSTP reported.
Surveillance video reportedly showed Ortiz getting out of his blue BMW and approaching Howard’s white Volvo before Howard shot the other man and fled. Ortiz died from a gunshot wound to the chest, officials said.
Just weeks earlier, Howard, a Minneapolis man barred from having a firearm due to previous convictions, was released on $11,500 bond in a domestic assault case on Aug. 6, court records cited by Fox News show. He was bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund — which was touted last year by Harris.

Wait a minute — you’re driving a Volvo, but you can’t afford to pay bail? Do victims of oppression drive Volvos? It would have cost George Howard only $1,150 to get out of jail, and surely a Volvo driver should be able to come up with such a modest amount, so why did MFF even need to get involved? Oh, let me guess: It’s because they piled up such a huge stash of cash last year that MFF is now so desperate to spend this money that they’re bailing out all kinds of criminals, no questions asked.

Knowing what we know about criminal recidivism rates, it is merely a matter of arithmetic — statistical probability — that many of those bailed out by MFF will subsequently be charged with serious crimes committed while they were free on bail. What was George Howard’s record?

Howard’s criminal history in Minnesota includes three convictions for disorderly conduct, and one each for assault and for illegal weapons possession.

Convicted felons are prohibited from possessing firearms. George Howard had at least five convictions on his record — note the qualifying phrase “in Minnesota,” which suggests Howard may have a record in other states — and while “disorderly conduct” may describe trivial misdemeanors, we don’t know the facts of those cases. Very commonly, a misdemeanor conviction is the result of a plea bargain in which the suspect was originally charged with a felony, e.g., arrested for assault, but pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. Whatever the specifics of the disorderly conduct cases on Howard’s record, the “illegal weapons possession” charge indicates he had at least one prior conviction that disqualified him from firearms possession, and that was before he was charged with domestic violence. Anyone who investigated Howard’s record would conclude that he had violent tendencies, exactly the kind of tendencies that would lead to shooting somebody in a “road rage” incident. But remember George Lewin said he usually doesn’t “even look at a charge when I bail someone out,” because the point is “the system.”

The reason Kamala Harris endorsed this radical organization is because she shares their goal of destroying “the system.” That’s what the riots in Minneapolis and other cities last year were really about — the idea that “social justice” requires complete destruction of our society, especially including law enforcement. Kamala Harris and MFF want to empty the prisons and turn loose an army of violent criminals to terrorize America, which is why MFF bailed out a previously convicted sex offender who was accused of raping an 8-year-old girl. If you voted for Kamala Harris, that is the agenda that you were voting for. And it’s everywhere now.

There is no place in America where you are safe, because Democrats everywhere are committed to an agenda of turning loose dangerous criminals who ought to be behind bars. In any community where Democrats elect the district attorney (i.e., most major American cities), this agenda of “social justice” is abetting robbery, rape and murder.




 

‘Start This War They Keep Asking For’

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What is the goal of the Black Lives Matter movement? To make it impossible to arrest and prosecute criminals? Because that would seem a logical inference from recent events in Minneapolis:

Burning, rioting, and looting broke out in Minneapolis on Friday night after deputies shot and killed a wanted felon who fired on them. Deputies assigned to the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force attempted to take the man wanted for being a felon in possession of a firearm into custody.
Police officials in Minnesota say the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force attempted to arrest 32-year-old Winston Boogie Smith on June 3 for a warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm, the Associated Press reported. As sheriff’s office deputies assigned to the task force approached Smith’s vehicle, he reportedly refused to comply with orders and pulled a handgun. Officials confirmed Smith fired at least one shot from inside his car.
A statement from the Marshal’s Service said Smith was in a parked vehicle and “produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject.” Smith died at the scene from wounds from two deputies’ shots.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reported that state investigators found a gun in Smith’s car along with a spent cartridge indicating Smith fired from inside his vehicle, the AP article states.
Following the shooting on Thursday, rioters marched in the streets, set fires, and began vandalizing and looting businesses, the AP reported. Police arrested nine people on charges following the night of violent activity.

Do we want convicted felons on the street carrying firearms? No, and so an arrest warrant for Smith was issued and the officers sent to execute this warrant knew that Smith was in possession a pistol — does the phrase “armed and dangerous” ring a bell here? When cops go to arrest someone known to be armed and dangerous, what do we expect will happen if the suspect fails to cooperate with his arrest? Oh, wait:

In the aftermath of the shooting, Smith’s social media activity came under scrutiny after we found posts on his Facebook profile in which he bragged about shooting a police officer if he was shot at and would not surrender “like the rest.”
“Officer please don’t shoot at me cuz ima [I’m gonna] shoot back I ain’t so sucker like the rest I ain’t going with my hand up” Smith wrote in a Facebook post in September 2019.
In other posts, shared days after the death of George Floyd as the city of Minneapolis erupted in riots, Smith wrote about burning down police stations and starting a “war” against law enforcement. “justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice!,” he wrote in one of the posts.
Smith was sentenced to 48 months in prison in October 2018 for aggravated robbery in the first degree but the judge stayed his sentence and let him out on parole.

“We got guns and bullet proof vest too or should be able to get em … why not just rush these f–ks and start this war they keep asking for!” he raged on Facebook.
“F–k justice anyway b—h justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice! Right or wrong f–k being right cuz they keep doing us wrong.
“I’m down with the burn everything government not touch sh-t else I don’t even need to loot I’ll buy my sh-t just kill them dirty ass cops off we tired of being scared at the red light!” he wrote.

Yeah, buddy, you got the war you were asking for.

They ought to pin a medal on the cop who shot you.




 

CHAUVIN GUILTY

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Despite the big win for the “social justice” crowd, it can be expected that there will be nationwide riots tonight. Kind of like BLM won the Super Bowl of racial grievance, and now must celebrate by looting.

UPDATE: Time to go grab a free TV or whatever:

Nice country we had for a while. Shame it all had to burn down.

UPDATE II: Quote of the day:

“Thank you, George Floyd,
for sacrificing your life for justice.”
— Nancy Pelosi

She forgot to thank George’s fentanyl dealer.

UPDATE III: Contrary to widespread concern, there appears to have been no riots Tuesday night, at least not in Minneapolis. Of course, Antifa smashed windows in Portland, but that’s just the nightly routine there now, I guess.




 

Nothing Can Placate the BLM Riot Mob, and ‘Journalists’ Are Part of the Mob

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No matter what the facts are, the Narrative must always triumph — this is what “journalism” means in the 21st century:

Reporters loudly objected to the use of the word “riot” by a Minnesota police chief after his officers were assaulted and injured by bricks, rocks, and frozen soda cans, he explained. The chief defended the term by describing the incidents encountered by officers at the station Sunday night.
“Just so everybody is clear, I was front and center at the protest, at the riot,” Brooklyn, Minnesota, Police Chief Tim Gannon told reporters during a press conference Monday. His response came to a question from reporters about why he authorized the use of gas canisters following the issuance of a dispersal order.
In the video tweeted by the Washington Examiner Monday, one reporter exclaims, “There was no riot.” Another shouts “Don’t do that!” Multiple other reporters joined in with those objecting to the word “riot.”
“There was,” Chief Gannon countered. “the officers that were putting themselves in harm’s way were being pelted with frozen cans of pop, they were being pelted with concrete blocks.”
The chief continued, “Yes, we had our helmets on. We had other protection gear. But an officer was injured, hit in the head with a brick … he was transported to the hospital. So, we had to make decisions, we had to disperse the crowd because we can’t allow our officers to be harmed.”
The riot and looting on Sunday night followed what Gannon described the possibly an “accidental shooting” of Daunte Wright. A video released by the police department shows an officer deploying her service pistol while shouting, “Taser, Taser, Taser.” A second later she fires her pistol and shouts in dismay, “Holy [expletive]. I shot him.”

That was Monday. Today is Wednesday, and the riots continue despite the fact that (a) Chief Gannon resigned Tuesday, (b) Officer Kim Potter, who accidentally shot Daunte Wright, also resigned Tuesday, and (c) Officer Potter was arrested this morning and charged with manslaughter.

Did I mention (d) Daunte Wright was a dangerous criminal?

“Wright was due to face trial on a charge of attempted aggravated robbery – with a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in prison,” the [Daily Mail] reported on April 13.
The charge stems from an incident in December 2019 when Wright, then 19 years old, and a second man named Emajay Driver, then 18 years old, allegedly visited a residence shared by two women in Osseo, Minnesota. Wright allegedly tried to hold up one of the women to steal a sum of $820 in cash she had stashed inside her bra. Wright allegedly pointed a gun at the woman, choked her, and threatened to shoot her if she did not hand over the money.
“The $820 cash was tucked in the victim’s bra and defendant Wright placed his hand around victim’s neck and choked her while trying to pull the cash from under her bra,” according to Officer Mikkelson. “Victim was able to get loose from defendant Wright and started to kneel down and scream.”
“After more yelling, Wright allegedly told the woman that he was going to shoot her unless he got the money,” according to the Daily Mail.
Wright’s bail for the charge was originally set at $100,000, “with orders that he should not contact the victim or any witnesses, refrain from drugs and alcohol and not have any weapons. A bond bailsman paid $40,000 for his release,” the Daily Mail reports.
Wright’s bail was revoked in July 2020, however, “due to his ‘failure to not possess a firearm or ammunition’ and not keeping in touch with his probation officer,” according to court papers seen by the Daily Mail. A judge issued a warrant for Wright’s arrest at that time. The arrest warrant was still outstanding on April 11, the day he died.

Never mind the facts, however. CNN is too busy inciting more riots, because that’s good for their ratings or whatever: “Journalism.”




 

George Floyd and ‘The Riot Ideology’

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The best book on the failure of liberal urban policy is Fred Siegel’s The Future Once Happened Here: New York, D.C., L.A., and the Fate of America’s Big Cities. Siegel devotes much analysis to the “riot ideology” whereby organized violence (or the threat thereof) is used to intimidate officials into doing the bidding of “community leaders.”

What we are witnessing in the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin is how the “riot ideology” impacts law enforcement. Because George Floyd was black, and because Officer Chauvin is white, there is no presumption of innocence. Chauvin’s guilt is assumed as a fact, and if he is not convicted, the verdict will be regarded as an injustice — “systemic racism” — as a pretext for a riot, much the same way the verdict in the Rodney King case inspired the Los Angeles riot of 1992.

From the standpoint of law enforcement, this is a lose-lose proposition. Either officers are effectively prohibited from enforcing the law — because cops face legal jeopardy if they attempt to apprehend a suspect who resists arrest — or else the city is destroyed by violence. This is “democracy” as mob rule, where the criminal element holds the entire community hostage with the assistance of “civil rights” activists (e.g., Ben Crump) and the liberal media. The narrative of racial “injustice” requires that certain inconvenient facts be made to disappear.

It should be obvious, for example, that Officer Chauvin and other members of the Minneapolis police were not just randomly killing black people to advance some “white supremacist” ideology. When cops were called to the Cup Foods store last May to deal with a counterfeiting case, they did not murder every black person present at the store. George Floyd was in the company of two black accomplices, Morries Lester Hall and Shawanda Renee Hill, both of whom had criminal records, but neither of whom was harmed by the police. How can “systemic racism” explain this?

Body camera footage from Officer Thomas Lane, one of the first two cops to arrive on the scene, shows George Floyd’s erratic behavior:

 

Floyd’s movement inside the SUV caused Lane to fear he might be reaching for a handgun, so he ordered Floyd at gunpoint to put both hands on the wheel, while he radioed for backup. Lane then told Floyd to put his hands on top of his head and step out of the vehicle (1:02 in the video). It took about 30 seconds to get Floyd to exit the vehicle, then another 30 seconds to get him handcuffed. After that, Lane leaves Floyd to his partner, Officer Alexander Keung, while Lane deals with Hall and Hill. Things take a turn for the worse when Lane and Keung try to put Floyd in the back of their squad car:

Lane: What, are you on something right now?
Floyd: No, nothing.
Kueng: Because you are acting a little erratic.
Lane: [leading Floyd to the car] Let’s go. Let’s go.
Floyd: I’m scared, man.
Lane: Let’s go.
Kueng: You got foam around your mouth, too?
Floyd: Yes, I was just hooping earlier.

We are told that “hooping” is slang for “putting drugs in the anus, resulting in a quick and intense high.” Is that how George Floyd got a dose of fentanyl that was three times the lethal level?

Floyd refused to sit in the squad car, saying he was “claustrophobic” and his resistance — Floyd was 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds — made it impossible. It was at Floyd’s request that the officers put him on the ground instead, but not before he had said seven times “I can’t breathe.”

 

The activist narrative insists these facts be ignored. They call it “victim blaming” when critics point to Floyd’s behavior, and assert, “Derek Chauvin is on trial, not George Floyd.” But you see that (a) there never would have been a trial if Floyd had simply gotten in the back of the squad car, (b) Floyd’s erratic behavior is evidence of the severity of his fentanyl overdose, and (c) how are cops supposed to deal with a drug-crazed giant who refuses to cooperate with his arrest?

Do we or don’t we want to enforce the law? That is the real question, and what sort of answer do we get if this question is reduced to the eight-minute video of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck?

Too little consideration is being given to the larger social consequences of permitting the Black Lives Matter narrative to prevail, not just in this specific case, but in the general matter of how placing unreasonable limits on law enforcement will allow crime to proliferate. What happens if “social justice” makes it impossible for cops to do their jobs? Well, in Minnesota, the number of handgun permits increased last year to 96,554, up from 51,404 in 2019 — a one-year increase of 88%.

If cops can’t protect you — and Black Lives Matter is about destroying law-enforcement in America — you’ll have to protect yourself.

Liberal are not likely to be happy with the result.




 

What Was George Floyd Doing?

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Most people seem to believe that Derek Chauvin is going to be found guilty, simply because of the emotional content of the testimony, and I suppose they’re right. Today, the prosecution called George Floyd’s girlfriend as a witness, and she boo-hooed during most of her testimony, which was characterized in the media as being about her and her boyfriend’s “struggle with addiction.” Excuse me if my eyes just rolled out of my head, but where was all this sympathy for drug users back when I was a teenage dope fiend? If I had gotten myself killed by cops while being arrested back in the day, I’m pretty sure nobody would have rioted on my behalf. Just another dead teenage dopehead — so what?

The emotional components of this trial, with George Floyd turned into a martyr for “social justice,” and Derek Chauvin treated as a symbol of “systemic racism,” may well indeed suffice to produce a guilty verdict, but on the other hand, maybe facts still matter. And the fact is that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose, with three times the lethal level of fentanyl in his system. It was obvious to Chauvin and the other cops on the scene that Floyd was under the influence of something, but they had no way of knowing that he had swallowed enough fentanyl to kill himself. However much emotion is generated by the video of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck, that’s not what killed him.

But let’s talk about something else that’s quite relevant to this case, namely, what was George Floyd doing at that store?

You can click here to read a detailed timeline of events. The fact is that George Floyd arrived at that store in the company of two career criminals, Morries Lester Hall and Shawanda Renee Hill. Early media accounts of Floyd’s death described Hill as Floyd’s girlfriend, even though he had another girlfriend, Courteney Ross, who was the one who testified at the trial today. Both Hill and Hall had records:

Morries Lester Hall (42) would flee Minneapolis two days after the incident and hitchhike to Houston, Texas, where he was originally from. He had outstanding warrants for his arrest in Minnesota. He had a previous arrest record and convictions in Minnesota for first-degree felony assault, burglary, aggravated robbery, and multiple domestic assault charges between 2012 and 2018. He would be detained in Houston and interrogated by Minneapolis investigators there pending extradition. He also had a criminal history in Texas. He was wanted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. . . .
Shawanda Renee Hill (45) . . . had a previous arrest record and convictions for check forgery, felony theft, disorderly conduct, solicitation for prostitution, and stalking and domestic abuse between 1997 and 2016.

Courteney Ross testified that she believed Hall and Hill were supplying Floyd with drugs. They also had evidently involved him in attempting to pass counterfeit currency, which was why the cops were there.

This wasn’t made clear in the media accounts of the events leading up to Floyd’s death. What happened was that Floyd and Hall went into the store while Hill waited outside in the SUV Floyd was driving. Floyd bought a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 while Hall attempted to buy some electronic equipment with more counterfeit $20s. The clerk who dealt with Hall spotted the counterfeit and refused the purchase. Then the store manager, realizing Floyd had entered the store with Hall, asked the clerk at the tobacco counter to check the $20 Floyd had given him, and learned that it was also counterfeit.

Then two store employees, seeing Floyd still outside leaning on the hood of the SUV, go out to confront him, demanding he return the cigarettes and the change he’d gotten. Floyd refuses. The two employees go back inside the store, then return with a third employee. Again, Floyd refuses to return the cigarettes and the change. One of the employees takes down the tag number of the SUV, and then they go back inside the store. It’s now about 8 p.m., roughly 15 minutes after Floyd first entered the store. At 8:01, one of the employees calls 911:

Operator: 911 what’s the address of the emergency?
Caller: This is ah 3759 Chicago AV.
Operator: How can I help you?
Caller: Um someone comes our store and give us fake bills and we realize it before he left the store, and we ran back outside, they was sitting on their car. We tell them to give us their phone, put their (inaudible) thing back and everything and he was also drunk and everything and return to give us our cigarettes back and so he can, so he can go home but he doesn’t want to do that, and he’s sitting on his car cause he is awfully drunk and he’s not in control of himself.
Operator: Okay, what type of vehicle does he have?
Caller: And…. um he’s got a vehicle that is ah…ah he got a vehicle that is ah…one second let me see if I can see the license. The driver license is BRJ026.
Operator: Okay, what color is it?
Caller: It’s a blue color. It’s a blue van.
Operator: Blue van?
Caller: Yes, van.
Operator: Alright blue van, gotcha. Is it out front or is it on 38th ST?
Caller: Ah it’s on 38th ST.
Operator: On 38th ST. So, this guy gave a counterfeit bill, has your cigarettes, and he’s under the influence of something?
Caller: Something like that, yes. He is not acting right.

You see that the store employee mentioned Floyd’s intoxication — he was “not in control of himself . . . not acting right.” As it turned out, he had taken fake Percocet tablets that were actually a mixture of fentanyl and methamphetamine. This was the garbage dope Hall was apparently dealing, and also, it seems, running a counterfeit cash operation.

Possession of counterfeit currency is a federal crime that can get you up to 15 years in prison. A lot of people, upon hearing that the cops were called on Floyd because of a fake $20 were like, “They killed him for $20,” but several other fake $20s were found in the SUV, and there hasn’t been much reporting on the investigation of that crime, but this incident might have been the tip of an iceberg of a much larger conspiracy. Somebody in Minneapolis was circulating counterfeit currency, and the role of Morries Hall in this crime cannot be ignored.

Of course, the underlying crime — the reason the cops were there — is being ignored by the media, who are promoting the narrative that the real crime was Derek Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, despite the evidence from the toxicology report that Floyd was already dying of an overdose (and complaining “I can’t breathe”) before the cops put him on the ground. The reason they put him on the ground was because he refused to get in back of the squad car, and they decided to call for EMS because he appeared to be in a state of “excited delirium” which we now know was due to his drug overdose. But the emotional nature of the testimony at the trial is intended to cancel out these known facts, to make the jurors convict Chauvin of murder even though it was the fentanyl that killed Floyd who was, by the way, a criminal:

Between 1997 and 2005, he was convicted of eight crimes. He served four years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for a 2007 aggravated robbery in a home invasion.

That’s nine crimes total, that we know of, before he tried to pass counterfeit currency that day and — oh, by the way, another crime — possession of the illegal narcotics that killed him.

Please explain to me how dopehead criminals became secular saints in our culture. When did this happen? Because as I say, when I was a teenage dopehead, nobody treated me like a saint, and if I had died of an overdose with a cop’s knee on my neck, no one would have rioted.

Maybe I was being oppressed, but was too stoned to know it. Also, I’m pretty sure I saw Excited Delirium open for Cheap Trick in 1979.