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The Rittenhouse case was pure politics by a corrupt District Attorney, nothing more. However, we have another case recently adjudicated where a black man was acquitted of firing on police officers. Here are the details from the Minnesota Reformer<\/b><\/a>:<\/p>\n Before the white, unmarked cargo van of the Minneapolis Police Department drove down Lake Street, an officer gave Sgt. Andrew Bittell his orders: \u201cDrive down Lake Street. You see a group, call it out. OK great! F*** \u2019em up, gas \u2019em, f*** \u2019em up.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Bittell turned to his SWAT unit in the van and said, \u201cAlright, we\u2019re rolling down Lake Street. The first f***ers we see, we\u2019re just hammering \u2019em with 40s,\u201d according to body camera footage described in court documents. He was referring to \u201cless lethal\u201d plastic projectiles sometimes called rubber bullets or 40mm launchers or rounds. <\/b><\/p>\n Don\u2019t you just admire the skill, training and professionalism of police and federal SWAT teams? This all happened a few days after the George Floyd business. The city had been racked with riots and the city government refused to shut down the rioters, who were quite separate from the actual protesters. Things had calmed down after a few days, but there was a curfew in place. This is was the excuse these thugs with badges used for their actions.<\/p>\n At 17th Avenue and Lake Street, around 10 p.m., the SWAT team saw a group of people outside the Stop-N-Shop gas station. Bittell told the driver to head toward the station and said, \u201cLet \u2019em have it boys!\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cRight there, get \u2019em, get \u2019em, get \u2019em, hit \u2019em, hit \u2019em!\u201d he ordered as the officers fired their plastic bullet launchers without warning. They later learned they were shooting at the gas station owner, neighbors and relatives guarding the station from more looting, as well as bystanders, including a <\/b>Vice News<\/b><\/i> reporter who had his hands up and was yelling, \u201cPress!\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n This is typical of a lot of poorly led and trained police departments. Absolutely no investigation was done. These idiots apparently didn\u2019t even sit back and observe the situation for a few minutes before opening fire. It also never crossed their minds to send one or two uniformed officer in and politely see what was going on and sending people on their way. Assaulting a member of the Press, and that was a flat out assault should have send warning flares skyward.<\/p>\n About an hour later, three blocks to the west, they opened the sliding door of the van and began firing plastic rounds at people in a parking lot. <\/b><\/p>\n This is what is generally known as a \u201cDrive By shooting.\u201d When this happens, people who are being targeted who have the means to defend themselves, legally or otherwise, will do so, and that is just what happened.<\/p>\n They hit Jaleel K. Stallings, 29, a St. Paul truck driver, who says he didn\u2019t know they were cops because they were inside an unmarked white cargo van with the police lights off. He thought they were real bullets. And, he says he was mindful of warnings earlier that day from no less than Gov. Tim Walz that white supremacists were roaming the city looking for trouble.<\/b><\/p>\n The fact that these uniformed thugs were in an unmarked van and that no one could see into it tells me that this bunch of yahoos were out looking for trouble. The problem was, they found it and it was someone who knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n Stallings, an Army veteran, returned fire with his mini Draco<\/a> pistol, for which he had a permit. He aimed low, toward the front of the van, and didn\u2019t hit anyone. When the SWAT team jumped out of the van yelling, \u201cShots fired!\u201d Stallings realized they were police. So he dropped his weapon and lay face down on the pavement, according to court documents.<\/b><\/p>\n And these thugs, being the proverbial bad apples that spoil the barrel, promptly kicked the crap out of Mr. Stallings for daring to protect himself.<\/p>\n His eye socket was fractured in the beating that followed, with officers later claiming he resisted arrest. <\/b><\/p>\n He had the temerity of assaulting one of the officers boot with his face apparently. The good news for Mr. Stalling is that he also had a good lawyer, a competent judge and an honest jury that looked at all the facts and all the videos.<\/p>\n A Hennepin County jury recently acquitted Stallings of all charges after he was allowed by a judge to claim self-defense.<\/b><\/p>\n This is where the facts hit the SWAT officers in their fascist faces.<\/p>\n Court documents and transcripts reveal a far different story than the one officers told investigators, as well as the tales police and prosecutors offered up to the media. The documents and other court records also reveal what until now has remained largely obscure: How was the Minneapolis Police Department reacting to the protests, civil unrest, looting and rioting in the days after Floyd\u2019s murder?<\/b><\/p>\n The answer appears to have been, poorly.<\/p>\n The answer: Fiercely \u2014 and at times indiscriminately.<\/b><\/p>\n I stand corrected. In any case, the judge that first heard the case was not amused by the antics of the police.<\/p>\n In a pre-trial order, Hennepin County District Judge William Koch (who did not preside over the trial) was critical, if judiciously so, of MPD leadership: <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cWhile the court recognizes there can be appropriate bravado to support colleagues \u2018going into battle\u2019 or to address concerns about personal safety, it is not too much to expect those in leadership positions to know the proper way to motivate and support their officers without inciting them to inappropriate behavior toward the public they serve,\u201d he wrote in a February order. \u201cHow a superior expresses himself can help cool heads, or heat them up.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n There were two versions of what happened. There was the police version, then there was the version that was caught on the body cameras that officer now use routinely these days. The police version was that a group was planning to throw rocks and stuff at them, an that the officers fired nonlethal rounds at them to stop the attack.<\/p>\n At that point, Mr. Stallings opened fire on them, apparently not firing into the van proper. I suspect that Mr. Stallings is a far better shot than most police officers. Citizens who carry tend to spend a lot of time practicing, unlike most police officers who might fire a couple of hundred rounds a year at most. If he had wanted to hit them, I suspect he would have.<\/p>\n The officer then continued lying by saying that Mr. Stallings tried to run away and then resisted arrest. However, the thugs in uniform were wearing bodycams and, as they say, one picture can is worth a thousand words, and video will tell most of the story.<\/p>\n Court hearings and court documents describing bodycam footage tell a different story: That night the SWAT team\u2019s white, unmarked cargo van slowly rolled down East Lake Street with 20 to 30 police cars trailing farther behind.<\/b><\/p>\n The first problem was the unmarked van. If they were using it for plain surveillance, then they shouldn\u2019t have been loaded out with a pack of trigger happy morons. This pack of yahoos had no interest in enforcing the law or curfew, they were out looking for trouble. They opened fire on several groups that were just standing around, not doing anything. This went on with variations for a while when they came across the group that Mr. Stallings was with.<\/p>\n As the van proceeded toward 15th Avenue, Stallings and three friends were in a parking lot at 14th Avenue and Lake Street. He\u2019d gone out for his third night of protests after seeing the video of Floyd being pressed into the pavement, dying under the knee of Derek Chauvin. <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cIt was something that I couldn\u2019t believe \u2014 just watching someone kneel on the back of a man\u2019s neck for 9 minutes,\u201d he said in a <\/b>Reformer<\/b><\/i> interview. \u201cI was extremely upset by it.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n As was everyone else, including myself, when we first saw the videos. Regardless of the trial\u2019s outcome, (That is another story), it is now known that Floyd had a lethal dose of Fentanyl in his system and was, basically, a dead man walking without prompt medical attention. For some reason, the paramedics called in by the arresting officers went to the wrong location. At the time, of course, no one knew any of this.<\/p>\n He was wearing a green sweater, basketball shorts and a face mask and drove his big, white Chevrolet Silverado. He had his Mini Draco \u2014 a modified pistol that looks like a sawed-off AK-47 \u2014 for protection in the face of the disorder and stories about violent white supremacists seeking to sow chaos. <\/b><\/p>\n Those stories were put out there by the Main Stream Media with absolutely no evidence that it was actually happening. Basically, the media was lying again. Still, I can see why Mr. Draco was taking precautions. I would in similar circumstances.<\/p>\n Stallings said he and his companions were in the parking lot trying to figure out what to do when someone came running down the street yelling, \u201cThey\u2019re shooting! They\u2019re shooting!\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cI assumed that they meant somebody\u2019s out here trying to kill people,\u201d Stallings recalled.<\/b><\/p>\n Notice that no one realized it was the police that were doing the shooting. It\u2019s well within reason that the people there might have thought it was the fictional \u201cWhite Supremacists\u201d the Communazi Propaganda Corps was lying about.<\/p>\n Stallings\u2019 friend went to the street and immediately turned away, running, so Stallings turned around to take cover near the back of his pickup as the others headed toward vehicles. Stallings turned to get into his pickup as a white van came into view around the corner of the building bordering the parking lot to the west. He couldn\u2019t see anybody inside the van. <\/b><\/p>\n That appears to have been the intent of the goon squad. They didn\u2019t want to be identified while they were shooting at people who were, for the most part, peacefully standing around.<\/p>\n The van\u2019s sliding door was open, and the officers immediately began firing. Officer Cushenbery fired first, hitting Stallings\u2019 torso, saying later in a court hearing that he\u2019d been trained to aim at the chest, legs or buttocks.<\/strong><\/p>\n And this is when Mr. Stallings reacted. He didn\u2019t know that these were police officers, or that they were using rubber bullets. (Or their equivalent) All he knew was that someone was shooting at him and that he had been hit.<\/p>\n \u201cI immediately thought I was being shot at with real bullets and was about to die,\u201d he said. \u201cI was under the impression that I was bleeding out.\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n Then Stetson fired, hitting Stallings\u2019 pickup door, leaving a dent. Stallings\u2019 military training kicked in, and he fired three rounds at the van while retreating to the rear of his pickup. When he was in the Army, he was taught to shoot \u201ccenter mass,\u201d but said he aimed low and toward the front of the van to try to scare off whoever was shooting at him.<\/b><\/p>\n Mr. Stallings showed far more restraint then those trigger happy buffoons, or me for that matter. If someone is shooting at me, and I have the tools to respond, I\u2019m shooting back at the source.<\/p>\n \u201cI had enough rounds (that) if I was intending to harm or kill anybody I could have easily done that,\u201d he said. He could\u2019ve fired 31 rounds and hit every person in the van, he said, but fired three. <\/b><\/p>\n And once again, Mr. Stallings shows that most armed citizens are far more restrained than most police officer and federal agents. They are more likely to dump their entire magazine, reload and dump that one as well. At this point, the stormtroopers jumped out and Mr. Stallings realized they were police officers. This is when the bodycams proved that the officers were the thugs, not Mr. Stallings.<\/p>\n The officers yelled \u201cShots fired! Shots fired!\u201d and jumped out of the van, and Stallings said that\u2019s when he realized they were cops. Court documents describe bodycam footage that show he dropped his gun on the ground and lay face down, with his hands to the side above his head, as though he was surrendering.<\/b><\/p>\n And at this point, all the police may do is cuff the suspect and take him in. Instead, they decided to kick the snot out of him.<\/p>\n \u201cYou f***ing piece of shit!\u201d Stetson yelled, and began kicking and punching Stallings in the head and neck, according to court documents. <\/b>Stallings didn\u2019t move. He was trying to surrender and de-escalate the situation, he said in an interview. Bittell began kneeing and punching Stallings in the stomach, chest and back. The beating went on for about 30 seconds \u2014 with Bittell and Stetson punching and kicking Stallings in the head, neck, stomach, chest and back.<\/b><\/p>\n It looks to me that the wrong people were arrested.<\/p>\n The officers also arrested another person who was with Stallings, repeatedly tasing him. <\/b><\/p>\n Stetson beat Stallings so badly he said his hands and feet hurt afterward, and wondered aloud whether he broke his hand, according to court documents.<\/b><\/p>\n Which makes me wonder why he isn\u2019t in jail himself. I do believe that assault and battery is illegal. In any case, the officer involved shut off their bodycams and proceeded to concoct their testimony. Mr. Stallings, now under arrest, got a lawyer who seems to know his job. He got the footage from the bodycams.<\/p>\n Stallings hired defense attorney Eric Rice of St. Paul, who obtained two hours of bodycam videos that he said tell a different story than what officers and prosecutors told the public.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to watch the videos,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cThey are very graphic and visceral. It makes it very clear what the intention of the officers were.\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n The videos show the SWAT team tried to conceal its identity, didn\u2019t warn people before firing on them, gave numerous false and misleading accounts of the incident and \u2014 when presented with contradictory evidence \u2014 changed their stories, Rice said. <\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n