Unjustified Homicide of Trayvon Martin

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Imagine your 17 year-old kid is at home watching college basketball, and during a break in the action he goes to the 7-11 to get some iced tea and Skittles. On his way back, as he’s walking through the apartment complex, he sees a hulking man in an SUV, talking on the phone and staring ominously at him. Your kid stops and checks the guy out. Something doesn’t fit here. It’s scary. In fact, your kid is on his own phone with his girlfriend. She tells him to run. He says no, he’s just going to walk fast. After all, while he’s scared of this weird guy in the truck, he’s not doing anything wrong.

The man gets out of his car and starts chasing your kid. Your kid runs too, but he’s no match for his larger predator. They end up wrestling on the ground. The whole neighborhood hears the tussle, and calls to 911 are made. On one of the calls, your kid’s voice is clear as a bell, screaming, pleading for help – for this unprovoked attack to stop. Suddenly, a shot rings out. The 911 caller gets away from the window. The screaming has ended abruptly. Your child is lying on the ground, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, bleeding from his chest.

He’s shot by a guy with a police record involving violence; a part-time rent-a-cop security guard. A guy who packs a 9mm while running a neighborhood watch in a gated apartment complex.

I mean, there had been 8 break-ins at the complex in recent months, all allegedly done by young black kids. Trayvon Martin was a young black kid. Ipso facto, right?

When the cops come and find the shooter and your dead kid, the shooter is taken into custody for an investigation to take place, but he’s quickly released. You see, you live in Florida, and the self-defense statute has been amended to take away any requirement that the person claiming self-defense first retreat before using deadly force; under this new rule, drafted and promoted by the powerful gun lobby, a gun owner can “stand his ground”.

Meanwhile, your kid is dead on the ground – armed only with an Arizona iced tea and Skittles – for the crime of, at worst, looking at someone funny.

Trayvon Martin wasn’t breaking any law when he was shot and killed. And when all the nonsense shakes out, we’ll quickly learn that this case doesn’t really invoke the much-criticized “stand your ground” law. Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, didn’t “stand his ground”; he affirmatively chased Martin down before shooting him. He was a predator hunting what he called “f*cking coons” on his 911 call to Sanford Police – the same police department that instructed Zimmerman to not pursue Martin.

It’s not just the facile prejudice that Zimmerman had about a black kid wearing a hoodie that’s distressing here; Martin, after all, had every right to be in the complex – he was at his father’s apartment there.

There was no moral or legal justification for this homicide. In fact, the police department here appears to have interfered with its own investigation – to call it a cover-up isn’t out of line. As witnesses recounted their stories – some said the shooter yelled “help”, others said it was Martin, the police on the scene made sure to “correct” them and insist that it was Zimmerman who yelled for help.

Help from what – a kid who weighed 100 lbs less, who had tried to flee from him?

“Stand your ground” may indeed be a horribly misguided law that has led to terrific difficulty in prosecuting gun crimes in Florida, but this case doesn’t even invoke that statute.

I think it’s pretty clear that George Zimmerman committed a murder. He shot and killed a kid who was unarmed and unable to harm him. He had no reasonable fear of imminent death or severe bodily harm – he had subdued his victim to the point where Martin was screaming for help.

The shot to the chest shut him up, and now the only criminal running around that gated apartment community is its own self-appointed “neighborhood watch captain”.

Deep Thought

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I suspect that a lot of the animosity towards Sheldon Silver has little to do with his policies and a lot to do with who he is. 

The vitriol directed towards Silver is odd, because Dean Skelos has similar influence yet WNY politicos don’t habitually run against the Senate majority leader. To his credit, Carl Paladino is one of the few who is consistent on his hatred of Silver and Skelos. 

I’m no fan of Silver’s because of the disproportionate amount of power he wields, and the way in which he wields it; the way in which he controls the statewide agenda and is naturally unsupportive of local initiatives because his constituency is on the lower east side of New York.

I’m not saying, I’m just saying. 

Kearns Defeats Fahey in A-145

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Kearns, LoCurto, Rivera

Photo by Flickr user Whitney Arlene

Mickey Kearns? Really? 

The 15% of the electorate who turned out elected a Democrat running as a Republican whose only recognizable platform plank was to do battle with Shelly Silver?  Kearns has said he’ll caucus with the Democrats – so Republican efforts to spin this as a victory will ring particularly hollow. 

The New York State Assembly is a particularly malignant and useless construct. On the one hand, you have majority leader Sheldon Silver, who rules his Democratic caucus with an iron fist. On the other hand, you have a collection of the most useless political castrati – the Assembly Republicans. To call the Assembly a legislature is an insult to the notion of democratic representative lawmaking. To call a member “independent” is synonymous with “impotent”. 

That’s why, when I have in the past advocated for a nonpartisan unicameral legislature, I’ve made it clear that we can’t just abolish the Senate and supplant it with the Assembly. Each redundant body is dysfunctional in its own way. 

Yesterday I posted a perfectly benign reminder that an election was taking place and that people who live in that district should go out and vote. I didn’t endorse or attack either candidate, except to say that Kearns’ run as a “Republican” was, to me, inexplicable. Of course, I had some knuckle-dragging Republican attack me for that, and longtime commenter Starbuck, who is quite reasonable although I disagree with him, pointed out that it was “quite explicable” because of party bosses and giving people a choice and Sheldon Silver and Len Lenihan. 

Yes, I understand that Kearns’ ambition would not be stopped by such trivial matters such as party loyalty or ideological consistency. Such is the nature of politics and politicians – win at all costs, even if you jettison your principles.

(By the way, if Carl Paladino and his insult billboardatorium really want to be rid of Sheldon Silver, perhaps he could help find, fund, and support a challenger to Sheldon Silver down in Manhattan. That might actually work.) 

Chris Fahey isn’t a Higgins puppet despite his ties to Higgins’ office, and so what if he was? Brian Higgins is – and has been – among the best representatives of Buffalo and Western New York throughout his political career. While not perfect, he has done tremendous good especially when it comes to waterfront revitalization. Fahey is a bright guy and he’ll do great things – he’s a well-respected and thoughtful behind-the-scenes policy researcher and formulator – a wonk’s wonk. 

Much was made of Kearns’ ties to Carl Paladino, but that support amounted to a few thousand dollars and a Palinesque Facebook post here and there. 

The winner here isn’t Paladino, it’s Byron Brown, who has rid himself of another troublesome common councilmember. Kearns’ vacancy will be filled by the other councilmembers – and the council is now made up primarily of Brown allies, so Brown has an opportunity to further consolidate his control of the city’s policies. Probably one of those unintended circumstances we often read about.  I suppose this indirectly benefits any Republican running in a countywide race, thanks to the longstanding, well-known but denied agreement between Brown and the GOP that no Republican challenger will come to the plate in November, thus suppressing city turnout.

Funny how similar it is to write about Erie County politics as it is to write about, say, organized crime. 

The coverage of this contest was a ridiculous recitation of who’s ahead, who’s behind in the horserace. Aside from his rejection of Sheldon Silver, what’s Mickey Kearns going to do in Albany? Aside from his ties to Brian Higgins, what would Fahey have done there? Well, Fahey outlined a few plans he has to make the environment better for creating jobs. These guys deserved pointed questions about reform, Albany dysfunction, the Cuomo agenda, abolishing authorities, reduction of state corruption, etc. Instead, we got questions about party labels and who was whose puppet. 

Being a maverick isn’t policy – it’s politics. 

Congratulations to Mickey Kearns. I look forward to the analysis of his almost-inevitable rapprochement with Shelly Silver, or his switch to the Republican Party (one of these is going to have to happen if Kearns is going to accomplish much else besides becoming a master Sudoku player.)

Now, let’s see whom Paladino recruits to run against Higgins himself this November.  

 

Trico: Ask Matt Enstice

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Colorful Trico

If the battle over preservation of Trico Plant #1 was a war, we’ve passed the point where Princip shoots Archduke Ferdinand, and now the great alliances are making grave threats. 

As usual with these sorts of things, an earnest argument is already being subsumed by a fog of lies, half-truths, and puffery. 

What is to be done with Trico? What are the BNMC’s plans for the site? Are they really going to start demolition next month? Is it a structure that BNMC can preserve? Should preserve? Wants to preserve? 

In a few weeks’ time, I will conduct an audio or video podcast interview with BNMC’s Matthew Enstice where he will answer questions selected from the thread below, and from Twitter (use the hashtag #AskMatt), or shoot me an email at this address.  The topic is BNMC’s growth & plans for the Trico building. Have at it. 

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Good Stuff

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1. Great Movie I saw this weekend: Senna, an award-winning documentary about the racing career of Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna. (The 2012 Formula 1 season just began, and will return to the US in November in Austin, TX.  Runner-up great movie: Spirited Away.

2.  Great Show I discovered last week: Airplane Repo. Exactly as it sounds, it tracks a team of people who travel the world repossessing aircraft for their secured creditors. It’s got travel, thrills, and legal procedure. I want a job with Sage-Popovich, LLC. 

3. Great Thing this Weekend: This weather is awesome. Washed two cars, cooked on the grill, wore shorts, and enjoyed early summer. 

4. Great Company I dealt with: I had to travel for the day on Friday on Southwest. My final of four flights of the day was to take me from Baltimore to Buffalo, but with the fog, this happened instead: 

When we returned, it was amazing to watch people out-do themselves for getting angry at the ground crew who were just trying to rebook people. After about 15 minutes, the airline realized that rebooking wasn’t going to work, and they just added a 6am flight the following morning. Perfect. 

174 people were mildly inconvenienced by the weather-related delay that was completely out of the airline’s control. We were best off going back to BWI, which is a Southwest hub. My favorite comment came as it was revealed that there were more bags than people, and the aircraft we had might not fit all the bags. Given that small chance that not all of her bags would be on the flight, a woman angrily barked at the woman taking boarding passes (as if she had anything to do with it) that it was a “disaster”. 

No, the plane plunging into the mountains of Pennsylvania would be a “disaster”. A missing bag is merely an inconvenience. 

They handed out new boarding passes in the order of our boarding, and I grabbed a room at an airport hotel and got a few hours’ of sleep before returning to the airport at 5am. The fog was still in place on Saturday morning, and when we landed I didn’t see the ground until we were over the Thruway on final approach to runway 23. Kudos to Southwest for so quickly and effectively accommodating us. 

The Face of Evil in America

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There are no words to describe my rage at hearing this yesterday (interestingly enough, it was played & discussed on the Howard Stern Show).  In this video, demonic professional panhandler Pat Robertson tells a woman that it’s better to create a rift in her family than to attend her sister’s marriage to another woman. 

A glimpse into Santorum’s America: 

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErmD34zSyk4]

Albany: Still Broken

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The state legislature remained in session until around 4:30 am last night, passing a flurry of bills such as a Union-opposed Tier VI, a proposed Constitutional amendment to permit class III casino gaming on non-Indian lands (this requires a referendum which would come in November 2013 at the earliest), and – significantly – state legislative redistricting which led to a walkout by Senate Democrats. 

From this Jimmy Vielkind piece, here’s why Albany is broken – legislators are puppets, not independent representatives of their constituents. Anyone who resists becomes marginalized and ineffective, and will seek to depart Albany as soon as humanly possible. (Make comparisons to A-145 at your leisure). Speaking of the Tier VI plan for state employees, one Democratic Assemblyman said, 

“I don’t know if I’m in the tank,” one told me. “I’d like to vote no, but sometimes that’s not how it goes.”

So, it’s still broken this morning, as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow.  Redistricting? It was a broken and hyperpartisan process, especially as it applies to the Senate, which had the gall to add a 63rd seat to Albany County. Why? 

t is intended for Assemblyman George Amedore, R-Rotterdam, the wealthy head of an eponymous home-building company who, the hope is, will be able to finance his own campaign.

Earlier Wednesday, members of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus condemned those lines as “an assault on the Voting Rights Act” because they fractured minority communities in Rochester and on Long Island,mirroring existing splits widely considered to be gerrymandering. (In the end, most of the Caucus’ 28 members in the Assembly supported the plan.)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo had promised to veto “any redistricting plan in 2012 that reflects partisan gerrymandering.” But he has reversed himself, laying the groundwork in recent months to accept somewhat stinky lines so long as they were accompanied by a constitutional amendment and statute that changes the process for the future. This will, laudibly, theoretically, produce a better process — in a decade. The problem is it wasn’t a clean trade in the eyes of some, including Senate Democrats, and good-government groups split on the agreed-to proposal.

Dealmaking is all part of politics, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of the people to benefit elected officials. We get 10 more years of gerrymandered incumbent protection in exchange for reform in 2022. Kicking the ball ever-further down the road. 

The Daily News’ Bill Hammond put it thusly: 

The only real procedural difference from the status quo is that sitting legislators would not directly draw the lines — although their children and business partners would be eligible — and that minority parties would have somewhat more say.

Still, incumbent politicians would rule the roost — and could all too easily gang up against voters for their mutual benefit.

Also, the amendment fails to require that all districts be roughly the same size — a necessity for upholding the principle of one person, one vote.

As things work now, Senate Republicans deliberately underpopulate districts in Republicans areas upstate while overpopulating them in Democrat-heavy New York City — thus giving the GOP a disproportionate share of seats. Democrats do much the same in the Assembly.

The amendment would let that obvious abuse continue, demanding only that mapmakers explain themselves in writing.

The proposal also missed the chance to repeal an arcane and archaic clause that calls for periodically adding new Senate seats — which Republicans have repeatedly exploited for partisan advantage…

…But the final straw is the maps voters would be saddled with for the next decade. Prodded by Cuomo to make their lines “less hyperpartisan,” the Legislature put out revised maps yesterday that failed to meet even that rock-bottom standard.

You still had grotesque shapes like the 29th Senate District, which stretches from the South Bronx, through Harlem and across Central Park to Manhattan’s West Side — and looks something like the Starship Enterprise.

And you still had gross population disparities, with most upstate Senate district nearly 5% below the average and downstate districts 3% or 4% on the plus side.

To be sure, this deal — lousy as it is — may be the last chance for gerrymandering reform of any kind for generations to come. Good-government groups are bitterly divided over whether the deal is worth taking — with the Citizens Union and the League of Women Voters in support, and Common Cause and the New York Public Interest Research Group coming down against.

It’s sad to see well-intentioned people take shots at one another when the real villain is the reform-allergic Legislature.

Still, the opponents are right. Cuomo cannot sign this mess — not when his veto would throw redistricting into the courts. Not when those courts have already shown — in drawing congressional maps for lack of a plan from the Legislature — that they can do a far better and fairer job than lawmakers ever will.

In case you were wondering, Albany is still broken, and it’s still a cesspool of self-interest and dirty dealing. I expected better from Mario’s kid. 

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