WYDave - 11/21/2021 18:46

Yes, in fact we do know what unfolded that night. The police and FBI had video surveillance in their possession - which wasn't given to the defense in the full resolution. It was leaked to the media in select outlets in full resolution. The video shows pretty well what happened. 

Furthermore, we know the criminal histories of the three men who were shot. One was a straight-up convicted child rapist. I will not show any concern, ever, for the violent end of a raper of children. 

Criminals think that they should be able to murder, rape, riot and create mayhem without consequences. What the "defund the police!" movement fails to understand is this:

The police, the US Supreme Court has ruled, cannot provide protection to individual law-abiding citizens.

The police, however, are responsible for protecting people in their custody - ie, criminals. That's also case law.

Ergo, the police aren't there just to arrest criminals. They're also there to protect the criminals from us, the law-abiding citizenry. If there were no police, riots would end rather quickly, in a fusillade, followed by the rumble of various diesel engines on backhoes, dump trucks and excavators. If the police are defunded, as the protestors claim to want, well then, the citizenry will revert to what they did before "professional police" came into vogue 100 years ago. 

Look up "Vigilance Committees." They have a long and storied history. "Professional" police were supposed to relieve us of the excesses and prejudices of such groups. Well, if the police don't clean up their own ranks, if the police stand down while mobs are burning businesses to the ground, criminals might find that the law-abiding taxpayers decide to join the "Defund the police" movement. Since taxpayers have the power of the purse, it is more likely to happen if taxpayers decide to defund the police.

At that point, the criminals have a problem: The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments apply to only the government and its actors. Vigilance Committees operated under no such restrictions, and they didn't pretend otherwise.