AlfonZo Rachel and Bill Whittle de-brief the killing of Daunte Wright by Officer Kim Potter in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on a moral level. How do you distinguish between human fallibility (mistakes) and actual malice in such highly-adrenalized moments? If you haven’t seen a balanced discussion about this terrible incident, here’s your first.
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26 replies on “The Killing of Daunte Wright: Mistakes and Malice in Highly-Adrenalized Moments”
I think it’s obvious from the audio that she really didn’t know which was in her hand, and in fact thought with certainty that it was the other weapon. The question for the police is how and why did that happen and what else can they do to minimize the chances of that happening?
Part of the problem with cops is the local perception (whatever the origin).
When I was a kid we lived in southern New Jersey. My grandparents lived in south Philadelphia.
This is in the late ’50s, maybe early ’60s.
The cops where I lived were “Officer Friendlies.” Good guys you could depend on if you had a problem. We were taught that at home, school, church, and scouts, so it must be true.
On the other hand, the cops in South Philly were known as red devils (they drove red squad cars at the time) and were not, according to the kids we played with when visiting our grandparents, to be trusted. The cops were bad people.
Now, I had never witnessed the Philly cops doing bad things, I just “knew” they were bad and not to be trusted. I “knew” this because all the kids told me so. If they knew it, it must be so. I wouldn’t’ve trusted one as far as I could’ve thrown one.
We have become one nation headed in opposite directions. In one America, citizens like Mr. Whittle confront life’s ever-present threat of risk by diligently preparing for his future good conduct by devoting the time to learn from other pilots’ mistakes. In the other, we have parents, schools, and judges refusing to impose consequences for kids’ bad behavior, while simultaneously promoting the false expectation that life should be 100% risk-free.
The all or nothing mentality of human beings is the source for a lot of social strife. We’ve lost the ability, if we ever possessed it, to find the middle ground, accepting that perfection is and always will be beyond our grasp. We are fallen.
But another reason we are perpetually warring against each other is the politicization of everything, with the media megaphone blaring lies, half-truths, and propaganda 24/7. Not to mention the silencing of conservatives by social media. In a country that idolizes free speech, I don’t know how these poison-spewing megalomaniacs in government and media can be curtailed.
Blacks are responsible for a majority of the violent crime in this country – remove them and we will eventually become a homogenous society. Many of the members here may disagree and blast me for making this statement, but an honest evaluation of how the black population has been used to sow strife and conflict will confirm my opinion.
Black people would be happier and more successful were they not constantly being pitted against “privileged” whites; being told that they are helpless victims of oppression, in spite of the fact that there is no other country in the world, including their ancestral homelands, that have done more to atone for the wrongs America committed against them. The Democrat party has never stopped the oppression, however – they just do it in a more insidious and manipulative way. Yet, many Americans have no understanding of the perfidious manner by which the Democratic party if they succeed will eventually enslave all Americans.
Black people in America have always been used as pawns in power games and the sad part is that so many black people go along with that willingly though often unknowingly.
Just about the time the nation was getting a handle on that problem along comes Lyndon Baines Johnson with his “Great Social Experiment” and “Great Society” policies in the “War on Poverty”. I hope people are noticing that the titles Democrats give their policies and projects are exactly opposite of what they actually do and that phenomenon goes back a long, long time.
Welfare and public largesse ruined many Black communities exactly as it would have ruined any other. People who had to work to put a roof over their heads and food on the table all of a sudden had money for drugs and vice that would have had to go to food and rent. Welfare policies actively encouraged the demise of the Black Family unit and assured that the nuclear family would be deconstructed through fatherlessness.
(The nuclear family is the basic foundational social unit. It is to society what the coca bush is to street cocaine. Uproot all the bushes and the flow of cocaine stops. Destroy the nuclear family and society is cast adrift. The Leftists want that casting adrift to happen, they see it as the only way to throw a rope on society and pull it to the dock of their own choosing. A dock they control utterly and permanently. They’ve been very successful using this tactic against Black people and the results are obvious.)
The problem with Black people isn’t their skin color, their genetic heritage or anything like that. It’s the culture of being pawns in political power games that’s the problem. Those who gladly sell their vote to remain in poverty and kept like cattle in voting barns perpetuate and assure generations of malleable, reliable voters to come. And street soldiers if needs must.
The problem isn’t melanistic or genetic, it’s cultural. Until that culture changes for the better the problem isn’t going to go away. From time to time the Democrats need to stir up the cattle they have created and control before they wise up and abandon their Masters …
That was what was happening under Donald Trump where programs that made economic and social sense were being implemented to allow Black people to lift themselves up from poverty with their own work and dignity. The Democrat Party can’t allow that to happen and it had to be stopped. Trump getting reelected and that sort of thing continuing for four more years would be the terminal, final existential threat to the Democrat Party. If they lose the Black vote they lose power, permanently and profoundly.
Of course the Democrat leadership quietly pulsating it its web in its deep dark cavern knew this quite well. They knew that Trump was the end for them and that all the stops had to be pulled out to keep him from destroying them … With sane and rational economic policies that are good for everyone except Democrat leadership and power.
So what is the solution to this mess? Well … Of course we need policies, programs and opportunities like Trump was creating but that’s not all and we can’t provide that when Conservatives are not in power.
Also a huge part of the problem is that just like any other “In group/Out group” scenario the Black population tends not to listen to anyone but other Black people. This is amplified and reinforced by the Democrat Party too. They’ve successfully convinced an awful lot of Black people that they’re “different” than everyone else and only a Black person can speak to their issues. The purpose of this strategy assumed that the Democrat party would control the Black people doing the speaking, like for instance Farrakhan and Sharpton.
That’s a chink in their armor because the same tactic can be used against them. People like Thomas Sowell, Larry Elders, Candace Owens and Alfonzo Rachael can be very, very effective at disrupting the Democrat narrative and inserting a more realistic worldview into the Black community.
So for now and continuing if and when we Conservatives ever get back into majority political power so we can continue policies like Donald Trump was constructing — The very best thing we can do is to find and support, then amplify Conservative Black voices.
I don’t think there is any way around the fact that humans are tribal. The founding fathers designed the constitution to thwart tribalism as much as possible, but there is no rooting it out. That’s why blacks are persuaded that only “their people” can understand and speak on their behalf.
Grievance is far easier to express than finding agreeable solutions to problems. You lay out the history well, and you are correct that culture wields a major impact.
Pure and simple, as you lay out, the progressive left democrats do not want any one who isn’t white to reach parity with whites and they have done and will continue doing everything in their power to prevent it. They need the votes and only the downtrodden, unsuccessful, lazy and permanently malcontented will vote for them, so democrats must keep them that way.
Oh human beings are absolutely tribal. It’s all a matter of what tribe you consider yourself a part of.
Having served in the military I consider myself absolutely a member of the tribe “Marines”, unto and if possible even after death. I fully expect to walk up to Saint Peter and salute with “Reporting as ordered, Sir!” If you’re not a Marine you can’t belong to this tribe no matter how much you might like to. The bounds of this tribe are distinct and immutable.
I also consider myself a member of the tribe “Scandinavian”, sub-tribe ethnic “Danish”, with mild but friendly disdain for all lesser Scandinavians. But …
The primary tribe I belong first and foremost above all others is “American”.
If all Americans of any race, and I served with all races in the military and have come to know, respect and love quite a few people not of my race thereby — My opinion is that if we were all Tribe America most of our problems would be negated.
Those who try to accentuate lesser tribalist distinctions over Tribe America are enemies of Tribe America.
Here’s a funny thing about tribalism though. Africa is a continent torn constantly by tribal strife. In Zimbabwe (previously Rhodesia) the Matabele hate the Sindebele and vice-verse but both tribes are black Africans from the same region of Africa. Same goes for Rwanda with the Hutu and Tutsi tribes. This occurs all over sub-Saharan Africa and the results of that tribalism are obviously negative in the extreme.
Clearly anyone who would promote that sort of tribalism in America does not have the best interests of Americans at heart. The real trick is to get that message across effectively.
African and Arabic countries are culturally and historically tribal among themselves as you describe. That is why they can’t assimilate in America as immigrants, and instead create facsimiles of their home cultures when they come here. At least this has been so for several decades. The same can be said for Jews. And I don’t have a problem with that, as long as they don’t actively subvert our traditional American culture.
Unfortunately, too many in these ethnic groups in America don’t have any desire to be Americans first. Tribe Progressive, composed of mostly whites, don’t either.
Some of that failure to assimilate is due to administrative mistakes in settling large groups of people from the same place to the same place. Minneapolis/St. Paul MN is a perfect example of this failure with the large Somali enclave there.
I hope administrative entities have learned the obvious lesson from this. If you want people to become Americans you have to actually place them in America and not create Little Mogadishus in American metro areas. American metro areas have enough problems as it is.
For sure. But you are assuming the admins made a mistake. I think they are doing it on purpose, but I will admit I have a tendency to forget Hanlon’s Razor rule of thumb.
Hanlon’s razor indeed. I try to avoid ascribing malice and deviance to situations more likely to be caused by common, every day, garden variety stupidity.
Malice and deviancy require volition, intelligence and effort. Traits that I have a difficult time ascribing to bureaucrats after decades of dealing with them.
It’s my experience that they’re not really evil people as such. They’re not necessarily good people either. They’re just stupid people that are given government jobs because they have nothing marketable in the private sector and would otherwise be unemployable.
As such, they will always take the path of the least resistance, opt for the work that requires the least effort and do the thing that brings them the greatest gain with the smallest investment of their time and mostly nonexistent intellects.
For bureaucrats the phrase “No sweat” isn’t an expression of eager willingness to the task at hand. It’s a motto for the manner in which they perform their work.
So as far as I’m concerned and with the proviso of years of observation and interaction with this kind of person …Both Hanlon’s and Occam’s razors apply here.
“If you’re not a Marine you can’t belong to this tribe no matter how much you might like to.”
You paid the dues to belong to this tribe. You earned your membership.
I earned membership in the tribe of Army, and of veterans.
I live in the town I was born in, a county of <10K. I had left, was gone for a couple of decades, then returned. Things went from very clannish to now very cliquish. And the animosity between cliques is greater than it ever was under the clannism.
Yup, we belong to the same Tribe of Veterans and separate sub-Tribes of Army and Marine Corps. (My Dad was Army and served in Korea, we had a great time razzing each other his whole life though I always felt he was just as proud of my service, not branch – service – as he was of his own.)
This tribal stuff can be broken down a lot of ways. Inclusion in one Tribe does not preclude membership in another Tribe. You can be an American Indian of the Navajo Tribe, who served in the military and so in the Veterans Tribe, who is also a Patriotic Citizen and in the Americans Tribe. That hypothetical Navajo would have tribal intersectionality with me in two of three tribes. That intersectionality would merit my respect unless and until he gave me reason to retract that respect.
You can be loyal to all of your Tribes and how you prioritize that loyalty says a lot about what kind of person you are.
This tribal stuff isn’t always a bad thing. It can be made into a bad thing but like many other bad things that only happen to someone who lets the bad be pushed on them.
A lot depends on what you do with what you’re given. For example …
My Great Grandmother, who I knew well as a child and young adult, came to the U.S. as an indentured servant. Her passage paid for by a wealthier Danish family that had immigrated to America and her indenture was for a period of seven years.
The youngest son of that family raped her and got her pregnant (according to accounts outside the family, neither she nor my Great Grandfather ever brought it up) and she was then forced by common conventions of the day to marry him. In order to give the child (my Great Uncle Carl) a legitimate family name.
So basically my Great Grandmother came to America with the promise of a new life in a new land and for all practical purposes became a slave and baby factory after she got here. The only difference between Great Grandma and a chattel slave is that Great Grandma couldn’t be sold.
Yet she was one of the happiest, jolliest, most compassionate people I have ever known in my life. She always had a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye That wasn’t an act either, she had the laugh lines to prove it..
I’m not black but I think if I were I’d start every day with gratitude that though my ancestors might have been ripped from the soil of their homelands — I am fortunate beyond measure that I live in America and not an African nation with regular genocides, monthly coups and corruption everywhere you turn.
I actually know some Black people who see it that way. Many of whom are “Dark Green” Marines. So though I’m not Black, that attitude is not unknown nor impossible for a Black person.
As far as small towns go … Yeah, they’re kind of funny with the clannish/cliquish thing. I never lived in a metro area until after my enlistment (at 17 years old) so I grew up with small town (actually rural, I grew up on a farm) mores all around me. Since then I’ve lived in London, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv, Brisbane and a whole slug of American cities including Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Omaha/Council Bluffs, Los Angeles etc..
Now I’m back in a rural area again. I’ll take small town attitudes over big city dehumanization every single day. I know and have the respect of most of my neighbors and they mine. We are a Tribe too.
“…find and support, then amplify Conservative Black voices.”
Anthony Brian Logan
Brandon Tatum
Jericho Green
Kevin [Last name unknown] of Kevin’s Corner
There are many.
One excellent current listen on this very topic from a person who lived it and got beyond it. He includes some pertinent and factual history: https://youtu.be/fZdVTaL_d4Q
Exactly the point. Those people need all the exposure we can give them. I clicked on the video link but I don’t have time right now to listen to/watch a nearly 3 hour video. I bookmarked it though, so next time I’m cleaning my shop/mancave/office I’ll put that on while I work.
I find it very uplifting and hopeful to hear sane, reasonable people of other races trying to tell their own “people” to pull their heads out.
Many black people are in fact the ones using ‘their own people’
If good people getting bad people out of their jobs worked, we wouldn’t have had a stolen election and POTATUS and HO-TATUS “in charge” now.
Daunte had an open warrant out on him for attempted aggravated assault and burglary according to the police. He possibly didn’t want to go to jail and resisted arrest. The officer made a huge error. W/O Daunte’s reaction and her error, he would still be alive.
Were people worked up and waiting for a reason to loot, riot and do mayhem? Was the Chauvin trial taking too long? What does the future look like?
Chaos and mayhem will continue until those responsible are either held to account or exterminated. This is exactly how the whatever-devil-you-believe-in wants it. Cain against Abel … Human against Human ….
I really hate to disagree with Zo but I really must with the claim that Yeshua/Jesus, is a Levite. It is clear in biblical ancestry that David and Jesus were both from the tribe of Judah.
Jesus was called the lion of Judah.
Once again, I cannot thank you both enough for these segments. These are indeed the honest discussions we need to have. This episode gave me a different perspective on things.
Bill, I do not believe that Williams’ motivation for flight was based on his belief that he’d be shot. Rather it was based upon a fear of incarceration. The former is a valid justification to flee, but the latter is not.
Due process, Zo? Be careful, sir. Professing such notions will either get you fired or force you to resign.
I’ve been a cop and a soldier so I know a little about these things, What happened in that shooting is a tragedy. In an ideal world it would never happen.
What I can tell you is that until he attempted to escape the officer was not adrenaline; she was a veteran office probably with a thousand arrests. But, as soon as the suspect started to struggle and get away back into his car, the adrenaline kicked in immediately. What happened next was a highly adrenalized response to the situation. When that fight or flight response kicks in, the normal response is to grab the gun. The Taser is used in more controlled environments. And in the instant it happens there has been no time for the adrenaline to have burned down a little, as it takes several minutes. It was just a tragic mistake.
I used to race cars too and after a fairly long race the adrenaline was not an issue. But, the times did very short races, usually lasting lest than two minutes, I can tell you that after finishing and parking the car, your hands are shaking so badly that it was very difficult trying to loosen the chin strap on the helmet. Sometimes you would just wait a few more minutes before trying.
The reality that we are rapidly approaching is one represented by the 1987 movie named RoboCop starring Peter Weller. Bear with me for a few more words. Since all human beings are fallible, apparently we must eliminate all police as we know them. However, protection of the elite and wealthy will always be a priority for those who can afford to pay, so a new, “infallible” replacement will be sought — enter the robot (cyborg?) police force that is centrally-controlled. Unfortunately, that will result in law enforcement that is controlled by one mind rather than many. The many minds model, which we currently use, while fallible, is far superior for maintaining individual liberty than one that is controlled by an elite few.
We are witnessing the birth of a dictatorship amid the screaming, bloody chaos of our society. Birth is always messy, and it’s going to get worse.
I see the idea of both sides committing errors. Wright made a mistake. The officer likely made a terrible error.
Entering without a warrant? Not so much.
I was in law enforcement and realize that police officers are human beings. They are individuals that can and do err. Some are bad people. That is common sense. You cannot say that they are fallible…buuut they’d never misuse an opportunity. They can make mistakes and errors, yet, they would never yield to the wrong tendencies. Some of the people that I served with were not so circumspect about “errors”.
I respect police officers. Fighting a police officer is a bad idea. It is also a likely path to criminal conviction and bodily harm. I very much demand that they respect citizens and their Constitutional rights and lives. Not request. Demand.