by Frank Mazur
The capitol police officer who shot Ashley Babbitt in the neck and killed her on Jan. 6 in the Pelosi assault of the Capitol who presented no threat and then ran away got a free pass by the Liberals led by Pelosi. There was no investigation, no charges, and his name was never made public.
Kim Potter, a Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Duante Wright by accident when he was resisting arrest and trying to flee, was just convicted by a jury on Manslaughter 1 (15 Years) and Manslaughter 2 (10 years) sends a message to all police officers from the “Defund the Police movement” – “You make a mistake, and we are coming after you”. The jury was hung for a while and I think with Christmas only two days away, some jurors may have caved under the pressure.
The officers who stopped Daunte Wright, after stopping him, realized that he was a convicted felon with outstanding warrants, but the jury was not allowed to know that Daunte was indeed a dangerous person. If it wasn’t for the liberal prosecutors, Daunte should have been in jail, and Kim Potter would have never killed him because there would have been no traffic stop if Daunte was in jail.
Here is what one of Daunte’s victims has to say about his character.
My name is Jennifer LeMay. I am the mother of Caleb Livingston. On May 14, 2019, my 16-year-old son, Caleb Livingston, was shot in the head while pumping gas at a service station in North Minneapolis, Minnesota and that single shot has changed Caleb’s and our family’s lives forever.
The person who shot my son was Daunte Wright, whose death at the hands of a Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police officer on April 11, 2021 became international news. Daunte and Caleb had known each other as they grew up, and Caleb’s first sleepover was at the home of Daunte. However, long before the date of the May 14 shooting, both got into a fight, and Caleb prevailed in the presence of others. This is believed to be the primary motive as to why Daunte shot Caleb. Additionally, Daunte was a member of a gang, and he may have sought to obtain street credibility for the shooting.
Caleb’s “Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome”
Caleb’s health status is that he needs assistance with every single activity of daily living, and he is not able to speak. Caleb’s diagnosis is a neurological syndrome known as “Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome.” This is defined as when a person is in a wakeful state without signs of awareness. The bullet that entered Caleb’s head and went into his brain is still lodged there and cannot be safely removed.
Caleb is a living vegetable as a result of a shooting by Daunte Wright only two years prior. Daunte also has other gun violations, and the jury was not allowed to know any of this information. If Daunte had been prosecuted in a red state, he would still be behind bars.
Attorney Ben Crump (from George Floyd) is representing the Wright family and publicly they are making Daunte a hero, have opened a “Go Fund Me Account” that is over $1,000,000 when I checked it a couple minutes ago, and then Crumb will file a civil action against the City of Minneapolis using his guilty verdict of Kim Potter as proof of his claim. Crumb had protestors all outside the courthouse that were ready to stage a “peaceful protest” with a not guilty verdict, and this could have had some influence on the jury.
Crump has been described by FOX News as the most dangerous persons in America as he takes the death of any colored person by a police officer and goes after the money by making the dead person a hero and the police officer a criminal.
This shooting should have never happened. Duante Wright belonged in jail, and I have yet to hear a reason why he belonged on the streets after shooting Caleb in the head. Kim Potter would have never had this traffic stop and Ben Crump will not have picked up another ten million in legal fees if the liberals had kept Daunte in jail where he belonged. If Kim Potter had pulled her gun and said stop or I will shoot, it would have been a justified shooting that saved her partner’s life. Daunte was resisting arrest and was about ready to hit the accelerator to take off with Kim’s partner hanging in the passenger window. Yet, because Kim screamed Taser, Taser and had pulled her Glock and shot him, she will spend 15 years in jail, when that is where Duante should have been.
This is a message to all police officers that if you make a mistake in a chaotic arrest, you will become the criminal and be sent to jail. This jury has set law enforcement back twenty years. Most of the legal analysts on TV say she should have never been charged and that the defense attorneys did a terrible job in their closing arguments. Hopefully she will get better attorneys for the appeal process. Kim’s attorneys may have been public defenders by the way they argued the case.
The author is a South Burlington resident and former Republican legislator.
Categories: Commentary
Maybe (Daunte Wright should have been in prison,” as Mr Mazur asserts. Even so, I am not aware that our system of criminal justice empowers or enables police officers to be judge, jury, and executioner. There are other ways of taking a person into police custody than killing him, and the fact that she did so “accidentally” by mistaking her Taser for her gun is no reason to excuse her. Even people suspected of crimes or accused of them have Constitutional rights. Imagine that you are suspected of a crime, Mr Mazur; would you want the police to just gun you down? Or would you prefer to take your chances with our legal system? I am sorry for any victims of Mr Wright’s, if indeed he did the crimes of which some accuse him, and I deplore violence in all instances. But suggested that Wright “may have sought to obtain street credibility” as part of alleged gang membership is speculation. We don’t execute people in this country without at least pretending to have evidence of capital crimes. I think our police too often resort to guns and other violence. That needs to be corrected. BTW: I am white, a senior citizen, a woman, and I have been the victim of police violence myself. I don’t trust the police in casual encounters and when I am stopped for a perceived traffic violation or equipment issue, I am frightened that I might be killed for some reason that I cannot fathom. I also cannot fathom what it must be like to be a Black motorist in much of these United States.
Sure, the police are not intended to be judge, jury and executioner, but we as a society have forced them into that role by dis-empowering the legitimate functions of the justice system.
And we also have to wonder that if the race-roles were reversed, would there have even been charges brought in this case? There have been past cases (one in shelburne about 10 years ago) where a police officer used a deadly weapon to prevent a criminal suspect from fleeing onto a busy road, thereby endangering the public. He didn’t even attempt to use a non-lethal means of stopping the perp. The bottom line is, no matter what the melanin content of the skin of either police or suspect, you follow the orders of the police, and if you have a problem with that, you take it up later in court.
Police dont often have the luxury of time to make their decisions and sometimes act on split second notice to enforce the law, lest they or the public be put at risk. They go into dangerous situations when others flee. This officer made a MISTAKE by confusing a gun for a taser. When an elderly driver confuses the accelerator for the brake and plows through a storefront, that is not generally regarded as a criminal matter. When a drunken idiot falls asleep on a couch with a cigarette and burns down an apartment building killing neighbors, that is always regarded as an accidental fire even though common sense tells us it is clearly an act of negligence.
This officer was remorseful and if not for the woke activism and race hypersensitivity that carries the day, the criminal suspect would have been regarded as responsible for whatever the consequences when they made the DECISION to disregard the officer’s lawful orders. Officer Potter is a sacrificial lamb offered up on the altar of misdirected “racial justice” and political correctness. The jury obviously made their decision not based on the rule of law, but on a perceived social justice agenda.
Hey Gina, Join the police dept., suit up and get out on the street. You’ve never stopped a car containing a felon who has already severely injured another person. I have and you are totally off base here. Accidents happen, I do not believe this woman who spent 26 years protecting her city needs to be in prison for 26 years. I wonder if your life is so perfect that you will never make a mistake. It is a tragedy that he died, yes but he also had the potential to harm many more people. Mr. Mazur is correct. If the courts had given him the proper punishment from his previous crimes, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to flee from a warranted arrest. You are another keyboard judge who has probably never lifted a finger to protect your community and have never faced a violent felon. And you finish your rant by claiming he was only stopped because he was black. Get out there on the streets if you can do better.
GREAT ARTICLE, FRANK! I was ignorant of Duante Wrights’ criminal past, which is exactly what the media wants and pushes, the ignorance of liberal narrative, the omittance of cold, hard, objective facts. The media also regarded George Floyd with the same stained-yellow editorial license. Floyd set himself up for tragedy by doing all the wrong things: being high on illegal narcotics (fentanyl and crystal meth and/or cocaine in his system), trying to pass a counterfeit bill, riding in an unregistered (stolen?) vehicle, and resisting arrest. The liberal media NEVER mentioned his criminal background, or anything about his pointing a loaded gun at a pregnant woman, whose apartment he had just broken&entered seeking drugs and/or money.
But, of course, you and I are racists for confronting left-wing propaganda, and “suggesting” the facts behind these woke constitution-busting docu-dramas, directed and produced by the left-wing’s publicity office, The mainstream western media. Unfortunately, we are preaching to the choir here.
These anti-America marxist intellectuals with the barre slimes argus, burlington free? press, 7 daze, VTdigger would love to cancel The Vermont Chronicle. They, liberalism, are just too cool for facts and truth, especially if it doesn’t support their dangerous agendas.