Posted on 01/14/2014 10:26:39 PM PST by chessplayer
(CNN) -- What is it with juries in high-profile cases in Southern California? Over the years, they've become a national joke. But no one is laughing.
This week, that jury in Santa Ana, California -- a city about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles -- produced a wave of gasps in the courtroom when it announced that it had found Manuel Ramos, who had been charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, and Jay Cicinelli, who was charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force, not guilty on all counts.
What? The beating was caught on a surveillance tape. When you watch those 33 minutes of footage, assuming you can stomach the experience, it's hard to believe that anyone could declare the perpetrators "not guilty." The surveillance camera footage shows Thomas being beaten and stunned with a Taser by police until he was unrecognizable and unconscious.
According to prosecutors, the young man suffered brain injuries, facial fractures, broken ribs and extensive bruises and abrasions. He wound up lying in a pool of blood. He died five days later.
This was not, as Ramos' attorney claimed, a case of police offices simply "doing their job" with "no malice in their heart."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
This makes no sense. I figured this was a slam dunk conviction.
The coroner would back up Kelly’s plea for air, since mechanical chest compressions lead to lack of oxygen, and he became brain dead. I would say it was with his last few breaths that he should have been saying, “I can barely breath.”
The first punch against such cowardice failed. The second punch is civil action. Which will turn up to be a tax item on that municipality’s budget, so it will be a symbolic victory.
Look, we are not supposed to be serving kings and queens. We are supposed to be governing by and for “the people.” However when “the people” are themselves overcome by cowardice, then the whole country will look cowardly.
In those police we see ourselves, in a mirror, better than we would care to admit. And as long as we pull the scepter of society away from God, that will keep on happening. It will be visibly unjust and it will just keep on a-comin’. The answer is waiting for us at the Throne of Grace but it expects us to come asking for it. We must ask God to clear out our sin and replace it with new righteousness.
“Part” of the answer is still likely a militia. Here is where 2nd Amendment aficionados, who by and large are God fearing yet, could really come out smelling like roses. Calculate the gun-to-atrocity ratio for the militia and the police, and the militia will just look super, and the police like chumps.
Praying to God is an excellent step. I’ll be bold enough to posit that this is a chief reason why God staged this outrageous tragedy. “Yoo hoo! Heaven speaking! Miss Me yet?” That’s what I hear out of this.
We don’t need to stomp out a spark. We need to put out a forest fire.
The police attorneys have sheeple’s heart number down cold.
That’s what happens when you knock God off the throne of your heart! Any plausible impostor can take its place!
While I believe in Divine Providence, I don’t believe God staged this event. It was staged by the murderers.
Um... I ascribe more power to God than you seem to be.
God forced their hand a la hard cold Calvinism... no.
God knew how they had chosen a bent and put them in the appropriate time and place to play this out... yes.
Basically if you believe in divine providence do you believe God also provides warnings?
This is such a warning. It is a canary in our spiritual mine. The fact that it actually occurred rather than, say, playing out with the would be participants muttering their irritability harmlessly in a corner, wasn’t driven solely by the participants.
Sure those police ought to be rebuked, but something larger than us needs rebuking which has been invited way too intimately into our modern society. Satan, that is.
“The good old boys on the beat are a thing of the past.”
We still have a few left here in PA, but they’re rapidly disappearing as they age and retire or pass away. The younger ones taking their places are dressed like JBTs, and play the role well. I know both.
... and not kidding about Satan.
Satan is at the root of cowardice. What happened here was cowardly. Self preservation rather than sacrificial risk for the sake of striving for a larger good has become the touchstone of public actions.
Blessedly we get a choice even vis a vis Satan. We might not be able to shake off his fog in one fell swoop, but we CAN call on the same providential God who can work around that demon very deftly. From Satan’s point of view, though he keeps it a secret because of his pride, he can’t win for losing, but damn it, he’s a proud demon, and won’t quit wreaking havoc on earth till he’s banished to hell. He’s trying to stop a waterfall of grace with a twig of sin. Victorious walks come for us when we recognize that fact and act on it in faith.
Let’s ask God for far more than rebuking or otherwise punishing the bad actors. Let’s ask God to come back into our hearts and rebuke Satan’s naysaying to God’s grace. It’s us who are refusing the grace, with a foot willingly stuck into hell.
And the good old boys were good because they loved and feared God.
No such bent is in most of the younger crop. It’s spoiling for a fight for them, with the thinnest of veneers.
It’s going to make a difference.
What could also make a difference would be evangelism, but it will need a lot more than the lukewarm affirmation of the way heaven interacts with earth we see in a whole lot of our churches. Heaven came here to get down and get dirty with sinners, so as to purify them, fill them, and lift them back up. Mt. Calvary stands at the head of eternity (”slain from the foundation of the world”) and all believers are tied supernaturally to this. It isn’t just a nice symbol to inspire us to look to ourselves. It is raw, strong spiritual power.
Amen to that.
I think God gets pretty tired of it when all the bragging rights that we give to Him is some distant airy fairy heaven.
Heaven has come into this world to be seized here and now, one heart at a time. (The kingdom of God is forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.)
Heaven looks really weird on this mortal coil in which we are mostly embroiled damning our neighbors under our breath. It attempts not to destroy. It sacrifices. If that spirit lived again in our public servants, we’d shortly see a flood of goodness so heavy we would scarcely know what to do with it.
I dunno, but it sounds typical of men being officious, selfish, self important godless snots. When not even God is permitted into the picture, that is cruising for divine bruising. I think a divine bruising WILL come. Life will become private hell for those officers; as the bible says the unrighteous will flee at the sound of a leaf.
And folks wonder why the L.A. cops want the populace disarmed.
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