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The man who killed Nicole was "cut by his cell phone."  I was a big fan of O.J.'s and didn't want to believe his guilt.  He lost me, however, when he explained that the cuts on his hand and the blood in his car came when he got cut on his cell phone, which he'd left in his car, and that he walked all over his front yard talking to his girlfriend with blood dripping off his hand. Hogwash!

And Al, I'm sure you're right about what a pain in the A it is for cops these days, with everyone and their brother carrying a camera and ready to cry "brutality."  But the final verdict on the trial involving Rodney King was correct, in that two of the men were guilty and two of the men were not.  In Daryl Gates' book Chief he comes to the same conclusion.  Gates cites a number of violations conducted by his officers. 

Al, I believe you reveal your own bias when you say that Rodney King was violent and threw the tasers back at the officers.  The tapes I remember watching showed that Rodney never fought back against the officers at all, but that he was scared for his life and was trying to run away. Briseno sensed that and tried to calm Rodney down by holding him down with his foot and talking to him.  Actually meeting Rodney and spending time with him really taught me a lot about prejudice.  Like most white people, I saw Rodney as a big black man capable of harm, and was intitially defensive of the police and their need to send a message to those resisting arrest.  After meeting the man though my eyes were opened.  You see Rodney King is a child.  Approximately a ten year old.  He could very well be mildly retarded.  When he saw the cops he got scared and tried to get away, and the more they beat him the more he wanted to get away.  Think of Lenny in Of Mice and Men minus the proclivity to kill soft furry things.  Rodney was scared and the police just saw him as a threat, and kept pounding away to teach the "gorillas in the mist" what happens to them when they don't obey.  Their motto is To Protect and To Serve, and all they could think about was serving up an ass-whupping. Now Rodney's face has been smashed in and one of his eyes is permanently crying.  Tears trickle down his face every few minutes.. Literally.

I've worked with cops and respect them.  My sister's long-time boyfriend is a cop and an ex-girlfriend and I helped him train rookies on a movie set. They were told we were a domestic violence situation that they had to handle, but in fact we had a former officer upstairs with an M-16 who was supposedly my brother-in-law.  Somewhere in the middle of them separating us etc.. he would make a loud noise and the officers were supposed to then respond to that situation "who else is in the house" etc.  A number of the trainees tried to impress the older officers by roughing me up when they first came in the house.  Even though they knew I was an actor, they threw me against walls, threw me to the floor, put me in painful fingerholds, etc...  Since I knew what was coming, I deliberately tried to make sure the "brother-in-law" got these guys.  By the end of the day we'd dropped 17 policemen.  They were so busy showing off for the other cops they didn't notice the bullet casings on the floor, or the cocaine on the coffee table.  Some of the cops were very nice and wanted to calm us down and discuss our problems etc.  and even believed me when I told them the noise upstairs was our dog jumping off the bed.  Some of the nice guys got killed as well.  After two full days of this, I came away with a lot of respect for the dificult jobs cops perform on a daily basis.  A year or so later one of the young officers from the station I worked with was killed  by a teenage boy who'd broken into a stereo shop.  The boy ran away and hid in an attic.  A dog was used to track his scent.  One by one fellow officers went into the attic to try and get the boy to surrender.  Somehow each one fired once at the boy as he pointed his gun at them.  I believe he bled to death in the attic with four different wounds by four different officers. No one really believed the scenario but he was a cop-killer so no one really cared. I'm pretty sure the officer who died was one of the men I'd helped train but I don't remember whether or not he killed my "brother-in-law" or my "brother-in-law" killed him.  I'd like to think he killed my "brother-in-law."

Sorry Pat, but your are assuming I am showing bias when I in fact have seen the entire video which you obviously have not and are drawing uneducatated conclusions from them and labeling me at the same time. Go to the Caliber Press website and get the video on the Rodney King incident which shows the video in it's entirety and then we will talk on the same level here.

In my 22 years of law enforcement, I worked out of and then ran the training unit for eight of them. I am a certified Use of Force, Firearms and Baton Instructor. I got burned out in training and now am the watch commander on the overnight shift from 11p to 7a. I am a court certified expert in issues of use of force, firearms and ballistics. I am also on the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Team for the state.

Al

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Pat,

You also might want to get a peak at Rodney's criminal history before you get too emotional about his being fearful of the police. I am sure he is willing to allow it to be released to you since he has nothing to hide!!!

Life behind the camera is not reality. Sorry to burst your bubble on this.

Al

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I was SICKENED by the verdict last night. I feel so bad that these boys aren't believed.

Freudian theory suggests that most paedophiles were sexually abused when they were young. They come to believe that this is a natural act and this shapes their own sex drive. There is therefore a good chance that those abused will also become paedophiles when they grow up. They are aware that this is not socially acceptable so they have to disguise this activity. This includes convincing themselves that what they are doing is an act of love. Of course, to a certain extent it is. I am sure Jackson believed he loved the boys he sexually abused.

Over the years Michael Jackson has made out-of-court settlements totalling $25.5m with the families of boys who had accused him of child abuse. The ability to attract young boys to his home is also very expensive. Neverland alone costs him $5m a year (staff, maintenance, etc.). His paedophile behaviour costs him a great deal of money and is partly responsible for his massive debts.

That is not to say I don’t feel sorry for Michael Jackson. I feel sorry for all paedophiles trapped inside a perverted sex-drive. However, I feel far more sorry for those children abused by Jackson. How many of his victims will turn into paedophiles? Unlike Jackson, they are unlikely to have the financial resources to keep themselves out of prison.

It takes a lot of courage to testify in court against paedophiles. I thought Gavin Arvizo was a good witness (his mother of course was appalling). His account seemed totally believable. So also did the way he eventually provided evidence to the police (backed up by expert witnesses on child abuse). Several jurors afterwards said that they thought Jackson was guilty of child abuse. However, they did not think the evidence was strong enough. In other words, they believed Jackson rather than Arvizo. Yet Jackson, unlike Arvizo, refused to be cross-examined in court. One juror even went as far as to say that her decision was based on the Mrs Arvizo clicking her fingers at the jury: “I’m not a dog” she said.

My main concern is the message it sends out to children currently being sexually abused by adults. Are they likely to want to endure with what Gavin Arvizo put up with? I doubt it. The Michael Jackson case was a victory for all paedophiles.

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Interesting that Al mentioned Blake.  A good point.

It seems that it is hard to convict celebrities.  Of course it may be because they have the funds to hire the best legal defense.

Hi all

Yes I agree that we are talking here more about California celebrity justice rather than OJ and Jackson walking because they are black, er, if Michael is black that is (On my blog I have a poem called "Sequined Glove" -- comments welcome).

There are also the mitigating circumstances in the Robert Blake and Michael Jackson cases that the prosecution case in both was very weak-- no gun in the Blake case and no witnesses to him actually shooting Bonnie Lee Bakely, and in the Jackson case, overreliance on a mother and son who changed their stories and who seemed to be out to milk Jackson for money. In the OJ trial, I believe it is accepted that the prosecution botched their case against him, combined with the questions about Fuhrman and the LAPD.

It will be interesting to see if Phil Spector also gets off in his upcoming trial. . .

Apart from the weakness of the prosecution cases (and maybe prosecutors just as newshounds are apt to go after celebrities), the major operating factors in these trials I think are probably the fact that celebrities can afford better defense lawyers and that, perhaps, juries are reluctant to convict celebrities. . . than that the race aspect got OJ and Jackson off.

It will be interesting to see if Michael Jackson can resurrect his career. I somehow think he will be able to, and thus I might have to modify my poem... This is in contrast to, for example, the case of Fatty Arbuckle, the 1920's silent movie comedian, who was ruined by the scandal over the charges of rape and murder of actress Virginia Rappe, even though he was acquitted of the charges against him.

Best regards

Chris George

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In the OJ case race clearly was a factor and Cochran skillfully played the so-called "race card". Of course Cochran's famous quote was: "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit", and the glove demonstration was one example of the prosecution's incompetence.

I think Chris is right that but for the Simpson case the factors thay link these cases are celebrity defendants and (presumably) excellent defense attorneys, involved because of the celebrities' wealth. It does seem difficult to convict a celebrity. Query whether this is primarily true in California, where most celebrity cases are tried.

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You Know it must be the same all over the country as far as how people feel when it comes to LE doing their job correctly. Nobody can understand why a cop would walk up to a car with his hand on his weapon if he is only pulling that car over for a speeding violation. Nobody understands why an officer will fight with everything he has and use any tool he has to restrain a violent subject. People don't understand how if a subject is on the ground and tries to get up how this can be an act of aggression. You all can't understand any of this because none of you have ever been the cop pulling the person over for speeding, or you have never been the officer fighting a violent subject, and you've never seen what a subject that is just tring to stand up, can do to an officer or group of officers if he is allowed to get up.Like Al said when you have walked a mile in our shoes and understand the reason why we do the things we do, then the Rodney King incident, the O.J. and the Jackson incident will all become much clearer to you. Also a little more food for thought, you know it's funny that some of the most outspoken people against all police actions, are the same people that call you at 3:00 in the morning and when you arrive on scene at 3:02 they bitch you out because you weren't there at 2:59. It's like the people who lobby against capital punishment in this country. I will bet you dollars to donut holes ( and remember cops don't give up their donut holes real easy) that they who lobby against it have never had a loved one murdered in a capital offense or had any one even remotely close to them murdered.

And as far as Rodney being scared so he ran..... I'm sorry but I must have been taught different when I was growing up in N.E. Iowa. I was always taught that a Police Office was the one person that you could trust and there was no need to be afraid of them. The way I look at it If you run..... YOU"RE GUILTY!!!! of something.

Otherwise there would be no need to run.

You can all call me what ever you want, but the one thing you can't call me is naive, like some folks around here.

With all do Respect!!!!!!!

Mike :)

Edited by Mike Perez
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