Spokane "justice"... damn scary!

OK, for anybody just stumbling across this post... no, I don't hate cops. The vast majority of them are just like anybody else, doing the best they can with the tools they have. But, again, just like any group of people, there's always a few who are stupid, evil, or both, and should, at a minimum, be downgraded to a position of less authority/threat to society.

So, with that obligatory bit out of the way, what's up with the title on this post? Simply this: a couple of years back, an off-duty cop was drinking in a bar while carrying a concealed gun (bad idea in general, against departmental regulations, but not illegal in and of itself). Something happened (the details of which vary depending on which side you want to listen to), resulting in the cop chasing a man on foot through a residential area, shooting at the other man repeatedly, hitting him in the back of the head, after which he not only doesn't call 911 or get anybody else on the scene, but actively avoids on-duty police when they do show up. Today, the verdict came down... not guilty on all counts, by reason of self-defense.

Of course, I've left a fair amount of detail out so far... the cop was drinking in a gay bar, which is why he says he was avoiding his fellow officers. The cop says he was chasing the other guy because he stole his truck... in spite of forensics not being able to find a trace of the guy inside the cab of the truck for that guy's trial earlier. Not that that stopped a dispatcher from piping up about a confession at this second trial, but not at the first, that's conveniently not recorded. Oh, and of course, the guy being chased supposedly turned around and acted like he had a weapon, which is why he was shot... in the back of the head... in self-defense.

No, I don't hate cops. What I hate is that our criminal justice system is so brain-damaged that we can process two individuals through separate trials and decide, in effect, that there was no criminal problem, despite a drunken gent chasing and shooting at somebody else, with or without cause, resulting in the guy being chased getting shot in the back, in the head or otherwise. Even more so, I hate that such court idiocy could happen in any number of places, not just slightly-backwards Spokane.

I wish I had the clarity of thought to come up with a "foolproof" fix to the system to avoid problems like this... the best I can come up with at the moment is that, in any criminal "event" involving more than one person, the entire event should be handled at one trial, and the job of the jury should not simply be an up-or-down guilty/not guilty verdict, but the construction of a timeline of events, as best they can tell, that supports their verdicts. All I know is that there has to be something better than... this.