General Discussion

eridani

(51,907 posts) Sat Jul 18, 2015, 04:54 AM Jul 2015

The 35-Year-Old Georgia Mother Who Was Shot and Killed by Police

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/31336-focus-the-35-year-old-georgia-mother-who-was-shot-and-killed-by-police

Working with a local television station, Brad Schrade of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution examines the extremely aromatic five-year old case of Caroline Small, a 35-year-old mother of two who was shot and killed by two police officers in Glynn County, a warren of small towns along the Georgia coast. It is a perfect case study of the problems with police culture in this country—most notably, the near impossibility of getting the justice system to deal with police who kill people. It is a true American horror story.

"If she moves the car, I'm going to shoot her," an officer yelled. Small pulled forward. Eight bullets tore through the windshield, striking her in the head and the face. The shooting was captured on police dash cam video. So was what the two Glynn County officers said afterward. They compared their marksmanship. One told a witness how he saw Small's head explode. Their words were as callous as Small's death unnecessary. "This is the worst one I've ever investigated," said Mike McDaniel, a retired GBI agent who supervised the 2010 criminal investigation into the officers' actions. "I don't think it's a good shoot. I don't think it's justified."

The story has it all. A really bad shoot. Cops refusing to call EMTs after the shooting despite the fact that their victim was still alive and would live for another week. Cops making up a bullshit story to cover their own asses. Cops tampering with the crime scene evidence, also to cover their own asses. An ambitious local prosecutor so far in the tank to the police department that she won't dry off until 2024. Attempts by outside law-enforcement to bring justice in the case that run into a stonewall so thick and high that open bureaucratic warfare breaks out between Glynn County law-enforcement and the detectives from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation tasked to look into the shooting. A grand-jury proceeding that is an embarrassment to 500 years of jurisprudence, so thoroughly rigged to no-bill the tewo officers that one of its members openly expresses his remorse for having been so completely hoodwinked. And, ultimately, no charges against the two officers and a quick-and-dirty dismissal of a civil suit brought by Caroline Small's family. The temptation just to block-quote the whole story is strong, but here is one sample of how things went so badly wrong in this case.