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Loose Lips Sink Ships

An article about President Trump and his inability to keep “secrets.”

I wrote this article when Trump was the 45th president. Fighting like a schoolyard bully to jumping in feet first before thinking and starting debacles was all part and parcel of his administration. He is now on his way to taking office as the 47th president and he will be the oldest individual to serve as president and the first to take office after having been impeached and not only that, he will be the first convicted felon to take office as well. Will we see more of the same? You can bet your bottom dollar we will. He is off and running again. Talks of buying Greenland to annexing Canada to using military force against a NATO ally and the list grows as the man who loves using “I” takes office. He has little regard for norms and often he lets his mouth overload his you know what!

The article I wrote back then.

The 45th President is in hot water again and this just days after the controversial firing of FBI Director, James Comey. The president alleged that the firing was due to Comey “not doing a good job,” and instead of leaving it at that, he went on to tweet a thinly veiled threat suggesting that there was a taped recording of his conversation with Comey further adding, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.” That threw him into the eye of the hurricane where he has been ever since.

As if that wasn’t enough to throw his presidency into a downward spiral, the president was off and running to his next debacle. This one involves allegations that he divulged classified information to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office. The Washington Post reported that Trump revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group during his meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kialyak. Yes folks, ignorance is bliss and where the new President is concerned, it’s enough to “sink ships,” or his Presidency.

The latest morsel of “red meat” was just what the press needed to send them scrambling to get the best angle on the developing story as dreams of “impeachment” riddled through the minds of die-hard Trump haters. Not so fast people. There is such a thing as damage control and the White House has been doing just that sending in the “big guns” to take care of business. If Spicer’s “stare down the press” tactics hasn’t worked, well, maybe sending in National Security Advisor HR McMaster might just do the job. In his no-nonsense fashion, he denied that the President had revealed, “Intelligence sources or methods,” but reviewed, “a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation.” Was that enough to calm the “storm” and bring it to a screeching halt? Guess again.

Trump’s questionable tweets and actions have put his Presidency in turmoil once again and not even all the President’s men and women can put it back together again. This latest drama is one of his own making and if he doesn’t stop shooting off tweets from the White House during the early morning hours instead of getting some sleep, this situation is only going to get worse. Perhaps, he should take a tip from the 44th President, Barack Obama. When the going gets tough, go golfing. There is no better way to let off some steam than by shooting a small ball into a round hole at the same time cussing under your breath about all the wrongs of the world that needs righting. A surefire way to keep the lid on an explosive situation and you come off looking like a winner.

One last thing, the office of the President deserves a modicum of decorum and spouting off “secrets” at the drop of a coin and shooting off tweets like a teenager is not the way to get it.

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Stephon Clark, A Senseless Killing

LEST WE FORGET

March 18, 2018 dawned like any other day for Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old African-American male but before the day was done, he would belong to the same club as all those killed before him, the likes of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin just to name a few who are now card-carrying members of the “shot dead by the police” club.

On that particular evening, the officers of the Sacramento Police Department were looking for a male suspect who was captured on film breaking windows in the Meadowview neighborhood. The police camera shows officers breathing heavily as they run around the neighborhood trying to apprehend the suspect. They come across Clark standing in the yard of his grandmother’s house with a cellphone in one hand. What ensued is hard to watch as is and was the case in many other shootings involving black males in the U.S. The camera footage takes you through the encounter and then one officer is heard shouting, “Gun! gun! gun!” and a barrage of shots follows. The aftermath shows the victim on the ground his life seeping away. The officers had fired 20 rounds, eight shots found their mark, six of them in Stephon Clark’s back. He died about 3 to 10 minutes after being shot. The officers opened fire just seconds, six seconds in all, after they encountered Clark.

This is nothing new. The “overkill” by law enforcement of black males is nothing new. It is a recurring event. The horror and anger is nothing new either and so are the protests that ensued as hundreds if not thousands took to the streets looking for justice. We have yet to see justice prevail in such shootings because police officers are held to different standards and they march to a different drum beat or so it seems in this country.

According to the police, they believed that Clark was holding a weapon in his hand as they chased him into the backyard and opened fire at an unarmed man. The weapon was a white iPhone. The officers have claimed that they “feared for their lives.” We’ve heard this excuse too. Take Michael Brown for instance. Officer Darren Wilson, who shot him claimed that he feared for his life against an unarmed Brown. The young teenager had been shot six times at least twice in the head, those were the last two shots delivered. According to Darren Wilson, it was a “fight for survival” and he shot him because he feared for his life. Sound familiar?

Coming back to the case at hand, no aid was administered to Stephon Clark after the shooting. It took about 5 minutes before a female officer is heard saying, “We need to know if you’re OK. We need to get you medics, so we can’t go over and get you help until we know you don’t have a weapon.” Right, how many bullets does it take to believe that a shooting victim is no longer a threat? After five minutes, they walk over and handcuff the man bleeding on the ground. More officers arrive at the scene and one officer is heard saying, “Hey, mute,” and that was the end of the audio recording.

This is just another shooting of yet another black male in the scheme of things. The use of deadly force is also the norm where black males are concerned. Shoot first and ask questions later is the stance law enforcement takes when it comes to black suspects. The latest incident has sparked protests but this too is nothing new. The anger will simmer long after the protests have died down but justice will take a long time coming, if at all.

California lawmakers are pushing to make it easier to prosecute police officers who kill civilians. According to the author of the bill, Shirley Weber, “It seems that the worst possible outcome is increasingly the only outcome that we experience.” How right she is. These killings can only be described as an “overkill” to say the least.

In the meantime, another black male is dead, the victim of a police shooting. Far too often we hear, “we feared for our lives,” from the officers after emptying their barrels into the victims but in most cases it was not the officers who had to fear for their lives, it was the victims who had no weapons to protect themselves and are no longer here to give an account of what took place.

Stephon Clark was the father of two young boys, ages 1 and 3 and at the time of his death, he was trying to turn his life around. He had a criminal record but that is not the point here. His record is irrelevant, the shoot to kill mentality is. The case is under investigation but don’t hold your breath. The killing of black males will continue in a culture where it is condoned by the system.

His grandmother asked, “Why didn’t you shoot him in the arm? Shoot him in the legs? Send in dogs? Send in a Taser? Why? Why? Those are my questions too. but I will add one more question to that. Why was Clark shot six times in the back if as the officers claimed that they had feared for their lives when they delivered the shots? Finally, did Stephon Clark deserve to die even if he had broken some windows on that late March evening? What do you think?

Update:

As of 2024, Stephon Clark’s family is still waiting for justice to prevail in this case. The body camera video sparked national attention, outrage and calls against police brutality. It was announced in 2019 that then District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert wouldn’t file charges against the two officers who shot him, Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet. However, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in the Stephon Clark law in 2019 altering the Sacramento Police Department’s body-worn camera policies. And that was it.

The Killing of Christopher Lane

LEST WE FORGET

A series on murders that made sensational headlines because of the “senselessness” of the crime.

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He was a young man from Melbourne, Australia. He was handsome, he was ambitious, he was in love and he had everything going for him. He was two weeks away from celebrating his 23rd birthday when his life came to a screeching halt when a bullet from a passing car found its way to his back and he was pronounced dead within a matter of minutes.

Christopher Lane had won a baseball scholarship with Oklahoma’s East Central University and he was feeling on top of the world on August 13, 2013. What happened on that hot, humid day and how he lost his life is beyond imagination. His father, Peter Lane, put it this way as he tried to make sense of his son’s death. “It is heartless and to try to understand it is a short way to insanity. There is not gonna be any good to come out of this, cause it was just so senseless.” He was right. The senselessness of the killing would make headlines around the world and would make many of us sit up and take notice at man’s inhumanity to man.

They are James Edwards, 15, Chancey Luna, 16, and Michael Jones, 17, and they were at the other end of the spectrum. All three were restless with no future in sight. They had spent the night partying away, smoking meth amphetamine, drinking alcohol and taking Xanax. On the day of the murder, Edwards and Luna stepped into Jones’s Ford Focus for a joyride. It would quickly turn into tragedy for Christopher Lane. He was jogging, minding his own business when Chancey Luna saw him and decided to take aim from the backseat of the car. The bullet penetrated just below Lane’s shoulder blade piercing his heart and lungs leaving him gasping for breath in a roadside ditch. There was no chance for survival.

According to Jones, “We were bored and didn’t have anything to do so we decided to kill somebody.” Remorse was a long time coming if at all. Instead they were on an euphoric high and the exact words used were, “You got that n***a, you shot him, you got him.”

The three teenagers were sentenced as adults. Jones 17, was charged with accessory after the fact of first degree murder, later upgraded to first-degree murder. James Edwards, 15, was sentenced to 25 years jail with 10 years off the sentence suspended and triggerman, Luna was sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, in 2016, Luna’s conviction was overturned by the appeals court because, “the juvenile’s chronological age and immaturity” were not taken into account at time of sentencing. No date has been set as to when a new sentencing will be held.

This is a story that needs retelling because no matter how much time has gone by between then and now, the senselessness of the crime is horrific to say the least and will never get old. Violence has become an all too familiar part of our lives and killings are nothing new. Each new day brings another story of killing or killings and we have become jaded to the violence all around us. However, in this case, the brutality of the crime stands out because the victim and perpetrators had no prior history. Christopher Lane lost his life because he was seen as a thrill-inducing object not as a human being and therein lies the horror of this specific crime.

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

Terry Pratchett

Update:

A Stephens County Judge has upheld the sentencing for Chancey Allen Luna in the shooting death of Chris Lane. He was convicted of first degree murder but Luna attempted to appeal the conviction because he was a juvenile at the time. However, rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld that a juvenile can be sentenced to life without parole.

Magdeburg, Germany

I shouldn’t touch this one with a ten-foot pole but when has that stopped me?

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King

A man drove into a crowd at a Christmas market on Friday evening killing at least five people including a 9-year-old child and injuring over 200 others. It was a horrific incident.

The driver in question is a 50-year-old Saudi national living and working as a doctor for nearly 20 years in Germany. He is a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. The man also has Islamophobic views and so doesn’t fit your normal profile of a terrorist. No motive has been established yet.

Yet, that hasn’t stopped Germany’s far-right from mobilizing and screaming, “Wake Up Germany!” This was a slogan used by Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and its usage is a punishable offense in Germany.

Talib A, the perpetrator and driver of the car caused a tragedy of massive proportions but let’s not tar and feather all immigrants as, ‘terrorists,’ ‘criminals,’ and ‘low lifes.’

Let’s take a hard look at Germany’s extreme right. The irony is not lost here. The same groups who promote violence, terror and hate are the same ones marching against violence because in this instance it was caused by a foreign naitonal. The mantra of these groups is “HATE” and “VIOLENCE” is their hand-grenade.

Racist attacks have increased against migrants in the wake of the deadly Christmas market attack in Magdeburg to the point that it has become a hostile and threatening environment for migrants living there. There has been a significant rise in attacks against foreigners who are seen as “looking different” according to these individuals and they have a target placed on their backs. You may think that this is a recent event because of the deadly incident but it has been ongoing. They (the extremists) look for any excuse to promote violence against foreigners. The extreme-right and neo-Nazi parties are demanding the mass deportation of migrants from the country. Sounds familiar America? The cry is, “Deport! Deport! Deport!”

Here’s the question. Where do you send these “hate mongers?” These perpetrators of hate, violence and even death in some cases. Their brand of violence will never stop because they are blinded by hate and that’s the kind you should worry about. Remember, Adolf Hitler, the most hated man on the planet and the hate and destruction he unleased which in turn killed around six million Jewish people? It was mass murder on an unprecedented scale. Let’s not go down that road again.

It’s time to look at violence and terror from a broad scale. Let’s LOOK at everyone who causes ‘terror’ and not just at the Islamic world. Terror is terror, it doesn’t matter who causes it but it needs to be stopped otherwise we’ll have more innocent lives lost. Working on that solution should be the main focus. PERIOD!

Have an amazing day.

Grandpa Can’t Dance!

At a town hall meeting in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on Monday, Donald J. Trump decided to cut it short, said to hell with the questions and decided spontaneously to do it the Trump way. He asked his supporters to stay calm and to listen to some of his favorite songs from a rally playlist.

During that meeting, Orange Jesus decided that it would be safer for him not to answer any more questions because the man has no plan only a concept of a plan. So after two medical emergencies which caused interruptions, Grandpa Trump decided to turn it into a “music fest.” He wanted to show everyone there that he was a fun-loving guy and tried to boogie with the best of them but unfortunately the dance moves looked a little constipated and he came off looking like the fool that he is.

His favorite song seemed to be the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A,” as his tan gone wrong face broke into a smile and he did a couple of hand movements as he jived along. It was only 30 minutes into the meeting when the former President decided to make a detour, one of no significance BUT for the time spent answering five questions in total and aiming attacks against VP Kamala Harris. There was no getting him back to the question and answer session because he had decided he wanted a dance party and Orange Jesus always gets what he wants and if doesn’t he would instigate a riot to get it.

After the two medical emergencies, he said, “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music…..Who the hell wants to hear questions, right? ” Perhaps the unprecedented move suggested that he had everything in the bag and he was now looking at a clear win and an untethered path to the White House and questions were an absolute waste of time as far as he was concerned.

There were several songs played that night but “YMCA” made the man grin. I think the recurrent theme of “Young man” in the song made him feel young again. Biden is out of the race now so that makes Trump the oldest Presidential Nominee in U.S. history. Trump’s septuagenarian status does come into play, dance party or not!

The town hall meeting was bizarre to say the least but more than that, “not quite all there” comes to mind. If you ask me, the man is not only off his rocker but he belongs in it!

There is over three weeks to go until Election Day 2024. Let’s hope Orange Jesus never makes it to the White House again, ruse or not. Fingers and toes crossed!

The Company You Keep

“When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.” Japanese Proverb

Donald J. Trump loves the strong men type, more specifically the dictator types and that is a well-known fact. The man who once called Neo-Nazis and the like “fine people on both sides,” is not shy about his approval for autocratic dictators.

However, his latest obsession with Laura Loomer, hard-right conspiracy theorist and travel buddy has definitely raised more than a few eyebrows.

The 31-year-old who is known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric and for spreading conspiracy theories one of which is that illegal immigrants from Haiti are eating domestic pets in a small Ohio city which has caused quite a stir. This baseless claim was later regurgitated by Trump on the debate stage between him and Harris.

If that wasn’t enough, Ms. Loomer took it upon herself to come out of the closet as far as her “racist” self is concerned. How better to do it than to bring race into the playbook and she is no novice as far as that is concerned. This time, she went gunning for Kamala Harris by posting, “The White House will smell like curry and White House speeches will be facilitated via a call centre” if she wins the November presidential election. Typical racist insult which comes from the underbelly of racist propaganda. Instead of shutting it down, Trump had this to say:

“I don’t control Laura. She’s a free spirit. She’s strong and has strong opinions, but that’s not up to me.” There’s that word again. “Strong” seems to get his attention if you know what I mean. It also seems to get his juices flowing and he refuses to cut ties with her.

Laura Loomer is an outspoken advocate of all things racist. This far-right activist and provocateur is known for pushing the boundaries of what is not acceptable and her views are rooted in extreme idealogy and conspiracy theories.

According to Loomer, 9/11 was an “inside job.” She calls herself a “proud Islamophobe.” She has posted derogatory comments about Muslim immigrants and stoked the fires of fear and division. She has been banned from major social media platforms including Twitter (X), Facebook and Instagram because of hate speech and inflammatory propaganda. However, Elon Musk has reinstated her account which says a lot doesn’t it?

COVID-19, according to Loomer, was a “scam,” and that it was aligned with broader government controls. There’s plenty more of such rhetoric but you get the picture.

If you want to know the true character of a man, watch who he praises and keeps company with and it will take you to the heart of the matter. Trump is a wanna be dictator and rubbing shoulders with similar people who do the “speaking” for him is his agenda. If you want to know the true character of the man, look no further than the company he keeps!

Joyful Warriors vs. The Weird Duo

Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz say they are, “Joyful Warriors,” compared to Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance whose campaign smirks of loom, doom and gloom.

According to Harris, they are looking at a future filled with optimism unlike Trump who she accused of being stuck in the past and preferring a confrontational style of politics and folks that is putting it mildly! Furthermore, she added that, “Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have the chance to sit behind the seal of the United States.”

Tim Walz is upbeat, energetic and has a perpetual smile plastered on his face and he is the symbol of joy itself. Add Kamala’s raucous laughter and her message of unity, community and working together and you’ve got a winning ticket. Walz coined the term, “weird” to describe Vance and it has taken hold in more ways than one. He also had some choice words to say about Trump saying the former president “mocks our laws, he sows chaos and division amongst the people and that’s to say nothing of the job he did as president.” A takedown like no other!

The two waltzed their way through the swing states, with glee, with humor and a positive message. Walz bowed, he waved, he grinned, he laughed and if he could have, he would have danced the night away. When it came to his turn to speak, he turned to Harris and said, “Thank you, Madam Vice-President, for the trust you put in me but maybe more so, thank you for bringing back the joy.” A breath of fresh air no less!

Donald Trump was looking at a sure second win just weeks ago but when Biden ended his bid for re-election, and handed the reins to his VP, the Democrats were back in command again. Harris nailed it when she asked this question. “Do we want to live in a country of freedom, of compassion, of rule of law? Or a country of chaos, fear and hate?” This was followed by the cry, “We’re not going back.” That was the nail in the coffin. Shawn Fain, president of the United Automobile Workers said, Americans are faced with “which side are you on’ moment” and he went on to say, he was siding with the “badass woman who stood with us on the picket line.”

Badass, she definitely is. More than that, if elected she would be the first female president and don’t let that loud, raucous laughter fool you. She raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after naming Walz as her running mate and that is a record haul. Just as her no-nonsense reply to her protesters, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” Trump, on the other hand, was experimenting with more nicknames saying, “We’re going to evict crazy Kamala.” Harris is a giant compared to petty, name-calling, size mongering, temper-tantrum throwing Trump. If all he has to offer is just insults and who can hit better below the belt then the man doesn’t stand a chance!

Kamala Harris, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey

“My daily challenge to myself is to be part of the solution, to be a joyful warrior in the battle to come. My challenge to you is to join that effort. To stand up for our ideals and our values. Let’s not throw up our hands when it’s time to roll up our sleeves. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Years from now, our children and our grandchildren will look up and lock eyes with us. They will ask us where we were when the stakes were so high. They will ask us what it was like. I don’t want us to just tell them how we felt. I want us to tell them what we did.”

Insults Galore

Biden has dropped out and he has endorsed his VP Kamala Harris to run in his place. The Clintons have endorsed her saying that, “America’s future depends on it.” Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama have also endorsed her saying, “Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.” Those are nice words compared to what is coming out of the Republican camp.

It is a gloves off and let’s roll in the mud mentality combined with an all out assault. Nothing new here but is Trump running scared? Looks like it, doesn’t it? “She’s the same as Biden but much more radical. She’s a radical left person and this country doesn’t want a radical left person to destroy it.” The former President went on to add, “If she becomes president, Kamala Harria will make the invasion exponentially worse, and just like she did with San Francisco, just like she did with the border, our whole country will be permanently destroyed.” Can he go any lower? Oh yes, he can! “I call her Laffin’ Kamala. You ever watch her laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts.” Hmm…..takes one to know one uh? I guess her laugh is better than your constipated orange laugh which makes you look like a turtle at times!

Rightwing podcaster, Megyn Kelly threw this out. “She actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics and most women (and men) may learn that and see it for what it is: evidence of an unqualified political aspirant getting ahead based on smthy other than merit.” Really Megyn? You do have a smug way about you but your comment or rather insult just goes to show how low on the totem pole you can go. Perhaps that’s why you’re doing a podcast and nothing more.

Harris is smart. She is the first Black woman to be elected District Attorney, the first woman to be California’s attorney general, the first Indian American senator and the first Asian American VP. She is a trailblazer and a prosecutor to boot. She also has a degree in political science and economics and the lady has chutzpah and if that’s not enough, she is all of 59-years-old. She could and would run circles around the former 78-year-old president. He wouldn’t know what hit him except that he got trounced and to the bone.

If you’re wondering about the insults, the hot, heavy and nasty ones, it’s because as Socrates said, “When the debate is lost, insults become the loser’s tools.” It will be Trump’s turn to feel the heat as he faces off with Harris on that debate stage knowing full-well that nothing, not insults galore, not steroids or whatever he is on will be enough to put her in her place and I guarantee he’ll be shaking in his boots or whatever he is wearing. Laffen’ Kamala will be a formidable opponent and that folks is the honest truth.

The Manchester Uproar

Derek Michael Chavin, a former police officer, murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020 by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes while Floyd kept calling out, “I can’t breath,” and slowly snuffed out his life. During his tenure as a police officer, Chavin had 18 complaints against him and was involved in three police shootings and he had received two letters of reprimand for misconduct.

On April 20, 2021, he was convicted on all charges and was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. He is just one of many officers involved in the killing of black males and for using excessive force while serving as a police officer. Police officers have always marched to a different drumbeat it seems, that of carrying a gun and a badge but when it comes to paying for their indiscretions, murder no less, they are untouchable or they walk off with a slight reprimand and are free to carry on as if nothing had happened while their victims lay six feet under, their voices silenced forever. Since 2015, police officers have shot at least 135 unarmed black men and women nationwide. At least 75% of the officers involved in the shootings were white. Excessive force and overkill was and is the name of the game. Willie McCoy, a black rapper, was sleeping in his silver Mercedes CLS500 outside a Taco Bell minding his own business when officers, six of them arrived and within minutes they had fired 55 shots in 3.5 seconds killing him. They put it down to “imminent danger,” and self-defense” would be the other and most often used excuse for the killing of unarmed black men.

Fast forward to what happened across the pond in Manchester, UK. A video has gone viral showing a police officer of the Greater Manchester Police kicking and stomping on a man’s head while he lay motionless on the ground. An older woman is seen trying to protect the young man on the ground. The uproar around this situation brings back shades of what happened in the US and the protests that ensued after the killing of black males in the US. As usual everyone especially the police are scrambling to come up with legitimate excuses for use of such excessive force BUT the video speaks for itself. The man has a cyst on his brain according to CT scans and his condition has worsened. Whatever happened before the attack by the police officer has nothing to do with this excessive use of force. The man on the ground was unarmed, motionless and no threat to any of the officers involved. Did racism play a part in this horrific and over-excessive use of force? Definitely.

According to a University of Birmingham report, “Police violence is not just a problem in the United States – it’s a reality in the UK, and at its core is “warrior culture among police officers. Warrior culture is defined as, “police officers defaulting to violence and aggression when conflicts arise.” It is, “largely characterized by aggression, machoism, intolerance, bias, suspicion, and detachment from policed communities,” which creates a ‘us versus them’ mentality. Furthermore, “policing research over many decades has consistently found that misogyny and racism persist in UK street policing culture.

The uproar is justified, the outrage more so. The officer or rather officers involved in this incident should lose their licence to practice or rather their badges should be taken away from them. They do not belong in a police force that is supposed to be out there to protect and to treat every individual equally and they certainly should not be condoned to go out and unleash the brutality they did. Having a badge and a baton does not give you the right to act with no principles and with such aggression. Shame on you!

Apple River Stabbings

Nicolae Miu, a 51-year-old mechanical engineer from Prior Lake is accused of killing 17-year-old Isaac Schuman and stabbing four of his friends, Rhyley Mattison, A.J. Martin, Dante Carlson and Tony Carlson. The victims were between the ages of 17 to 24 years of age. He says it was self-defense and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The incident took place at the Apple River in Wisconsin on September 2022. State prosecutor, Karl Anderson, calls the deadly attack, “senseless and horrific.” According to Anderson, “All Nicolae had to do was walk away. He eventually did walk away, but not after stabbing five people.”

What started out as a fun day on the river for the teens ended in tragedy when they came into contact with Nicolae. Words were exchanged and when a group of adult tubers intervened things escalated. In a video shot, Nicolae is shown holding a knife in his hand. He was wearing bathing trunks so how did he manage to hide the knife and why carry a weapon? Within a span of 25 seconds, he had killed one person and stabbed four others.

Defense attorney, Aaron Nelson is saying that Miu stabbed the tubers in self-defense because he feared for his life. The defendant who is of Romanian descent immigrated to the U.S. as a teen and has been described as an “intelligent” and “peaceful” man. He had also undergone a quadruple bypass surgery two years before the deadly incident.

The teens are being described as unruly and drunk and had been “smoking stuff.” Isaac Schuman’s autopsy revealed he had a blood alcohol level of .219. They are also being accused of heckling and humiliating Miu calling him a raper and a pedophile and that “he was looking for little girls.” Video footage of the incident does show the teens circling Miu and pushing him into the water but there was no other weapon in sight except for the one in the defendant’s hand. This is a hard one folks.

If convicted, Miu is facing a life sentence in prison but than again he did take the life of a 17-year-old not to mention the tremendous psychological trauma he caused the surviving teens. This was clear to see as we watched each of them take the stand only to break down in tears at the memory of what had taken place and over the loss of their friend. Self-defense has often been used in cases where the victim had no weapon and the aggressor was the only one who had the ability to cause damage and in this case he did. Will this defense fly? Will he walk? Remember, he had the choice to walk away but didn’t. He was the adult in this situation but he chose to stay and showed his anger to a group of teens who didn’t know any better. You’ve heard the saying, “Children will be children?” Well in this case, teens will be teens but it still means the same thing. They are noisy and when in a group boisterous and do things that they wouldn’t do if by themselves. Miu should have walked away BUT he didn’t.

Trial is continuing.