Notes of a Defeatist

Friday, an all white jury acquitted three former Milwaukee police officers of severely beating Frank Jude Jr. Apparently, there was a lack of witnesses who weren’t in the process of beating a black man half to death or fellow police officers. Maybe it’s just another example of what happens when you hire if-you’re-guilty-and-you-know-it defense attorney Gerald Boyle.

“Finally McCann called two who appeared to be his star witnesses – the only two MPD officers who said they did see who beat Jude – Joseph Schabel and Nicole Belmore, who responded to the scene in uniform and on duty. They each gave testimony damaging to the defense, and both said they’d suffered reprisals within the department for cooperating with prosecutors.

The defense contended that two of the off-duty officers – Bartlett and Spengler – put themselves on duty to arrest Jude, who they believed had stolen Spengler’s badge. But the men did not beat Jude, jam anything in his ears, put a knife to his throat or yank back his fingers, their lawyers said.

Because an all-white jury acquitted white officers in a beating case with racial overtones, “I’ve heard some comparisons to the Rodney King case,” said Rodney Cubbie, defense attorney for officer Ryan Packard, who was at the Spengler party but not charged in Jude’s beating. “There’s a difference. In King, you had a videotape that showed the beating, and the question was whether or not it was justified. Here, you don’t have a videotape that shows who did what, and none of the defense attorneys argued that what happened to Jude was justified.”

So who did it then? Did Jude just magically kick his own ass? Rodney King had that same problem too.
Again we hear that a “code of silence” amongst the officers aided in covering up the situation. Seems cops like rap videos too, because all we ever hear lately is about “stop snitching”.
It’s hard not to wonder what will happen next and how will the city react?

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