Aaron Dean Charged with Murder in Killing of Atatiana Jefferson

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast.

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12 Responses

  1. Dark Matter says:

    Things that stand out.
    A) Kraus said Dean has been uncooperative with investigators and has not answered their questions. (wiki).
    B) Dean was hired in August 2017 and commissioned as a licensed officer in April 2018

    So… the department is not covering him?Report

    • InMD in reply to Dark Matter says:

      They will and I still give him a fighting chance at acquittal. However if he isn’t it will be a much, much bigger sign that the tide is turning than the Guyger case. Body cam could be very important as to whether he’ll risk a jury.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to InMD says:

        I agree with this. The Guyger case was an example of everything being effed up. She went into an apartment that wasn’t hers and shot the guy who lived there. She may have been a cop, but she was off-duty.

        In this case? He was on duty. He was on a call.

        I’m no fan of Qualified Immunity… I mean, I suppose I would have liked the idea *IN THEORY* before I ever saw it applied, but, in practice, it seems to be applied in crazy ways that make me say “wait, you were going to use QI to cover for *THAT*?” and that makes me a fan of exploring what would happen if we got rid of it entirely.

        With that out of the way, given how I have seen QI applied in the past, I don’t see what makes this act particularly different from other QI-covered bullshit acts done when cops were in uniform, on the clock, and did something that they knew would be illegal if a non-cop did it.Report

  2. Oscar Gordon says:

    I’m still waiting for the Union (or other defenders) to go on about how he must have been in fear for his life, or he gave her plenty of time to process and obey his simple command, or how his elite training allowed his to perceive that she was going for a gun…

    Etc.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      I’m sure he was in fear for his life. That’s why I’m expecting QI to apply.Report

    • Aaron David in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      Yeah, there is still plenty of time for the relevant actors to make their noise here. How it plays out, whether like the Guyer case, or like the Baltimore “rough riding” incident remains to be seen.Report

      • Dark Matter in reply to Aaron David says:

        We didn’t figure out what happened in Baltimore, even down to “who”, “what”, or “when”. We don’t even know he had a rough ride.

        Here we know she was shot and who did it. We have some idea of the surrounding situation.Report

        • Aaron David in reply to Dark Matter says:

          Good point. I was mainly thinking of the overall sense of justice that prevails. The sense that leads to all of the things you mention.Report

        • Slade the Leveller in reply to Dark Matter says:

          “During the journey, Gray somehow fractured three vertebrae, injured his voice box and severed 80 per cent of the spine from his neck. The police claim they did not do anything.”

          Uh huh.

          https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/brutal-in-baltimore/article7193458.eceReport

          • Dark Matter in reply to Slade the Leveller says:

            Marilyn Mosby made statements for which she had no evidence. Former Baltimore Prosecutor Page Croyder wrote an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun in which she described Mosby’s charges as reflecting “either incompetence or an unethical recklessness”. Croyder said that Mosby circumvented normal procedures “to step into the national limelight”, and that she “pandered to the public”, creating an expectation of a conviction. (wiki) Furthering her ethical adventure there are allegations she repeatedly withheld evidence from the defense lawyers.

            Was Gray injured before he got in the police van? He was limping before he got into the van and needed to be lifted up, however we don’t have strong evidence that the three cops who arrested him beat him, much less to that degree.

            If it was after he was in the van, did he get a “rough ride”? There was another criminal in the car with him and he claimed there wasn’t a problem. What photography we’ve got doesn’t show it.

            If he didn’t have a broken back when he got into the car and was faking an injury, then we’re into him deliberately injuring himself and taking it too far territory.

            So we have three conflicting theories and two different sets of police. Your quoted statement is backing theory #2, but what Marilyn Mosby did was to charge everyone with everything and hope she found enough evidence to convict someone of something. She got one juror on one trial to vote to convict.

            So again, we didn’t figure out what happened in Baltimore, even down to “who”, “what”, or “when”. This isn’t “can’t prove legally” this is “we’re not sure what happened”.Report

  3. Philip H says:

    So today’s reporting is that the dispatcher sent them on an open door check, which is another way of saying a suspicious burglary not a true welfare check. This is alleged to account for why the officers didn’t go to the front door or identify themselves initially. It makes the case much more confused, and points to a systemic process problem in the Fort Worth PD that isn’t being addressed.Report