Fish Fear Me

The Circus Is Coming To Town

Not the NCAA Final Four, though that's close behind, this one:

A former Minnesota police officer will stand trial Monday for the first time in recent memory on murder charges for killing a civilian in the line of duty.

The July 15, 2017, fatal shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, 40, drew worldwide attention to Minnesota. But the case against Mohamed Noor is starkly different from other police shootings that have angered people in Minnesota and across the country.

Bad information has poisoned the narrative from the start:

Three sources with knowledge of the incident said Sunday that two officers in one squad car, responding to the 911 call, pulled into the alley. Damond, in her pajamas, went to the driver’s side door and was talking to the driver. The officer in the passenger seat pulled his gun and shot Damond through the driver’s side door, sources said. No weapon was found at the scene.

Naturally, a police officer shooting a woman in her pajamas while she was talking to his partner sparked outrage and hysteria instead of the healthy skepticism that was called for. Reactions ranged from calling MPD clowns to rogue to bigoted speculation that a Muslim cop freaked out over a woman in her pajamas out in public so he shot her.

None of that happened. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, typically the lead investigators in police shootings in Minnesota, quickly established that no conversation took place, though the StarTribune has not corrected their story. Hopefully the trial will debunk that nonsense once and for all.

I think it is going to boil down to this:

Justine Damond saw the squad car go down the alley behind her house and for some reason made the fateful decision to follow them several hundred feet to the end of the alley. While the officers were deciding what to do next, Damone caught up to them and slapped the back of the vehicle to get their attention and startled both officers. The driver could see Damone approaching his door, but Noor, in the passenger seat, did not have a clear view of what was going on. He heard the noise and saw a figure approaching his partner and perceived a threat.

My prediction is the jury will acquit on the two murder charges and convict on manslaughter. Noor didn't go down that alley with the intent to kill someone, or even with a depraved heart. However, I think he was negligent in discharging his weapon before properly evaluating the situation and a woman died because of that. We shall see if any new evidence emerges during the trial to change my mind on that.

Damone obviously did not deserve to be killed, but lost in all of this has been the common sense notion that it is unwise to surprise police officers, especially at night and when you have summoned them for a possible violent offense. Wait in your house and let them do their job. If they don't come to your door to tell you what they found call 911 again and ask for the status. People can get all righteous about "I shouldn't have to..." this or that, but the world is full of these situations. If you love people you talk to them about the world that is, not the world as it should be.

Human Achievement Hour

It's that time of year again. While others huddle in the dark and do meaningless virtue signaling at 8:30 tonight, I will show my support for civilization and human achievement by putting all of my outside lights on, in appreciation of our amazing standard of living brought about by human ingenuity and the harnessing of fossil fuels. 

Beer and Canadian whisky may be involved. 

From The Department of Eyeroll

Submitted without further comment:

Debuts

The revamped Twins with the youngest manager in MLB beat the Indians in their first March home opener. I don't want to know what kind of deal was made with god or devil to keep that from being snowed out. Whatever it was, winning a pitching duel with Cleveland was a good start to the season.

Also making its debut at Target Field was the $27, 24 inch, "Boomstick chili dog," supposedly named in honor of Nelson Cruz. Yeah...right. Looking at the picture at the link it's clear to me that the only thing that's going to go boom is one's digestive tract. If you are at the game and you are downwind of someone with one of these monstrosities, don't panic. You likely have at least 10 minutes to find another seat.

My guess is that it won't last long. It will be pulled from the menu after it's denounced in the revised Green New Deal for its global warming impact, right next to cows.

The Chicago Way

Everybody knows that Chicago is knee deep in corruption, but it's rare to see it practiced so brazenly:

In a highly unusual decision, prosecutors on Tuesday dropped charges against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett that accused him of staging a hate-crime attack against himself — a move that Mayor Rahm Emanuel later called a “whitewash of justice.”

The actor was indicted March 8 with 16 counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly hiring two men to attack him near his Streeterville home in January. The $10,000 posted for Smollett’s bond will be turned over to the City of Chicago Law Department.

I was skeptical that Smollett really suffered an attack from the beginning. It didn't seem credible that a couple of white Trump supporters were hanging out on a bitterly cold night in the hopes that Smollett would go out for a sandwich in the wee hours of the night. After an extensive investigation, Chicago PD Supt. Eddie Johnson held a detailed press conference, with the finding being it was all a hoax. Those details went to a grand jury and they came back with 16 counts against Smollett. Today they just went "poof," and I'm calling bullshit. Supt. Johnson and Mayor Emanuel are calling bullshit too. 

In his earlier press conference, Johnson called Smollett's hoax an insult to Chicago, but it was really a slander against Trump supporters, one that far too many media figures and politicians were eager to believe. Who cared whether it was credible or not? It was another chance to bash Trump and his supporters with false charges of racism and homophobia. 

I believe the Chicago PD, which is standing behind its findings. I believe the grand jury that indicted Smollet. I believe that Jussie Smollett is a lying piece of shit. And I believe that Chicago has two justice systems. One is for the little people and the other is for people who have connections to politicians like the Obamas and Kamala Harris.

We know which category Jussie Smollett falls into.

Superior Stirring

I've been watching my region of the lake come to life this week. The Soo locks are scheduled to open tonight at 12:01 am and that means the lake is stirring again. On Wednesday CG Mackinaw arrived in Duluth:

The next day it was out in the harbor breaking ice that was about a foot thick still:

On Friday the Kaye E. Barker got underway and pulled into Calumet Fuels before heading to Two Harbors to load iron ore:

In front of the Kaye E. Barker is the tug North Carolina, which broke the ice off Calumet earlier that morning.

Yesterday three more boats went through the canal, H. Lee White, American Spirit, and Mesabi Miner. While the Kaye E. Barker managed to leave Two Harbors, it appears that the three boats from yesterday have been stalled by ice just short of there. I noticed they had stopped last night and this morning CG Alder left Duluth headed in their direction:

(CG Alder is represented by the blue icon heading toward the three green circles)

I haven't seen any confirmation of that, but I don't see anything else that would stop all three boats. 

The lake is ice free and relatively calm where I am at, so I don't expect any boats to come within sight the next few days, but we'll see. The boats will probably take the shortest route over the big water if the weather is good. It's fun to see the lake come to life anyway. More videos of Duluth Harbor can be seen at Duluth Harborcam. Be sure to turn up the volume on the vids of the boats going under the lift bridge.

 

Update:

Follow Me!

 

Update(details at the link):

Yep, it was ice:

Three outbound lake freighters were freed Sunday after being stopped by ice overnight, officials reported.

Ensign Michael Torgeson aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Alder said the Mesabi Miner, American Spirit and H. Lee White were trapped by ice overnight between Duluth and Two Harbors after leaving the Duluth harbor.