DA and His Grand Jury: Santa Clara County's Legal "Cosa Nostra"
Welcome to the secret world of Santa Clara County "officer-involved shootings", where prosecutors are free to posthumously transform any person's existence into one that was destined to be ended by a police bullet. District Attorney George Kennedy calls this world <i>"<b>MY</b> grand jury thing"</i> (see http://www.cfac.org/Attachments/santa_clara_police_request.htm), presumably using <i><b>MY</b> thing</i> in the same sense as a certain group of Sicilians, who call their pursuits <i>Our Thing</i> or, in Italian, <i>Cosa Nostra</i>. In the view of the DA's office, the public occasionally misunderstands this world, and gets the crazy idea that it should be the killer on trial, not the victim. At such times, the public must be corrected.
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Welcome to the secret world of Santa Clara County "officer-involved shootings", where prosecutors are free to posthumously transform any person's existence into one that was destined to be ended by a police bullet. District Attorney George Kennedy calls this world "MY grand jury thing" (see http://www.cfac.org/Attachments/santa_clara_police_request.htm), presumably using MY thing in the same sense as a certain group of Sicilians, who call their pursuits Our Thing or, in Italian, Cosa Nostra. In the view of the DA's office, the public occasionally misunderstands this world, and gets the crazy idea that it should be the killer on trial, not the victim. At such times, the public must be corrected. Mass correction is handled by the mass media, while individual correction is the job of the County's Department of Correction.
This time it's the case of Samuel Martinez, an unarmed father of three children aged 6-17, who was shot dead by SJPD member Patrick Guire on May 26. First, Assistant DA Dave Tomkins explained to us that DA Kennedy's "grand jury thing" must be kept secret because “the facts surrounding Mr. Martinez's death do not warrant an open grand jury”. Of course, we don't know what "the facts” are because, in this convoluted lunacy, "the facts" used to justify secrecy are secret too.
Next, members of Mr. Martinez' family were subpoenaed to testify at Kennedy's "grand jury thing" on September 13, even though they were not present at, and therefore did not witness, the incidents leading to the killing. But the family noted that a few neighbors that reported hearing a scuffle and gunshots were not called to testify. This suggests that the secret hearing followed the familiar pattern we've seen in open hearings, where the victim's family members were interrogated in a way that would lead any observer to conclude that the jury was considering indicting the dead victim rather than the killer.
Actually, the criminalization process extended to the whole family, and began on the day of the shooting, when many family members not present at the scene of the shooting were immediately hauled down to police headquarters. Yet the Martinez family knew of no neighbors that were interviewed by detectives. Family members were held at the station over 2 hours, while Samuel was taken by ambulance to the hospital - alone. He died at the hospital and the family learned of his death via the media, with SJPD thus violating its own written policy which mandates a designated police contact to inform the family. Despite that, the family noted that the police report stated that the family was properly notified. In the twisted world of "officer-involved shootings", police need only assert that a lie is truth and - voila! - it is so.
To further showcase the perverted morals reigning in DA Kennedy's world, family members present at his "grand jury thing" had to come very near the killer flying his gang's colors, i.e strapped in full police uniform, as he sent an intimidating message of his authority to the grand jury.
Finally, with the victim's execution and subsequent trial out of the way, and no effort spared to crush the spirit of the family and the public's spirit of resistance, the September 14 declaration that Patrick Guire would not be charged for killing Samuel Martinez was a mere formality. In fact, I've yet to find any news media that bothered to report it.
All the signs clearly show that official disregard of the public's outrage at police killings is pushing places like San Jose down the path of Cincinnati 2001, Newark and Detroit in 1967, and Watts 1965 – where only one outlet remained for the seething tension resulting from police brutality that always escaped prosecution. How many killers can walk free before some in our communities opt for the street justice of Miami 1980 and Los Angeles 1992? What have city officials learned from the Kerner Commission report that ranked police practices as the #1 "deeply held grievance" causing "acute urban unrest" in 1967?
But times have changed: for years now, many youths have become well-armed, and have been practicing deadly war games as Red and Blue armies. Once those armies clearly see that this nightmare is not a test, but an actual emergency, the guns will turn against a common enemy, and future uprisings in San Jose and other US urban areas are likely to look less like Watts - and more like Fallujah.
-----
(1) beat up innocent citizen for no apparent
reason in front of a neighbor's House.
I had fled to the neighbor's house
because the two DIRTY COP TERRORISTS\
refused to leave my house. I was scared for my life.
To this day, I do not know the reason for their
appearance at the house.
(2) after beating, improperly put on a
"3-day forced psych. detention" AKA 5150
The dirty cop terrorists favored term: "3-day hold"
At the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital,
Psych Unit, I was forcibly drugged via buttock
with an unknown psych. drug.
After release that night, there was a
self-stabbing, induced via a forced psych.
drugging and police incited beating.......
I am writing this , to warn, most especially,
those citizens, who have never , ever dealt
with the police before. This was my case.
This happened to me. Santa Clarita, Calif.
I ask myself everyday, am I living in
AMerica or North Korea ?
----------------------------------------------------- sun. Nov. 13, 2005.
P.S. I am having trouble getting my 9-1-1 call record, I
made at my neighbor's house, panicked telling
the 9-1-1 operator, that two cops were refusing
to leave my house.
I hope that moment of learning that the man he just shot has died lives with him forever. Hopefully he saw the pictures of Sam's sons and every time he looks into the eyes of his young twin sons, he thinks of them. No rant and rave can ever resolve this or bring peace to Sam's family, but I am content knowing that we all answer even if only through our conscience.
I don't believe that whether your an officer of the law or a civilian,that your really going to care who you just shot if your life was put in danger.
As for pictures of the kids, that's assuming that your guilt trip will work.
Let's just hope that the Martinez family portrays the childrens father as a saint, so the kids don't have to grow up knowing what type of father they really had.
And the comment in regards to pycho broad. I'm a BIG BLACK cop from the south.
You all take care now, ya here..
Right, right... life was in danger...
Big, small, black, white, cop, firefighter, north, south, makes no difference.. A human beings view of something whether they agree or disagree, respect or disrespect holds no lines... thats obvious....
Yeah, right back at ya..
With nothing better to do than bicker in the "Police State" forum of the San Francisco Bay area? On a topic that received almost no coverage in the Bay Area, and so someone from the South probably knows nothing about?? You mean a BIG BLACK cop from the south can't find ANYONE local to pick a real fight with??? Well, then I'm happy we've been able to keep the streets of the south a little safer by providing you a virtual battleground.
Ah, the Internet is a wonderful invention. I just wished I lived in a town where police got their jollies as long-distance keyboard warriors.
Fight on, BIG BLACK!
Oh and she says that the officers life was 'put in danger" I believe the whole 'big black' comment kind of shows her mentality of categorizing by skin color which fits in quite appropriately considering her loved ones occupation and race.
Who really says their size and race? She's a little on the 'morally compromised' side
That's an interesting conjecture. The "BIG BLACK cop from the south" certainly sounds implausible: "You all take care now, ya here.". Gimme a break - more like Beverly Hillbillies.
I've often wondered why, in general, Indybay has such a busy group of cheerleaders in praise of police atrocities. Surely these posters don't really believe that after we've suffered through loss of loved ones, captivity and enslavement in jails and prisons, shootings, beatings, electroshock torture, pepper spray, tear gas, chokeholds, and vicious attack dogs ripping our flesh, we would suddenly be cowered into silence by merely reading "CASE CLOSED!!!!!!"? I pray for the day when the greatest threat to our safety is the CAPS LOCK key...
to Justice
by to Justice....by a cops sister Monday, Sep. 19, 2005 at 5:09 PM
Well....looks like Mr. Guire was JUSTIFIED in his actions.....justice while your out trying to make up false stories and complaining about what tax payers are paying for, maybe you should try concentrating on teaching people how to respond to a police officer when they encounter one.
My thoughts and prayers do go out to the Martinez family for their loss.
With time all will be easier to live with, but never forgotten.
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