Probable Cause

In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. It is also the standard by which grand juries issue criminal indictments.

Probable cause for arrest exists when facts and circumstances within the police officer’s knowledge would lead a reasonable person to believe that the suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.

If black people aren’t viewed by white people as human beings, we can’t be viewed as victims of criminal acts perpetrated by the police or any one else.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal…”

When will white people permit the Revolutionary words of Thomas Jefferson to cover and include the lives and bodies of black people?

What must happen before white people see black people as the human beings they believe themselves to be?

In my view, the ‘investigation’ of this latest Minneapolis Police atrocity is little more than a search for a way to engage in another round of obfuscation, circumvention, obstruction, evasion, and denial.

That’s the history of such occurrences in Minneapolis.

Probable cause does not require a gathering of evidence sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Every federal and state  law enforcement and criminal justice official who has spoken on the matter has spoken as though the black residents of Minneapolis should now trust the investigatory process when any reasonable person can plainly see that the widely distributed and aired video of the death of George Floyd establishes sufficient probable cause to affect the arrest and subsequent prosecution of the four officers involved.

In short, the ‘investigation’ should begin with the arrest of the perpetrators.