Black Lives Matter Protesters Claim Innocence of Touching Racist State Sen; D.A. Bows to Lack of Evidence, Makes No-Jail Offer

No Deal, Say Black Lives Matter Workers, as D.A.'s Office Wants Beyond Reasonable Doubt Charging Standard Changed to Reasonable Inference for This Case
 
Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — There is no evidence that two Dane County women ever laid a finger on State Sen Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) at a late-night June 23, 2020 confrontation at a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Still, a criminal case against Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer remains at the behest of the anti-Black Lives Matter (BLM) state legislator who has championed prisons and police and the drug war, before confronting a BLM demonstration, then launching a media-political blitz that included accosting a black state Senate candidate in a tirade for which Carpenter apologized and admitted he was "rash and reactionary." [See, for example, news coverage SpectrumNews1, WTMJ, Fox News.]

There is no video showing the women —  Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, well-regarded  community activists and Black Lives Matter supporters — ever laid a finger on Carpenter.

Both civil rights workers are being prosecuted for the felony crime of Substantial Battery with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm and Party to a Crime, a galling and even more disingenuous charge. 

Hypothetically, the D.A. could charge anyone near the confrontation that Carpenter began with being Party to a Crime.

Bowing to the ridiculous lack of evidence, "The two people charged with the beating of a state senator have been offered a deal by prosecutors that would include no jail time and deferred prosecution," WKOW-TV (Galli, Madison) reports this weekend.

No Deal, Say Black Lives Matter Workers

Reports Tony Galli:

'My client rejected the proposed plea offer because it would have required an admission of guilt, and my client, quite simply, is not guilty,' O'Reilly's attorney Jessa Nicholson Goetz says. 'We will not be resolving this matter for anything short of a dismissal because that is what we believe justice requires.'

The deferred prosecution program would technically lead to a dismissal of O'Reilly's charge if program requirements were met.

'Due to ethical rules, I can’t comment on the specifics of any negotiation at this point,' says Hamer's attorney, Adam Welch. 'However, it has always been our position that Ms. Hamer is innocent of the charge that has been brought against her, so she has no intention of pleading guilty to something she didn’t do.'

No eyewitness has identified the accused as laying a finger on Carpenter.

Madison police detective Linda Trevarthen, who headed the investigation, also swore under oath no witness interviewed saw the two women touch Carpenter, in a hearing last Summer (Rickert,  Wisconsin State Journal).

Tim Carpenter says he cannot identify Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer as ever having touched him.

It's not surprising noone can identify anyone else, because according to Carpenter and another witness, the confrontation that Carpenter incited included some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee around Midnight.

No matter. Carpenter and the Dane County District Attorney's office continue their criminal pursuit of the Black Lives Matter protesters, two socially conscious women in their 20s with no criminal records, who nevertheless stand accused of the felony crime at the Black Lives Matter protest held last Summer in reaction to the police torture and killing of George Floyd.

Dane County District Attorney Office Changes Its Charging Standard for This Case

Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer have maintained their innocence since the June 2020 protests.

The Dane County District Attorney’s Office say it only charges defendants when its office can prove charges to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

This oft-made proclamation that the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt is used to determine charging decision is demonstrably untrue in the O’Reilly and Hamer cases.

See, for example, for the announcement, "Ismael R. Ozanne said that the Dane County District Attorney’s Office is declining to prosecute [xx] because there is not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty" (WISC-TV. 2018).

Beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even Asst District Attorney William Brown, known for over-the-top prosecutions and Manichean posturing in court, admitted in August 2020 that, "We don’t know exactly what happens after that other than we have a witness that says various people began kicking and punching. There is a reasonable inference that those two people who are aggressively running at him are the ones involved in the exact same incident" (Rickert, Wisconsin State Journal).

Notice what Brown did at the August hearing?

Brown replaced the finding of criminal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as the standard used by the District Attorney's office to determine charging with a reasonable inference.

The District Attorney need not use such a high burden of proof — guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — as the basis to determine whether to bring criminal charges, but the Dane County District Attorney office claims it does.

However, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as the standard of proof that a jury must reach to find a criminal defendant guilty is a bedrock principle ensuring the presumption of innocence, as guaranteed by Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Consider two points.

One. The Dane County District Attorney’s Office is proceeding on a case that nowhere approaches guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Two. The two Black Lives Matter protesters could agree to a deferred prosecution agreement, never set a foot in jail and have the charge stricken from their records.

Both women refused the offer because no reasonable jury can ever find these women guilty of any crime, and because they are innocent.

Why the change of charging standards for this case?

Because Ozanne's conduct in his elected office of public trust is an example of a civil servant working under the color of law, substituting his perceived political expediency to displace the community, the Constitution and his duties.

The Dane County District Attorney’s Office should be ashamed.

But shame in law enforcement is difficult to locate.

I wrote the District Attorney an email last Summer. 

The email is reproduced below:
--
Ismael,

As a member of our community, I have followed with grave concern the cases of Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer.

I am aware that you do not know how, and by whom and with what force violence was inflicted in the confrontation among Tim Carpenter and depending on whom you believe — the police quote a journalist saying some ten people, you say two people — and those who may be criminally responsible.

Did these two women use their elbows, fists, feet, head, or blunt instruments? You have no idea, yet you are charging them with being party to substantial battery by undetermined persons, a "group," as Carpenter told police.

Are you satisfied with Carpenter's credibility?

Did you know Mr Carpenter did not request medical assistance after speaking with protest medic and peacekeepers, as indicated in audio published by WORT News.

Did you know that after a WKOW-TV crew member phoned 911, Carpenter declined to go to the hospital?

Have you checked out Carpenter's story and timeline of the evening of June 23 and early morning of June 24?

Have you viewed video of Carpenter's 'collapse' performed right in front of WKOW-TV?

Do you ascribe responsibility to Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer because they are convenient faces on a video?

Carpenter said he was attacked by a "group." Yet, you divine O’Reilly and Hamer?

I ask you to drop these bogus cases, and issue a public apology to Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, and Black Lives Matter.

Mike

Michael Leon
Marketing and Public Relations Consultant
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/

Democrat Pols Work to Block George Floyd Trial from Public View, Want No TV Broadcast

A Dead Black Man

Madison, Wisconsin — The George Floyd murder video gives the world a look at the Minneapolis Police Dept — vicious, racist, a black man suffocated to death by the sadistic Derek Chauvin, brandishing a smirk for onlookers pleading for Mr Floyd's life: Nothing can touch me.

Behind the scenes in May, Democrats worried.

Most larger cities are run by Democrat administrations, so how is it that militarized and openly racist municipal police feel free to perpetrate a slow-motion holocaust of black and brown people? Folks might be asking.

Black folks dying is the way it is and the way it should be, is the Democrat consensus. This is an outlook shared by Biden, Obama, from Kenosha, Wauwatosa, Milwaukee, Chicago, Madison and Minneapolis. That's just around here.

Look, Democrats don't like niggers any more than Republicans, that's the truth. You see their black hair, their dark skin — they get what they deserve. And Floyd, that boy sure talked a lot for someone who couldn't breathe, ha ha.

In my state, Wisconsin, we know how to handle Black Lives Matter and their friends who object to George Floyd and other folks getting murdered. 

Throw their black asses in prison, pass laws to protect statues, harass uppity black candidates and then pontificate how protesters need to learn about proper challenge to black people getting iced. 

For example, Wisconsin State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwuakee), ever more outlandish to Wisconsin Democrat Party silence, remains engaged in his crusade against two Black Lives Matter protestors, Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, who are wrongfully accused of a violent felony by Carpenter for their work in solidarity with black folks at June protest. Carpenter knows they're wrongfully accused.

So, it comes as no surprise Democrat Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison and Democrat  former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal are calling for the criminal trials of Minneapolis police to be shielded from broadcast, blocked from public view.

This is because homicidal police are Democrat creations, and what is bad for police is bad for Democrats.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill ordered the proceedings broadcast on video last month so the world can see and understand.

The Democrat Party since mid-November has been working feverishly to stop the 2021 trial broadcast, asking Cahill to reconsider.

Now, jurists are objecting to the ridiculous position of the Democrat Party censoring the trial of murderous human garbage.

Writes Elura Nanos in Law and Crime:

Whatever the limitations required by the Minnesota General Rules of Practice, Ellison and his team have gotten the issue all wrong. They should not only consent, but rather enthusiastically invite cameras into this courtroom. As prosecutors, their client is the public – and few cases demand public scrutiny and access more than this one does. ...

Without losing sight of the heartbreakingly needless loss of the man himself, the death of George Floyd has become about much more than Floyd the individual. The case sparked a national awakening, tipping public consciousness toward a new level of recognition of some unacceptable deficits woven into the fabric of our society. Sure, Black Lives Matter existed before Floyd’s death, but the BLM protests that ensued during the COVID-19 pandemic may have constituted the largest movement in U.S. history.

Not the time for more censorship, not the time to look away.

Democrat Party to Black Lives Matter: Drop Dead

Statues Outweigh People in Democrat Party

Madison, Wisconsin — In police-state America, police are just as destructive, and just as deadly as before the moment Minneapolis Police killed George Floyd in May.

The Spring-Summer seems a long time ago, doesn't it? Not to Jacob Blake.

Republicans and Democrats are unified in their defense of police as an institutional and violent check on black and brown people asserting their humanity.

Take Wisconsin. Not one Democratic legislator has introduced legislation on decarceration, decriminalization, police violence and police defunding. And there are no calls for these protections against police.

I can't think of another state more sorely in need of a police cleansing than Wisconsin. 

To be clear, police will kill you, will terrorize you, will ruin you financially, imprison you, and defame you. There are no limits, and Democrats will do nothing. 

Not even a letter to the local daily calling for defense of people against police.

A Milwaukee State Senator — the drug warrior and anti-Black Lives Matter Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) — traveled to Madison in June to confront Black Lives Matter liberation protestors, worked to record and virtually deliver the liberation workers to rightwing doxxers, was confronted by marchers and after a melee, embarked on a mission to imprison as many Black Lives Matter workers as possible.

White supremacists have doxxed, (publish private or identifying information about a particular individual on the Internet, typically with malicious intent), and endangered liberation protesters across the country, so folks were nervous that late June night, perfect prey for Carpenter looking for attention.

The racist Carpenter then went on a political rampage against people of color.

He accosted and maligned a black candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for State Senate District 26 in Dane County, before being forced to issue a public apology in July.

Carpenter, a cop lover, co-sponsored a bill to expand the Wisconsin Criminal Code to criminalize any damage to statues, statues!, (not black people, open season remains).

The black candidate maligned by Carpenter, Nada Elmikashfi, objected to the proposed legislation and an enraged Carpenter became unhinged and went on a rant that Carpenter later described as "rash and reactionary."

Writes Elmikashfi on July 16, commenting on Carpenter's co-authorship of his Senate statue bill initiative:

"Get me in the senate so I can block this absolute bullshit. You shouldn’t have been assaulted Senator Carpenter; but that doesn’t mean you get to block our civil rights movement. If this is passed on a bipartisan basis; @GovEvers needs to veto it. #BlackLivesMatter."

Carpenter is known around the capitol for his dislike of women, especially women of color. 

Carpenter went apoplectic, resulting in a multi-day rant that concluded with the intercession of the state Party Chair and the Senate Minority Leader criticizing Carpenter who eventually apologized, (The Capital Times).

At the June Black Lives Matter march, Carpenter faked a collapse in front of WKOW-TV at the capitol, and began his major media campaign demonizing Black Lives Matter. Not defending.

This fake collapse was preceded by Carpenter's hollered conversation, as the state senator spoke with several protests medics and peacekeepers in an eight-minute conversation captured on audio, (Pittman/WORT News), that shows Carpenter declining medical attention before faking his collapse.

Carpenter, who takes his antipathy towards black people to extremes, is nevertheless emblematic of the Democrat Party nationally.

Writes AOC yesterday:

.@AOC tells @jaketapper that "not a single member of Congress that I'm aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election."

She says Dems' problem is a weak party operation that needs to become "stronger and more resilient to Republican attacks."

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 9, 2020

Meanwhile, Carpenter and Dane County continue their ridiculous criminal pursuit of the Black Lives Matter protesters Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, two socially conscious area women in their 20s with no criminal records, stand accused of the felony crime of Substantial Battery with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm against State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) for not-even-alleged action at a June 23-24 Black Lives Matter protest.

That's right. Carpenter says in Court he never saw the two women never even touch him at the June Black Lives Matter protest and yet he claims he knows they're guilty of Battery and wants them charged (they are charged), and convicted.

Hey, the two women are Black Lives Matter supporters so no evidence needed to convict, say Carpenter and his Democrat Party allies.

Legally, the cases of Black Lives Matter protesters Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer will blow up in the faces of the Democrat Party.

Politically and morally, we as a community have already lost because we did not do enough to stand up for these two brave women.

So, faced with a corrupt district attorney's office, a racist State Senator Tim Carpenter, and a supine Democrat Party, we as a community can protest, write, and alert the community that two more civil rights workers are about to suffer another injustice through the continuation of this ludicrous prosecution.

Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer attended a routine hearing last week. The cases have not been yet dismissed yet.

Folks can contact State Sen Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) to ask why he rejects decarceration, decriminalization, police defunding. As we work with our historic movement, Carpenter instead sponsors a bill expanding criminal code to protect statues and works to persecute two innocent Black Lives Matter workers.
(608) 266-8535
Sen.Carpenter@legis.wisconsin.gov
--

I wrote District Attorney Ismael Ozanne an email on July 31. 

We cannot stay silent, no matter how many District Attorney Ismael Ozannes and Derek Chauvines stain an office of public trust.

The email is reproduced below:
--
Ismael,

As a member of our community, I have followed with grave concern the cases of Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer.

I am aware that you do not know how, and by whom and with what force violence was inflicted in the confrontation among Tim Carpenter and depending on whom you believe — the police quote a journalist saying some ten people, you say two people — and those who may be criminally responsible.

Did these two women use their elbows, fists, feet, head, or blunt instruments? You have no idea, yet you are charging them with being party to substantial battery by undetermined persons, a "group," as Carpenter told police.

Are you satisfied with Carpenter's credibility?

Did you know Mr Carpenter did not request medical assistance after speaking with protest medic and peacekeepers, as indicated in audio published by WORT News.

Did you know that after a WKOW-TV crew member phoned 911, Carpenter declined to go to the hospital?

Have you checked out Carpenter's story and timeline of the evening of June 23 and early morning of June 24.

Have you viewed video of Carpenter's 'collapse' performed right in front of WKOW-TV?

Do you ascribe responsibility to Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer because they are convenient faces on a video?

Carpenter said he was attacked by a "group." Yet, you divine O’Reilly and Hamer?

I ask you to drop these bogus cases, and issue a public apology to Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, and Black Lives Matter.

Mike

Michael Leon
Marketing and Public Relations Consultant
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/

Wisconsin Democrats Work Against Two Innocent Women; 'Shockingly Thin' Case Against Black Lives Matter Protesters Moves Forward

Black Lives Matter? Not in Wisconsin, and Not in the Democratic Party

Madison, Wisconsin — This is Wisconsin, folks. 

We'll soon let off a white Kenosha cop who shot a black man point-blank seven times in the back, but two innocent Black Lives Matter protesters are violent felons and must be prosecuted without evidence, say a corrupt Democratic Party district attorney and a reactionary Milwaukee Democratic Party state senator.

The cause of truth and simple decency is lost.

Two criminal cases will at some point be tossed out of out court, if Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke (D) grows a spine, or end with a verdict and an exoneration.

It's the way it is in Wisconsin; life is cheap, and the judiciary is corrupt in favor of the police and prosecutors — two institutions irretrievably undeserving of public regard.

Black Lives Matter protesters Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, two socially conscious area women in their 20s with no criminal records, stand accused of the felony crime of Substantial Battery with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm against State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) for not-even-alleged action at a June 23-24 Black Lives Matter protest.

That's right. There is no specific allegation detailing how Mses O’Reilly and Hamer battered Carpenter, a rightwing Dem who calls himself "rash."

There is no video evidence showing Mses O’Reilly and Hamer laying a finger on Carpenter.

Carpenter admitted in a court hearing he cannot identify the defendants as touching him.

Carpenter, who has worked his entire career mobilizing the war on drugs against people of color, admits he has no idea who may have hit him, and you can bet he would implicate the two liberation workers, if he could.

Madison police detective Linda Trevarthen who led the investigation similarly acknowledged that there is no evidence, none, the women specifically touched Carpenter in any way, (Rickert, Wisconsin State Journal).

In fact, according to Carpenter and another witness, the confrontation that Carpenter incited and provoked included some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee. 

Everyone agrees the scene was chaotic.

Tim Carpenter stayed true to form in using police to take the side of white supremacists as an agent provocateur this time, as the legislator took it to the streets to work to imprison the wrong kind of Wisconsinite.

White supremacis have doxxed and induced the arrest of liberation protesters across the country, so folks were nervous that night, perfect prey for Carpenter.

Tim Carpenter also performed a fall on the Capitol grounds in front of a WKOW-TV crew; went on a public relations spree in the Summer to demonize Black Lives Matter; sponsored a bill to criminalize damaging statutes out of Carpenter's petty spite; and accosted and harassed a black candidate for the State Senate.

Did Carpenter, with a racist past in holding his elected office of public trust and a proven hostility to those working for people of color in Wisconsin, throw a punch first, and others then interceded to defend a victim?

No evidence has been made public that indicts Carpenter or any other single person. Yet, District Atty Ozanne moves the cases forward using his office standard of evidentiary proof that he has concluded charges against Mses O’Reilly and Hamer can be proven to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

It's absurd.

Not one elected representative of any municipal, County or State office has challenged the prosecutions of these two women, though Carpenter is known around the Capitol for his delusional self-regard and pettiness, qualities acknowledged by Carpenter.

The district attorney, Carpenter and no video evidence tell us when, where, how and by whom Carpenter was allegedly battered after Carpenter managed to incite some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee.

Consider that.

But a simple parking ticket informs you when, where, how and which vehicle was involved in a parking offense.

But the Democratic Party's district attorney, state senator and judge want to chuck these requirements away for a felony crime that could irretrievably harm two innocent women, who as demanded by their conscience, marched with Black Lives Matter workers in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd.

We have a problem in Wisconsin, and this problem will not go away through inattention.

Both women are scheduled for a pre-trial conference the day after Election Day on Nov. 4.

Folks can contact State Sen Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) to ask why he rejects decarceration, decriminalization, police defunding. As we work with our historic movement, Carpenter instead authors bill expanding criminal code to protect statues and works to persecute two innocent Black Lives Matter workers.
(608) 266-8535
Sen.Carpenter@legis.wisconsin.gov

District Attorney Ozanne's Decision to Prosecute Black Lives Matters Workers Is Disgrace

Madison, Wisconsin — The Dane County District Attorney’s Office concluded charges against John Doe cannot be proven to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Variations of this generic statement explaining a decision to prosecute or not, routinely emanate from the district attorney.

The problem is our current district attorney sometimes engages in a political process to arrive at a legal determination rather than take an honest look at findings applied to the evidentiary standard of beyond a reasonable doubt that Ozanne claims guides his decisions.

Ozanne's, and not just Ozanne's, corruption is an example of a civil servant working under the color of law, substituting his perceived political expediency to displace the community, the Constitution and his duties.

Corruption and political prosecution define the current cases of Black Lives Matter protesters Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer.

Both civil rights workers are being unjustly prosecuted for the felony crime of Substantial Battery with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm.

Funny thing is there is no specific allegation detailing how Mses O’Reilly and Hamer battered the alleged victim, State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee), a rightwing, self-admitted "rash" drug warrior who has worked against black folks to build the carceral state over three decades.

No allegation of fists being thrown, nor elbows, feet, blunt instrument, nothing. 

The alleged victim, Carpenter, has not identified the defendants as touching him.

No eyewitness has identified Mses O’Reilly and Hamer as laying a hand on Carpenter.

No video exists showing Mses O’Reilly and Hamer as laying a hand on Carpenter.

In fact, according to Carpenter and another witness, the confrontation that Carpenter incited included some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee. 

Did Carpenter, with a racist past and a proven hostility to the protesters, throw a punch first, and others then interceded to defend a victim?

No evidence has been made public that indicts Carpenter or any other single person. Yet, Ozanne says he has concluded charges against Mses O’Reilly and Hamer can be proven to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Reports Chris Rickert in the Wisconsin State Journal on the decision of Judge Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke at a probable cause hearing to allow these cases to go to trial:

Despite vigorous arguments from the attorneys for Samantha Hamer, 26, and Kerida O’Reilly, 33, both of Madison, Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke found there was enough probable cause to continue with the case against the women, both of whom are charged with substantial battery in the June 24 attack.

Hamer’s attorney, Adam Welch, and O’Reilly’s attorney, Nathan Otis, argued that testimony from the lead Madison police detective in the case did not point to evidence that their clients had been the ones to punch or kick state Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee. ...

'(Carpenter) has not been able to say whether Ms. Hamer specifically touched him in any way. Is that right?' Welch asked Madison police detective Linda Trevarthen.

'Correct,' Trevarthen said.

Good enough for the cops. Good enough for Ehlke, and for Ozanne fronting for Carpenter because they share the same Party affiliation.

So, faced with a corrupt district attorney's office, we as a community can protest, write, and alert the community that two more civil rights workers are about to suffer another injustice.

I wrote Ozanne an email on July 31. We cannot stay silent, no matter how many Ismael Ozannes and Derek Chauvines stain an office of public trust.

The email is reproduced below:
--
Ismael,

As a member of our community, I have followed with grave concern the cases of Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer.

I am aware that you do not know how, and by whom and with what force violence was inflicted in the confrontation among Tim Carpenter and depending on whom you believe — the police quote a journalist saying some ten people, you say two people — and those who may be criminally responsible.

Did these two women use their elbows, fists, feet, head, or blunt instruments? You have no idea, yet you are charging them with being party to substantial battery by undetermined persons, a "group," as Carpenter told police.

Are you satisfied with Carpenter's credibility?

Did you know Mr Carpenter did not request medical assistance after speaking with protest medic and peacekeepers, as indicated in audio published by WORT News.

Did you know that after a WKOW-TV crew member phoned 911, Carpenter declined to go to the hospital?

Have you checked out Carpenter's story and timeline of the evening of June 23 and early morning of June 24.

Have you viewed video of Carpenter's 'collapse' performed right in front of WKOW-TV?

Do you ascribe responsibility to Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer because they are convenient faces on a video?

Carpenter said he was attacked by a "group." Yet, you divine O’Reilly and Hamer?

I ask you to drop these bogus cases, and issue a public apology to Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, and Black Lives Matter.

Mike

Michael Leon
Marketing and Public Relations Consultant
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/

Black Lives Matter Prosecution — One Bogus Charge Dropped; Atty Calls Remaining Charge "Shockingly Thin"

State Sen Tim Carpenter performs his collapse in front of a
WKOW-TV crew to dramatize a confrontation with
Black Lives Matter protesters.

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — "Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer were arrested on charges of substantial battery and robbery with use of force," reported The Hill this week.

The arrest was a rush to judgement by Madison Police working against a political movement held in disdain by law enforcement.

Police and one rash, drug-warrior, state senator want these and other Black Lives Matter protesters behind bars.

One problem, though not for police, is the two young women are innocent. The case is a political prosecution.

Exemplifying a widely held view among local police, in 2017, Police Chief Mike Koval (ret) said he canceled his NFL subscription amid "taking a knee" protests because this protest is "self-absorbed ... diatribe."

And the police are not too hot on mass protests this Summer, much less taking a knee.

The Madison Police Union this week issued a vote of "no confidence" in the new progressive mayor for her temerity to publicly acclaim the First Amendment and express admiration for the protesters.

Wisconsin media and rightwing political operations have already found the two Black Lives Matter protesters guilty.

But facts can be stubborn things.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael R. Ozanne dropped the robbery with use of force charge yesterday, raising questions why this canard was included in the arrest warrant. But you won't find such questions in the local corporate media.

The two defendants' attorneys — Ms. O’Reilly's attorney, Nathan Otis, and Ms. Hamer's attorney, Adam Welch — made a motion to dismiss the remaining charge — substantial battery.

Reports the Associated Press:

O’Reilly’s attorney, Nathan Otis, said in an email to The Associated Press that it will become clear that she didn’t commit any crime, and that the lack of evidence will become clear as the case progresses.

In a separate email to the AP, Hamer’s attorney, Adam Welch, said his client is 'absolutely not guilty' and that prosecutors’ case against her 'is shockingly thin.'

District Attorney Ozanne can't tell you when, where, how and by whom Carpenter was allegedly battered. Neither can Carpenter. According to reports, Carpenter manage to incite some eight to 10 people during the chaotic melee.

No matter, Ozanne refused to drop the remaining charge. Court Commissioner Brian Asmus refused to dismiss it.

The alleged victim, Wisconsin State Sen Tim Carpenter (D), is a Milwaukee legislator who has worked to build the carceral state for decades, always busily working to imprisoning and demonizing black and brown folk.

Just this month Carpenter was reprimanded by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the State Senate Minority leader for online bullying and harassment of a black legislative candidate who dared criticize Carpenter's proposed expansion of the Wisconsin Criminal Code.

The Wisconsin Criminal Code. As a local Madison jurist is fond of saying, "Read the [fracking] statutes."

I did. The crime of which two women stand accused are not sustained by the weakest standard of evidence, (WKOW-TV, Pittman/WORT News).

Available audio and video of the confrontation that Carpenter began show a deceitful man who feigned a collapse in front of a WKOW-TV crew.

Carpenter wants blood. He wants as many Black Lives Matter protesters behind bars, and is not choosy who that is.

Two women protesters supporting Black Lives Matter are out on signature bonds.

This case should not see the light of a courtroom. But facts are not the only stubborn things in Dane County.

State Sen Carpenter's Faked Collapse Will Not Hold up to Examination

Wisconsin State Sen Tim Carpenter claims to crowd he
supports Black Lives Matter, pointing out he once
shared a flight with Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes (D).

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — A good day for Wisconsin State Sen Tim Carpenter (D).

News this week is two Black Lives Matter protesters are charged with multiple felonies following a late-night June 23 confrontation that Carpenter started, a long-time aim of the legislator championing prisons and police.

Should this affair go to trial, the narcissistic state senator will face close examination of his conduct that will not hold up under scrutiny. Carpenter has worked his whole legislative career mobilizing the war against drugs directed against people of color, so his work with police to imprison Black Lives Matter protesters is a coup for this racist state legislator. Carpenter claimed to a crowd on June 23 how much he supports Black Lives Matter, pointing out in his soliloquy that he once shared a flight to Turkey with Wisconsin Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes (D) who is black.

The crowd did not sound convinced. After his hollered conversation, Carpenter spoke with several protests medics and peacekeepers in an eight-minute  conversation captured on audio, (Pittman/WORT News).

Carpenter sits down for a rest after spotting WKOW-TV crew.

Carpenter voiced no medical complaints. A calm Carpenter can be heard reacting with sympathy to several protesters telling the senator that they had been shot at, and almost run-down on several occasions that night.

The conversation seemed agreeable at that point.

Carpenter did not phone 911 for medical help.

Then, Carpenter walked to his car, spotted WKOW-TV crew members, walked towards the TV crew, and performed an unconvincing 'collapse' in an apparent bid for the TV station's attention.

Carpenter did not fall uncontrollably on the pavement. He gently set himself down to a sitting position, and then laid softly in the comparatively soft decorative brush on the ground next to the sidewalk and WKOW staff.

Carpenter then began a four-week media blitz.

• WTMJ - July 15 Still Recovering
• Fox News - June 30 - Recovering
• Spectrum News One - August 12 - Opening up about Attack
  
  

While Carpenter tended to his I-hate-Black-Lives-Matter crusade, the veteran racist then signed on to a bill criminalizing defacing of statutes, making the protesters' point that this guy cares more about statutes than black lives.

Nothing from Carpenter about decarceration, decriminalization, police violence and police defunding.

But Carpenter was not finished.

Nada Elmikashfi 

Nada Elmikashfi is a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for State Senate District 26 in Dane County.

Elmikashfi criticized Carpenter's proposal to make criminal felons out of anyone defacing a statue, an initiative echoing Donald Trump's protect-the-statues crusade.

Writes Elmikashfi on July 16, commenting on Carpenter's co-authorship of his Senate initiative seeking sponsors:

"Get me in the senate so I can block this absolute bullshit. You shouldn’t have been assaulted Senator Carpenter; but that doesn’t mean you get to block our civil rights movement. If this is passed on a bipartisan basis; @GovEvers needs to veto it. #BlackLivesMatter."

Carpenter is known around the capitol for his dislike of women, especially women of color. 

Carpenter went apoplectic, resulting in a multi-day rant that concluded with the intercession of the state Party Chair and the Senate Minority Leader criticizing the unhinged Carpenter who eventually apologized.

Reports The Capital Times:

Wisconsin's Democratic leaders are denouncing 'online bullying' perpetrated by Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, after he targeted Madison Senate candidate Nada Elmikashfi in a flurry of Twitter posts over the last few days that eventually led to the brief suspension of his account for harassment.

Both the state Democratic Party and Senate Minority Leader Janet Bewley decried Carpenter's actions in statements Monday morning, noting the Milwaukee senator's behavior 'crossed the line.'

'Nobody should be subjected to online bullying, which disproportionately harms women and people of color — not during this moment of long-overdue reckoning with racial justice, and not ever,' party officials wrote in their statement.

Carpenter is silent now.

Most likely this is because any defense attorney can win an acquittal against the charge-stacking facing two women against whom Carpenter holds a bias because of their gender and race solidarity.

Carpenter has given defense attorneys a lot of ammo.

A good guess is that this affair will end with restorative justice as Tim Carpenter's story is so full of holes, he cannot politically survive close examination of his conduct and his appalling record.

Colorado Bill Would Ban Lying Cops

Käthe Kollwitz- Mother with her Dead
Son sculpture, October 22, 1937.
Kollwitz  (July 8, 1867 – April 22, 1945)
is a famous ant-fascist artist who
lived in Germany.

Madison, Wisconsin — It's inherently indecent to bear false witness, to defame and malign another.

Most of us adopt this ethic as axiomatic. But it's likely your local police dept is not among those institutions committed to truth, dedicated to the proposition that false witness is a cruel evil.

Alex Burness reports in the Colorado Independent that proposed Colorado legislation, SB-166, would ban from serving in state police departments the "estimated average of 70 Colorado cops who are fired every year for knowingly lying in an official capacity."

This legislation is a good start as a corrective to the rampant dishonesty and indecency that run through the cultures and practices of your local police department.

Other states, especially mine, should follow Colorado's lead.

Wisconsin Anti-Due Process Bill Is Unhinged

Update: Bizarre Republican amendment would still cut out appellate deliberation, but would allow clerical paperwork by appellate courts, (WisPolitics). Equal Protection and Due Process problems remain.
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Madison, Wisconsin — Suppose you and friends in the legislature know someone from Taiwan and henceforth you would like $3 billion in public subsidies lavished onto your comrade.

Crazy, but legal.

But so enthralled are you with your Taiwanese friend, you propose special legal status of a class-caste power of privilege that would have made C. Wright Mills recoil in surprise.

And laws protecting the people and Wisconsin communities? Forget it, you say.

Equal playing-field in the marketplace. Cute.

The Wisconsin Republican-Peter Barca project in service to Foxconn Technology Co Ltd, aka Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd., now proposes perverse and privileged legal status for this single corporate actor along the lines described above.

Putting aside the fiscal and macro-economic cat-five disasters being courted, not much objection is voiced publicly from Wisconsin on the proposed abandonment of settled Equal Protection and Due Process doctrine, and state Judicial power and discretion establishing guarantees under which all litigants are equal in the eyes of the Judicial branch.

Notes Matt Rothschild:

When the Joint Finance Committee voted, along party lines, to give Foxconn the right to directly appeal any lower court order straight to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and to have that order suspended until the high court rules on it, the legislature was entering very dubious legal waters.

First of all, there is a separation of powers problem. The legislature is letting Foxconn skip the entire appellate court process. Where does the legislature get off telling the judiciary how it will function?

Secondly, there is an equal protection problem. Why should other businesses, or individuals, have to go through the potentially costly appellate process when Foxconn doesn’t have to? And why can only Foxconn get an instant and automatic stay on any lower court’s decision when every other party in the lower courts has to ask a judge for a stay?

The reason why the Joint Finance Committee carved out the exception for Foxconn is pretty obvious: The Wisconsin Supreme Court is reliably in the hands of a conservative and business-friendly majority.

This judicial exemption that the GOP-dominated Joint Finance Committee has carved out for Foxconn puts in sharp relief the utter corporatization of Wisconsin politics.

We don’t have a democracy in Wisconsin today. We have corporate rule.

That this abandonment of equality before the law is openly mused is an embarrassment for Wisconsin, much less seriously proposed in the Wisconsin Legislature's 2017 Special Session, Assembly Bill 1.

I doubt this anti-Constitutional legislative initiative will be included in the final Foxconn bill.

Yet, so unhinged and uneducated about Constitutional protections are Republicans and a couple of Democratic Party bed-fellows that this latest proposal could ring unfair and unjust around the state and become a political scandal, if only the Wisconsin Dems will begin strategic communications to this effect.

In any event, federal litigation will predictably commence with Gov. Scott Walker signing this legislation into law, so what Walker and Republicans are doing is betting they can present this madness as productive public policy better than critics can point out its numerous defects.