Things got a little strange last week, so I was not here. Short form: as you may remember I had a heart attack last October. This was triggered by a bleeding ulcer that lost about half my blood volume. After much mayhem, they fixed the ulcer at least temporarily, and worked on my heart.

Unlike when I was young, ulcers can be healed nowadays. It takes a regimen of certain drugs. So the medical types wanted to see if it was in fact healing. That meant that the first of the two days when I usually start writing my weekly piece I was in the hospital in the Springs while they poked away inside me. The good news was that the ulcer is completely healed. I'll take it. The less good news was that the anesthetic they gave me hit me harder and lasted long after I got home. Too fuzzy-headed to write that night and the next day.

The next day, I had my second Covid shot due. Went and got it. The first shot made my arm hurt but not too bad. The second shot was a lot worse. And during my writing time and into that night I got some of the worst chills and shivering I have ever had. It took piling six heavy blankets on top of me to get the shivering to stop. So I emailed the paper and told them I was 10-7 for a while. Now I am back 10-8. So we will continue where I left off.

The first city on our itinerary is Minneapolis, Minnesota. You will remember that just before my heart attack, we went through there, after the first wave of riots. No, my son and his family do not live there, but that is the airport we had to fly into. We did some shopping for our version of soul food and stopped for lunch before going down to Iowa. And we saw a LOT of burned out businesses, mini-malls, etc. along with a lot of BLM graffiti everywhere. We were in enemy territory. Also, we saw construction crews fortifying a bunch of the surviving businesses.

This was triggered by the death of St. George Floyd of the sacred Fentanyl. In this, and the following discussions, I am going to be depending heavily on the fact knowledge the Gentle Readers contain an awful lot of people who are familiar with police procedure, pharmaceuticals, statutes, etc.

As a quick review, last year George Floyd was brought to the attention of cops by a storeowner who Floyd had tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill to. As in crudely counterfeited on a copy machine. Floyd was taken from a car and swallowed his personal stash of Fentanyl/Methamphetamines so it would not be found. Also Floyd's personal drug dealer was in the car, as was a lot more Fentanyl/Meth.

Things to know. The batch of Fentanyl/Meth that he had swallowed was literally sufficient to kill 10 people of his size. Floyd was OK in the back of the police car for a while but then began to complain that he could not breathe as the drugs took effect and tried to bust his way out of the car. By this time there were four cops present, two of them rookies riding partner with more senior officers. Senior officer present was Derek Chauvin.

Now I mentioned Floyd's size above. He was 6'6” tall and a bit over 220 lbs. Derek Chauvin was 5'9” and between 140-150 lbs. Floyd began yelling that he could not breathe. He was taken out of the car and placed on the ground to be checked. And Paramedic's were called. By the way, one of the very first things you learn as a first responder is that if someone is yelling, they are moving air in and out of their lungs. That is breathing. The yelling drew a crowd who began threatening the officers. Three of them kept the crowd back while Chauvin restrained him on the ground.

People do not understand that the courts have ruled that if you restrain somebody in a way not ordered by your department, that you are liable personally for suit. You have to use department-authorized procedures ONLY. At that time, the department authorized procedure for restraining someone laying on the ground was to pin them face down with your knee, the knee being placed on the base of the neck and shoulder. The very next day, Minneapolis Police revoked that restraint procedure, but at the time Chauvin restrained him, it was the only legal way for him to do it. You should also note that the restraint was videoed by dozens of cameras. One camera was at an angle that made it appear that Chauvin's knee was on Floyd's neck. That was the only one shown on the media. Plenty of others, which were introduced as evidence in the trial, showed the knee where it belonged at the base of the neck and shoulder.

As I said, the Paramedics were called. But they took a wrong turn getting there, and then had to deal with the crowd just to get through to Floyd. They scooped him up and took him to the hospital where he was later pronounced dead. The delay was not the fault of the police, who can only call for medical back up.

The local population, agitated by ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter, began rioting. In response, all four police officers were fired (not suspended pending investigation, but fired) and arrested for murder. Note that the arrests did not stop the riots, which have been proceeding intermittently since with the local police ordered to back off.

Derek Chauvin (and the others) were charged with 2nd degree murder, 3rd degree murder and manslaughter. Those of us who have been in the business know that there are reasons for the existence of different charges. They are not mutually inclusive, and they encompass different circumstances, events and acts. Keep that firmly in mind.

Chauvin's trial started a few weeks ago. There were regular riots (called “mostly peaceful” riots by the media despite the arson and looting) in the city along with threats to any jurors who voted the “wrong way.” The court refused to sequester the jurors as they were selected and as they went through the trial. They could hear what would happen to them and their families if they voted the “wrong way.” The judge refused a change of venue away from the threats. And he only sequestered the jury AFTER they went to deliberate. Which sequestration incidentally was also after news reports became known that one of the witnesses for the defense had had a previous residence vandalized with pig blood and a severed pig head thrown through the front door.

The jury came back after less than 11 hours of deliberations. Unlike almost all murder trials, they did not send any questions of law to the judge. And they unanimously found Chauvin guilty of ALL THREE charges. Remember, these are totally separate charges, with different elements of guilt, some of which are contradictory to each other. I am pretty sure that facts did not matter to the jury. Fear did.

I am also pretty sure that now that he has been found guilty (and so will the other three too) that somehow Chauvin will mysteriously die in custody, pour encourager les autres. They are teaching a lesson. If you are a Peace Officer, those the Left considers to be “Protected Classes” need to be left alone if they commit crimes or the Officer will pay the penalty. The doctrine of Marsupial Curiae (Kangaroo Courts) now holds.

If you or yours are involved in law enforcement in any Democrat-controlled polity (with the exception of a Republican Acting Mayor for one day (12-31-1973), Minneapolis has been totally Democrat-controlled for 60 years), it is time to get out. Arresting anyone considered favored by the Left is itself an offense in those areas. Neither the law nor the Constitution will protect you. Until they can leave, they need to slow their responses so that they have backup as witnesses in any case that involves a “Protected Class.” Neither the law, departmental orders, nor your chain of command can be depended upon to protect you or your family even if you are doing the right thing.

The Second City is Columbus, Ohio. Not a nice place. I have spent time there, years after the 1960s race riots. I found it noteworthy that despite those years that blocks of buildings burned in the riots had neither been torn down nor rebuilt. On the night that the Chauvin verdict came out, reports started coming out of Columbus. First, all it said was that a white Columbus Police Officer had shot and killed a 13-year-old Black girl. No other information available. The implication was that it was a racist murder. And that riots would start.

It was not till the next day that there was more information. The girl (who it turned out was 16-years-old) had been trying to stab another Black teen girl and had refused orders by the Officer to stop and had been shot as she was about to stab the girl. The dead assailant was named Ma'Khia Bryant. Despite her having been caught on the Officer's bodycam both armed and attempting to kill the other girl, her family released a statement that she was "a good student, a good person whose life was unnecessarily cut short by disproportionate and unjustified use of force." She was videoed trying to bring the blade of the knife down on the other girl's body. Another comment on the shooting by a Black Lives Matter celebrity, Bree Newsome, "Teenagers have been having fights including fights involving knives for eons. We do not need police to address these situations."

But a key response was by LA Lakers basketball player LeBron James on Twitter:

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/04/21/lebron-james-youre-next-tweet-about-officer-who-shot-makhia-bryant-got-deleted-but-here-it-is/

The message was “YOU'RE NEXT” with a picture of an hourglass and the hashtag ACCOUNTABILITY. Below that was a picture of the officer. That is a death threat. He took the posting down, but there is nothing to indicate that the threat is gone.

“If you or yours are involved in law enforcement in any Democrat-controlled polity . . .”

The tale of the Last City takes us to Washington, DC. “You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." We are used to being lied to from there, by both parties. It is what it is. But this is a declaration of war.

Jan. 6 an unnamed, but not unknown Federal cop or security officer, in the presence of dozens of other Federal employees, all of which are falsely sworn to obey the law and Constitution, shot and killed at close range, unarmed veteran and free citizen Ashli Babbitt in the Capitol of the United States. There are more than a few suspicions as to the identity of the murderer, given that his hand holding a pistol is pictured aiming at her and he habitually wears a distinctive bracelet. But unlike any and every thing that inconveniences those who the Left holds above the law (and just below themselves); there has been no public investigation. No public inquiry. No charges or trial. No stacking of various homicide charges like in Minneapolis. And carefully note, that the Republicans have not done either diddley or squat in that direction either. The Nomenklatura can kill us or oppress us without fear of penalty.

This is not new. We have long learned the hard way that both parties hate and detest us.

But there is now something new relating to the events of that day. Besides the murdered Ashli Babbitt, there were several other deaths connected to the huge DC wide demonstrations against the theft of the presidency. Two males in their 50s died of hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (short form, heart attacks). One female in her 30s died of methamphetamine intoxication (short form, speed overdose) although there is some question as to her connection with the demonstrations.

And finally there is Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. The sainted, revered, and martyred (officially) Officer Brian Sicknick. The Brian Sicknick who they kept reporting had been struck in the head by the hated Deplorables with a fire extinguisher causing his death. The same Brian Sicknick who after his autopsy was cremated (ending further investigation of his cause of death) and whose ashes laid in State in the Capitol before being buried at Arlington. The same Brian Sicknick who has two demonstrators being held in jail in DC pending charges for his murder (he's no mere Ashli Babbitt you see).

The autopsy was kept secret after being completed. I am sure that the intent was that it never be released. Someone is probably going to pay for it being released on the same day as the Chauvin verdict. There are first and second order points of interest.

First and foremost, the autopsy showed that he was not struck by a fire extinguisher or any other object in a manner to cause injury. Second, while he may have been exposed to riot control gas in the midst of all that happened, there was no injury or threat to life from it that could be found on forensic examination. This is the same stuff that every Colorado cop and every DOC employee gets sprayed in the face with in the Academy and regularly thereafter for familiarization.

According to the autopsy report, AFTER the demonstrations were over, Sicknick went to the Capitol Police office in the Capitol and felt sick. He was taken to the hospital. The next day, in the hospital, he had two strokes, which killed him. Not violence. Not Deplorables. Two strokes.

The autopsy report explicitly states that Sicknick died of NATURAL CAUSES a day after the demonstrations.

Those are the first order effects. We cannot do anything about them right now. There are second order effects.

1) Every Pendulate Richard and Richard-less in both Houses of Congress, regardless of party, and every staff member had to have known as they were spreading the lie about Sicknick being killed by us Deplorables all through the time he lay in State and was buried with honors at Arlington.

2) Every Pendulate Richard and Richard-less in the police and security apparatus of the Congress knew that they were lying to us, deliberately.

3) Every Pendulate Richard and Richard-less in the Federal political internal security apparatus knew that they were deliberately lying to us.

4) Every Pendulate Richard and Richard-less involved in the prosecution of the Deplorables falsely accused of killing Sicknick knew that they were lying to us and they and their entire chain of command was/is willing to kill innocent people for their political benefit.

There are surely additional ones. But that is enough to think about for now, along with how much loyalty is owed to a regime that has acted that way. Discuss, discreetly, amongst yourselves.