The South Park Defense

I hope you’ve been following this week’s trial of Charles Meyers, the 19-year old from South Philly who last summer shot and killed 14-year old Tykeem Law, ostensibly because Law and his friends didn’t get their bicycles out of the street fast enough. Because Meyers is Caucasian and Law was African-American, this trial has become a referendum on violent crime and the public perception of murderers and their victims. You can bet this case is going to be thoroughly scrutinized and picked apart in the weeks and months to come.

I say, why wait? Scrutinize now and avoid the rush.

Pretty much the first thing out of defense attorney Daniel Conner’s mouth was so predictable, it could have been written by some overworked Hollywood screenwriter. Connor’s argument, if you really want to call it an argument, is that Meyers thought he saw Law reach under his shirt, and believing that Law had a gun, felt threatened and shot the kid in self-defense.

Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that every reliable witness, including the off-duty police officer who witnessed the entire incident and apprehended Meyers, say that Law made no aggressive actions. It’s the sheer, naked audacity of the defense claim that bothers me. We’ve seen it countless times.

I call it “The South Park Defense”. South Park, for those of you who still don’t have cable, is a cartoon show on Comedy Central that takes rude, gross vulgarity to new heights unimagined by The Simpsons or Beavis and Butthead. In one particular episode, the four foul-mouthed ten-year-olds who are the show’s protagonists are taken on a hunting trip by two dim-witted adults, Jimbo and Ned.

Horrified by the sight of Jimbo shooting a defenseless animal, one of the children asks how he can justify killing a creature that meant him no harm. Jimbo’s reply was, “They say we can't shoot certain animals anymore unless they're posing an immediate threat. Therefore, before we shoot something, we have to say; ‘It's coming right for us!’”

As if to punctuate the statement, Jimbo screams, “Look out! It’s coming right for us!” and shoots a small deer drinking from a lake.

The basis of the South Park Defense is as simple as Jimbo explained it. If there’s any question about the justification for a shooting, you simply state that the victim made a threatening move and you made a split second decision to protect yourself. A justifiable, understandable, natural response to a perceived threat. Case closed, court is adjourned and the defendant is free to go.

Keep in mind, though, you can only use the South Park Defense when the shooting victim is Black, but you’d be surprised at how often it works.

Police shootings are a natural for the South Park Defense. Remember Amadou Diallo? Forty-one shots reaching for his wallet. You can just imagine those cops in that tight hallway, guns drawn, when one of them shouts, “Look out! He’s got a gun!” just before they blaze away. How about Sean Bell, the groom blown away after his bachelor party? Same defense, same result.

It’s not just police officers who get to use the South Park Defense, either. There was a case several years ago where a brother was pepper sprayed by an old white woman as he walked past her on a dark street. He was not threatening her; he was actually on his way home from work. However, the mere fact that a black man approached her from behind was enough to justify pepper spraying him, because the old woman felt a perceived threat.

The fact is that the South Park Defense is an effective way to secure an acquittal. If it weren’t, attorneys like Conner wouldn’t make it the first gadget they pull out of their bag of tricks. It doesn’t take much to convince a jury that the menacing Black man made an aggressive motion, and what else is a poor, frightened white person to do?

It’s not much different from the “Unknown Black Guy” defense, made famous by Susan Smith, Tanya Dacri and a host of others. When confronted by the authorities with evidence of your guilt, you say the first thing you think will hold water. And “The Black Guy Did It” holds water in all 50 states.

The South Park Defense will work just fine until juries begin to decide these cases on the law instead of fear and stereotypes. The problem is, too many juries are made up of guys named Jimbo and Ned.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Stupidity

Because of my respect for the United States Constitution, and in particular the First Amendment to that document, which provides for freedom of speech and a free press, I find myself called upon to make a philosophical sacrifice. Like many patriotic acts, this is an unpleasant task, but as an American, I have to do it.

I rise now in defense of the stupid.

Consider the case of West Philadelphia’s Andre Moore, a 44-year old former security guard at Einstein Medical Center. Moore made a home video in which he waved around a semi-automatic handgun, showed viewers how to load and shoot it, and gleefully yet profanely called for the wanton murder of Philly police officers, particularly officers in West Philly’s 18^th District.

Moore got his 12-year old son to shoot the video, and posted it on You Tube, the Internet’s top file sharing program. In almost no time, Philadelphia Police and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office had the video, and took swift action.

Last week, Moore got an early morning visit from the Gun Violence Task Force – courtesy of a battering ram through his front door. He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, corruption of minors, terroristic threats and harassment.

Will the charges stick? That remains to be seen. There are First Amendment issues at play here, and attorneys will argue whether Moore has a Constitutional right to say whatever stupid thing he likes.

Leave aside the legal conundrum for a moment and think about simple decency, common sense, and yes, outright stupidity. If you post such videos in the public domain, what reaction do you expect from the authorities? Did Moore think police and the Attorney General don’t have Internet access? Or perhaps they’re willing to look the other way when someone waves a gun and calls for unbridled cop killing?

Simple decency dictates that even if you harbor an absolute hatred for the police, you don’t teach those values, and the use of firearms to carry out the deed, to your 12-year old child. Common sense tells you that a guy with a job he wants to keep, and a family he cares for, doesn’t post a “kill the cops” video for the world to see. And if you post such a video, especially in a city where recent cop killings have everyone on edge, only the genuinely stupid would expect anything other than a battering ram through the door and lots of guns in your face.

A 44-year old man with a job and a family to feed is not supposed to be that stupid. It’s not as if he’s some teenage tough guy, fueled by gangsta rap videos and mistaken ideas of manhood. At his age, it’s not just stupid, it’s embarrassing. His wife, Tamara, said as much in a newspaper interview after his arrest.

“I knew nothing about any of this,” she said. “Me, my son and our family are very much humiliated by the act Andre did. Whatever happens to him, happens. My job is being jeopardized because of this.”

Einstein Medical Center also joined the line to throw Moore under the bus. Citing the fact that Moore apparently lied about a previous arrest on his job application, the hospital jettisoned him like dead weight after his arrest.

Well, Andre, I won’t abandon you. Even though your actions disgust me as a father, a Philadelphian, and an American, I’ve got your back. I happen to believe that you have a God-given and constitutionally protected right to be as stupid as you want to be.

After all, the Aryan Nation, Stormfront, and a thousand other hate mongers are allowed to spread their vile message via the Internet, and their calls for the wholesale slaughter of minorities, Jews, gays and others are simply ignored by authorities as the rantings of the lunatic fringe.

Televangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a Fox News analyst suggested that Barack Obama should be shot, and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee quipped that a loud noise offstage during his speech to the National Rifle Association might be Obama ducking out of the line of fire.

All the above violators were allowed to apologize and move on to the next stupid comment. Were they guilty of making terroristic threats? We’ll never know, because they weren’t arrested for it.

The idea of the First Amendment freedoms isn’t to protect speech with which we agree, but speech that causes most of us to recoil in horror. Even the stupid need protection, if only from themselves.