While craven politicians have bobbed and weaved so as to not offend the "black lives matter" movement, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin called its bluff the other day in remarks from the bench.
McLaughlin was hearing the case of a Harlem man who Tareek Arnold, who shot Jamal McCaskill four times at close range. After being detained by police, the handcuffed Arnold shoved a policeman to the ground and escaped. He was on the lam for four months.
McCaskill survived and testified on Arnold's behalf. Although the shooting was caught on video, McCaskill insisted that Arnold was not his attacker. It seems to have been this that moved the justice to eloquence (right before giving Arnold 24 t0 26 years):
“Black lives matter,” Justice Edward McLaughlin told defendant Tareek Arnold, 24, as he sentenced him in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I have heard it, I know it, but the sad fact is in this courtroom, so often what happens is manifestations of the fact that black lives don’t matter to black people with guns.”
Bravo, Mr. Justice!
Anytime there is police brutality, that is heinous. It must be discovered and penalized. But the real problem in the black community is black-on-black violence. I am sure that blacks care deeply about black on black violence. But leaders and the left finds it more beneficial to ignore it and attack the police. McLaughlin (who is white) had the guts to tell the truth.
Arnold's lawyer Mark Jankowitz argued that his client deserved a more lenient sentence of ten years because his one-year-old son would be without a father. The plight of young men who grow up without fathers is well-known. But a father like Tareek Arnold?
There is a popular move to help kids keep in touch with incarcerated fathers. Speaking only for myself, I deplore it because it normalizes the idea that good dad are in prison.