Devils and Details

November 16, 6:29 PMPittsburgh Nonpartisan ExaminerMichael Bagen

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His advocacy and his dictionary...why is the service of truth always categorized as the devil's work? Just watched a drama about Albert Pierrepoint, to remind us that even a hanging has a right and a wrong way.

Prejudice - n. A kind of intellectual laziness born of inadequate hardware, outdated software, faulty input, or the defining human capacity, indifference to the truth.  It can thus be argued that machines are naturally prejudiced by their naivity. Cynics and Idealists, however, take the long road of having developed "views".
Idealist - n. A dangerous form of idiot with no endemic home territory, save the habitual sphere of the middle class. His working class equivalent is known as the cynic, but is otherwise indistinguishable from his more affluent counterpart. The two terms are often used by those whose opinions are unencumbered by consequence.
Right - adj. The delusion that one's prejudices are more apt than those of the opposition.
Righteous - adj. A pathological derangement caused by a belief in the above.

There are few people that would arguein favor of prejudice. For most it's some kind of abominable psychological ailment. To more sensible people it's a simple, though still pitiful, tendency. It's sloppy thinking. But prejudice is so much easier to justify when it's against the despised. When you take the hated, the reviled group, whose name is trash, filth or equivalent. Do we side with the prejudices there, or do we still stick to the facts of the cases as they fall into place?

Actually, I'm not talking about minorities. I'm talking about the pigs.

Now that PA Sam Nassan has been found liable in breaking the ankle of South Side reveler Christopher Strothers, we can celebrate yet another bill paid to the $12+ million sinkhole in the PA economy that is Nassan's career. This is following the 2002 incident in Fayette County wherein he was found liable to the tune of 12.5 million for shooting a 12-year-old Michael Ellerbe in the back.

In the case of a policemen, we deal with a person whose job is to move in the direction of trouble. As such, the probability of life-and-death situations is many times that of most other professions. Any analysis of police action, even of Trooper Sam Nassan, requires we remember this.

On the other hand, he does have another pending suit against him, this one for shooting death of Daniel Haniotakis on St. Paddy's Day in South Side.

According to a city police news release, he was shot after a lengthy chase through the South Side that began when a city police officer and a state trooper working together on a DUI roving patrol saw Mr. Haniotakis, driving an SUV with its lights out, traveling south in the wrong lane on 13th Street. When Mr. Haniotakis' vehicle reached East Carson Street, it stopped and then lurched forward, nearly broad-siding the unmarked police vehicle.--source

Police, (Trooper Nassan and Pgh. Sgt. Donnelly), ordered him to pull over. He refused and they pursued him to Wharton & 22nd, where he crashed (just near the Birmingham Bridge. According to police, when they approached his vehicle, Haniotakis backed up, tried to run them down, and drover away. During this flight he sustained a shot to the back that eventually killed him. He crashed six blocks later at 22nd & Sarah.

This is a highly-populated residential area on a busy night. If the trooper and Sergeant's story hold, then it's arguable that containing this man was a priority. Impaired as he was, and having crashed once he was driving a lethal weapon.

However, why didn't have backup and a road block set up? Once you wade through the details, you discover they had time, and it's dificult to imagine they had a lack of units in South Side on St. Patrick's Day. Whatever the answers, they are to be revealed during the lawsuit (as it happens in Pittsburgh, as the police commonly can do no wrong unless caught red handed).

Let's look at what the suit claims:

When Haniotakis stopped, the officers gunned him down.--source

This is where it gets hairy, and this is why prejudice comes into play. You can't trust cops because they lie and their department will give them all-but carte blanche. This is the way it is, and we pretty much accept this. Journalists from major newspapers rely on police reports even knowing as any court reporter knows that the police version and reality are not always the same.

That's the problem, briefly stated. No sane person trusts the police. But likewise, who gives their trust to the guy on the dock? It's all a question of faith, and in both cases, the probability of being at least partially wanked is implicit. This at least answers the question about the devil and the details. Truth is an atheist's game, because a predisposition to faith is a liability. Faith is a presumption. A standardized presumption is called a prejudice.

Thus, we have few real "facts". We have only what is said, and what we can divine of behavior and attitude from that. If Pittsburgh's many and various mouthpieces, from the police to the magistrates, hold that a Trooper's duty is to contain a dangerous driver at all costs, they might have an argument. Haniotakis had crashed his vehicle once and had a BAC of .14%, all after allegedly coming to police attention by almost broadsiding them. It's not a de facto kill order, but the phrase "armed and dangerous" is a container nearly filled when somebody's driving in the lane going the other direction. Guy in that state driving off, beligerently refusing to stop is a confirmed threat to bystanders and motorists. You could argue that it was professional negligence to let him go in a state like that, under any circumstances.

"Under those circumstances, (Donnelly) anticipated that he could suffer serious bodily harm, even death. And under those circumstances, officers are permitted to use deadly force," said attorney Bryan Campbell, representing Donnelly through the local Fraternal Order of Police chapter.--source

First of all, saying that he was trying to run them down is subjective. When you're standing behind or near a car when it pulls away, you're not necessarily even deliberately trying to run a person down. You still can, and you're liable if you do...but the question of intent isn't as cut and dry as the city and police would like.

Yup. Public safety seems to take second seat as a justification to his giving officers a reason to shoot him, even if he's running away afterward. This DOES bring to mind Ellerbe, another person shot while running away. It's curious because it takes every basic liberty you'd grant a police officer and all-but openly snaps them in half. It seems as though the police believe the charge can and should stand just on punishment of defiant conduct.

"When we fire at a moving vehicle, we're raising the ante, and we have to decide whether that's acceptable or not," said Elizabeth Pittinger of the Citizens Police Review Board.--source

This has been a controversial part of police procedure for years. It underlies every question about this case and others of the kind. At the most practical level, firing into a moving vehicle conveys no guarantees that the vehicle will stop. It's a near-impotent last ditch move to stop a threat to publis safety. Thus, where the hell was the backup on this "lengthy police chase"?). Wharton and 22nd is a corner up against a bridge. Six cops show up for a speeding ticket in this town.

"Does an ensuing pursuit of that person that escalates, does that not increase the risk to the general public safety? Those kinds of balances," said Pittinger. "Sometimes it isn't a wise course of action, because a lot of third parties get injured in police pursuits."--source

The point is key: escalation and neutralization: had the officers acted properly to avoid having to use deadly force? That's where this lengthy analysis leads us again and again, to the big question: backup. Where was the backup that would've kept him from crossing E. Carson at 22nd St? The absence of another option is what validates (in some light) the actions of Trooper Nassan. Since it's up to Nassan and Donnelly to call the backup, the burden of proof is on the city.

Then again, the police seem hell-bent on arguing that this isn't the issue, and that defiance amounting to a perceived threat on an officer is a killin' offense, even if they run away directly afterward. Maybe it has something to do with Nassan's track record. He has shown obscenely poor judgment in the past and recently. No wonder they're not arguing for rational Trooper Nassan. They probably don't even want to look to deeply into what he did and why. Remember, a prejudice is easier to dismiss than a rational criticism.

But that is the angle of attack in police cases, though: blood simple. You do what you're told or else. It's the acrimonious shared history of citizen vs. cop, knowing that even when there is a rationale, it seems less a consideration than proving the sanctified justness of sodomizing the offender.

This is the burden of expunging prejudices. It leaves you with the sickening need to assess even the possibility that a violent state trooper killed a father of three in a use of necessary force. They seldom reward this effort, but there's a right and a wrong way to look at things. They are not directional. They are not: "this way" or "that way". They are simply, thoroughly, or casually.

Casually, you can go one way or the other. You can say he was taking down a dangerous threat, or he was a murderous fuck. Cops generally fall into the latter category, but:

Experience - n. The primary bond in the Bank of Common Sense. Payer of consistent interest rates to the wallet of Wisdom. Its interest rate is tabulated in sleepless nights and empty bottles.
Presumption - n. Respecting experience (see: Experience) misunderstanding a bond to be a treasury note.

And so we look. What we find is something we already suspect at the mention of "police officer" and especially at the words "state trooper". But when a cop goes on duty he's expected to leave his prejudices at home, and he'd better lose 12 inches from the neck if he doesn't. Media must do the same, if only long enough to walk carefully through the situation and confirm that it is not prejudice with which we hang this mook, but his own actions. The integrity of our republic as one of laws and justice depends as always, on our observance of this distinction.

Bottom Line: Police defend property and always have. Defending people is always secondary to defending the tax base of the governing body. As such, and for those reasons, Sam Nassan has to go. Right or wrong, the guy's just costing us too much damned money.