Extending a long career of felonies and misdemeanors, the imaginary black man has struck again, this time shooting a Philadelphia police officer. A massive police investigation was launched, and the search began for the dangerous perpetrator, said to be wearing cornrows and sporting a mark or tattoo under his left eye. The suspect was allegedly in the company of another non-existent African American male.
The weeks-long investigation, costing about a quarter of a million dollars, turned up no sign of the perpetrator, even though the Fraternal Order of Police offered a $10,000 reward for information.
While the imaginary black man managed to slip away, and will no doubt move on to commit further acts of violence and aggression, predominantly against white victims, the citizens of Philadelphia now have to contend with the fact that the cop, Sgt. Robert Ralston, has admitted to intentionally shooting himself and making up the story.
This paragon of virtue and credit to the force is on suspension, and the department is in the process of dismissing him. In news that will no doubt reassure the residents of Philadelphia, and make them feel much better, Ralston will not face criminal charges, and, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer (Story 3, above), will most likely get to keep his police pension. I’m sure Philly citizens will be happy to fork over 24 grand a year to this noble public servant once he’s off the force.
Or is it? I betcha this tatoo’ed cop shooter is illiterate. He’s a dangerous fellow. Didn’t he carjack some white kids a few years back and drown them in a lake in South Carolina? And shoot a pregnant white wife in Boston? Wasn’t it his poor ass that started the housing bust by getting loans from Barney Frank that he couldn’t afford? He’s a busy, busy non-reading, fecund man of color.
I do not understand this. Why give him immunity from prosecution in exchange for a confession? Isn’t that just raising a white flag? He doesn’t have any accomplices to give up, no “where did you stash the money”… They even had some circumstantial evidence, like his story not adding up. At the very least keep the case open in case he slips up later. What’s the upside to this?
I don’t understand that either. He’d confessed already, just not on the record. I can’t imagine it would have cost (30 x $24,000) to pull the bullet from evidence and see if it matched his gun.
That was exactly my reaction upon first encountering this story.
My impression, gleaned from years of watching NYPD Blue and Law & Order (:)), was that these sort of deals generally required the accused to give up something the cops didn’t already know, or lead them to someone further up the chain of criminal command, or something like that.
I never realized that there are deals where they basically say, “Tell us what you did, and we’ll let you off without any charges.”
According to the OP, the investigation was “about a quarter of a million dollars” (cite?).
A quarter of a million dollars doesn’t buy much of an investigation against a police officer, though I’m sure the imaginary black man would face several felony charges if only he were caught.
Note to liars: if you want to get away with it, lay off specifics and details. Cornrows and a tat under the eye? That shit just sounds made up. He should’ve just said that he didn’t get a good look at the guy.
The guy needs to lose his badge and pension just for making it this far without figuring out proper lie protocol.
Your outrage would be justified if cops were drafted. But they’re not. As a rule–please don’t point out that there are exceptions, which, duh–the people who are cops are not the peaceloving newagers that make college so annoying. They are, for the most part, the bullies and assholes who made high school so miserable. They’re the guys who always WANTED to be cops. I knew a cop in Chicago, when I worked in a bookstore, who was a thoughtful, interesting, generous guy who read a lot of poetry. He became a cop because in his experience cops were uniformly such assholes that he took it upon himself to try to change that from within, as it were. Yeah, I know, naive at best. But also, notable mostly by how he stands out against your average cop.
Right. They’d need to get something in return. In this case, the only thing they got in return was confirmation that they should call off the investigation.
Actually, it seems that, according to my third link, the full cost of the investigation hasn’t yet been determined.
I got the figure from this story, which also notes that they haven’t actually tallied it up yet:
Given the number of work hours that must go into an investigation of a cop shooting, no doubt involving considerable overtime, i don’t find the figure especially difficult to believe.
(some of my friends are imaginary black?)