Police Shooting of William Marble was Justified

[XLFD]

William Marble, 68, was shot by a Michigan State Police trooper on January 14, 2014, after 11 PM while he was inside his house.  It was a shot into his chest that was fatal.  He was alleged to have been holding a gun, alleged to have had some alcohol and acting confrontational, alleged to have been involved in some domestic altercation which had someone call 9-1-1 and suspiciously hung up.

                                                            William Marble

The police shooter, who has yet to be identified publicly, had went to Marble's home to investigate the suspicious 9-1-1 hang up call.  He arrived and allegedly made contact with a woman at the house.  He allegedly saw Marble holding a gun in an aggressive manner, and the trooper shot him.  This was what the local media started reporting the next morning, the story developing with just a few more details released by the troopers commanding officer.

The police shooting of William Marble was justified, and will be deemed that way by the prosecutor later this week if not today.  I can say this with certainty, without listening to the recording from the microphone that was on Trooper "Smith" that evening, without listening to the woman that was also there that night (both of which have been suppressed for over five days to the public) and that his actions will be found to be totally justified and proper.  I am also optimistic that his actions will not only be lionized by his fellow officers, but accepted as heroic by a majority of the people who read the official account of what happened that night.

Consider, on July of 2009, a Ludington policeman pulled over a woman driving home with her grown son.  The officer said he pulled her over for defective taillights but perceived that she may have been driving impaired on talking with her and smelling her breath, and has her get out from the car.  While talking to the officer about the taillight problem and about any alcohol consumption, her son gets out of the car and wonders about his mother's status.  This is all on dash cam video.

He gets back into the car after the officer insists he does, then about three minutes later he gets back out and is told he has to stay in the car a couple of times.  He politely refuses and asks what the officer is doing.  This is rather proper, since more than seven minutes into the stop there have been no field sobriety tests, or other disposition offered up by the officer.  The officer asks for more space and less interference, and the son complies politely.  The video shows the son kept a respectful distance at all times.

The officer calls for backup, the beach patrolman arrives, the son gets out his I-Phone and starts recording the events.  The new officer slaps the son's hand and he walks away, and is promptly shadowed by that officer.  The son turns back asking about getting the dogs in the back of the car, while reinforcements arrive, two sheriff deputies.  They say:  "We'll take him." and then "Last opportunity to leave or you're going to jail.".  As he pauses, one of the officers says "You're under arrest."

As he continues to walk away with his back to them, the three officers run at him and take him down from behind, leg sweeping him to the hard pavement of Ludington Avenue.  The son is not fighting back, at worst he is passively resisting the assaulting officers by keeping his hands attached to his sides, as per depositions of the officers.  Without any cause for arrest being articulated the three portly officers struggle trying to put the lanky son in handcuffs, as they proceed to shoot him with a taser five times for compliance.  Meanwhile, his mother is watching this take place while the other officer prevents her from aiding her son.

After about two minutes the son is led back by the deputies to their car.  The beach officer, follows and comes back to the mother, who is handcuffed and led to the back of the original squad car also under arrest.  Without any sort of field sobriety test, without any articulated reason as to why they were arresting her, they take her away after her son is shipped over to the hospital.

The son's I-Phone is taken and its contents are later found to be deleted when he gets it back after being jailed.  He is handcuffed to a hospital bed and tasered more by two of the officers after refusing medical treatment for the knee the officers wounded.  He is put into jail and charged with five counts of resisting/obstructing/assaulting officers by the prosecutor.  Facing serious time against a justice system that is anything but, this victim accepts a plea deal to take it one count under the advice of his local attorney who knows how the system works.

None of the three people that senselessly assaulted this man, Ludington citizen Joseph McAdam, on the street and in the hospital with witnesses abounding and the violent crime rather stark,  have ever seen any sort of repercussion on the badged perpetrators.  In fact, the two deputies were specially commended a short time later for their exchange of gunfire with another Ludington citizen on his property, where he was shot.  But that was overlooked, because an officer was shot too.

And when McAdam went to federal court and then binding arbitration to seek justice for what some may deem a large violation of many of his rights, he received relief from being tasered at the hospital, yet nothing was deemed injurious by the arbitrator for the assault, brutality, false arrest, destruction of evidence, and malicious prosecution that also befell McAdam.

And is this why I think William Marble's shooter is blameless and will be seen as someone who deserved to be shot by the trooper?  It's a good start, but let's look at another local police shooting that involved a state trooper that took place last summer, this time when the police is seemingly the obvious victim.

Trooper Paul Butterfield was shot almost assuredly by Eric Knysz at a traffic stop.  Eric was apparently driving the car, had possession of the gun that was involved, shot the officer, drove off, stole a car, and prepared to go on the run.

His wife was in the passenger seat of his car.  She apparently didn't do anything that could be considered illegal that day.  She is not alleged to have pulled the trigger to shoot the officer, nor encourage it.  She never had control of either vehicle.  She was always within the sphere of influence of a person who had just killed a cop in cold blood and was carrying a five month old fetus.  She has shown only remorse for what her husband did that day.

She was charged with accessory to murder after the fact and unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle in two counties for her part in the senseless killing.   A plea deal was arranged for 1-2 years on the former, 0-11 moths on the latter, and Judge Cooper in a court full of law enforcers, went higher assigning her 2-5 years because of the egregiousness of the crime-- that she really had no part in committing if we look at it objectively.  Judge Richard Cooper acknowledged that Eric Knysz was a controlling husband, but noted there was nothing to show Sarah Knysz couldn't have gotten away after Butterfield’s murder.  Though he didn't elaborate.

So in our area, for review, it is a crime to be a victim of police brutality, that you can be brutalized on camera by police officers, have the prosecutor look at those reports and the video and prosecute the ridiculous claim of five assaults against the bleeding, half-electrocuted victim who did nothing aggressive on the street or in the hospital.

It is a crime to be a captive of someone else who shoots a police officer, it is a crime not to either stop him from getting away even while he's holding a gun and has been abusive to you in the past, or run away from him while his gun is still smoldering.

It is a crime to look on while your son is being attacked, three burly officers raining blows and tasering him repeatedly while you can do nothing.  You are his mother, why have you raised him not to respect abusive authority like he should?   You're taking a ride in the squad car without any charges leveled against you.

Americans have long been comfortable with a double standards for police – both legal and cultural. Cops can murder, rape, and pillage with impunity, both from a legal and moral standpoint. When they murder, rape, and pillage – it is for the sake of public safety, national security, and order. Thus, they are protected from legal consequences, as well as moral judgment.

To many Americans, police essentially can do no wrong. If they murder a petty criminal, it’s justified because he was a criminal. If they murder an innocent person, it was a mere “mistake,” and justified because police were “doing their job.”   We are asked to understand and accept their version, even if it doesn't make sense, because many of us glorify them.

Many Americans care not that police lionization and immunity has resulted in the “Land of the Free” having the highest incarceration rate, both per capita and in sheer numbers, in the entire world. For the same reason, many Americans actually think it’s quite wonderful that their infallible demi-gods have steadily acquired weapons they should not possibly ever need for domestic purposes, while ordinary citizens are increasingly restricted and regulated in firearms ownership. Who are lowly mortals to question the motivation of gods in keeping us safe?

To some, police murdering people in their homes and assaulting them in the streets with little impunity isn’t chaos and violence, it is order and safety-- a way to keep the peace.  And heaven help the person or media outlet that dares to debunk the myth by pointing out facts and sharing photos and videos that paint our heroes in a bad light.  They don't speak for the rest of us, whose confidence cannot be shaken so easily.

For these reasons, William Marble, mild-mannered retired career teacher admired by students, fellow faculty, and neighbors, has no chance in being remembered for those facts, and that trooper who shot him will only be deified by his fellow law officers, the local media, and the majority of our population.  Despite what the 'facts' turn out to be, and if the public is ever allowed to know the truth.

And just in case you think it's a problem in our area alone, out in Fullerton California a group of officers beat an innocent homeless man to death a couple of years ago caught on surveillance tape.  The officer who started the melee told Mr. Thomas while strapping on his gloves that his fists were going to f--k him up.

He was a man of his word in this regard.  Another officer quickly joined in with a club and as these two began a systematic beating of a human being with no regard to his humanity, others arrived and like sharks to a feeding frenzy, continued the lynching.  The incident, including Ramos’ blatant threat, was captured on video. Mr. Thomas can be seen on video being beaten and pleading for his life. He says “Dad, help me… They’re killing me,” repeatedly. He says, “Sir, please… okay…okay…” repeatedly. He says “Help me…help me god…” repeatedly. He also apologizes, but was murdered by police nevertheless.

The two officers who instigated the incident were just exonerated of charges at the beginning of last week.  No criminal charges for them or anyone else involved.  The threat and the senseless beating on a non-resistant, innocent-of-any-charges individual caught on tape, but absolutely no punishment for the systematic killing.  Yet, you could not easily count the number of years that all six individuals would have received if they were not wearing badges, and the pulp on the ground was.

Many who read this will continue believing those words on our Supreme Court "Equal Justice Under Law", and that public servants are held to a higher account.  It's a myth we would all like to believe.  As is the myth that will arise about William Marble's 'irrational acts' and the 'heroism' of our unknown trooper in this incident that our officials have done so well in covering up over the last week, and will manufacture into a convenient parable, irregardless of the truth.

[Willy]

Why didn't they tazer the man they beat to death wouldn't that have immobilized him. This happens more than people want to admit.

[XLFD]

You'll notice that once the backup troops arrived in the Kelly Thomas video, they did in short order deploy tasers five times, the video subscripts note that, and you can hear them, all within a minute or two.  This will happen more and more often, not less, once verdicts like this come in even when the evidence is there. 

[AQUAMAN]

Bill Marble: rumor now has it that this man had a small house pistol gun "down at his side" when troopers moved into the house. He "did NOT" point, wave, shoot, nor intimidate the troopers, nor his wife, during this episode. More to come on this later. Makes a person wonder, what, if any evidence of this witnessed truth may come to light now..........during the MSP internal investigation.

[XLFD]

The silence from MSP from the so-called "investigation" one week later speaks volumes as to the appropriateness of this shooting. 

[Willy]

Aquaman

If this was true why hasn't the wife come forward and told her husbands side of the story?

[krazzz]

She hasn't come forward because she was also intoxicated that night and doesn't remember it. The "Rumor" about the pistol being at is his side is absolutely a rumor. There were only 4 people there that night, one of them didn't survive, anther doesn't remember, and the other two are cops. Do you really think the cops would start the RUMOR?  This Ludington, 90% of what you hear probably isn't true. This is also a situation where the truth cannot be proven. The cops version may be correct or it might not be but we will never know for sure. 

[XLFD]

The truth may turn out not to be provable, but the 'official version' of the truth may turn out to be disprovable.  The official version so far, is not holding up well under scrutiny, this is why we haven't heard anything new for over a week. 

[XLFD]

That video's a bit like the McAdam incident, with unnecessary brutality against a cooperative and innocent citizen by police on the street and again at the hospital.

The MSP investigating themselves on this incident should be a clear indication that there was a problem, and that they need to doctor the results without the 'mistakes' that another police agency may make in their own independent investigation. 

[Willy]

krazzz

Is the information about her being intoxicated also a "rumor" as well as how many people were present at the scene?

[AQUAMAN]

More rumor: have it on 2nd hand info. that Bill Marble was a history teacher for MCC. He was well liked by his students, and nothing in his past would suggest a violent nature against law enforcement. This second rumor says he was sitting on his sofa, with the 9mm pistol in his lap or on the sofa beside him, not threatening to a trained trooper that has psychology training to talk a man out of violence if he indeed was talking like it. They also have tasers to subdue suspects of course, and this situation may well have fitted that type of scenario, or just plain talk him down. The widow I understand, has no comment yet to outsiders, but as we know from the 911 call, she quickly hung up, probably because she had the situation under control.

[wayne]

Its called the brotherhood.  Get used to it.  Cartelization going from the moneyed, working its way into your streets.  You have illicit cameras in "public" areas, surveying your every move.  Now you have legalized thuggery in your backyards.  

[XLFD]

On January 16, 2014, I sent a FOIA request to the MSP (recall I do have a FOIA complaint filed in Circuit Court with them for failure to respond to a prior request for information), and didn't receive a response until today (Jan. 28).  They asked for an extension of my request which was:  "The electronic file of the audio and video of the in-car recording system(s) on the initially responding MSP officers' car (or both cars, if available for both responding officers) when they went to check 9-1-1 hangups at the residence of William Marble at the corner of Hansen and Dennis Roads in Mason County on the night of 1-14-2014 at roughly 2300 hours.  Include all video and audio from at least when they arrived on-scene until it was turned off, or the responding officer(s) cleared the scene." 

Looks like they may need more time to doctor the records to fit the story.  Meanwhile the rest of the local media is totally ignoring the story since January 15, awaiting their spoon-fed information from the authorities. 

Someone was shot by the Michigan State Police, and all we have nearly two weeks later is a conflicting official story from the MSP, nothing from the prosecutor's office, and the MSP investigating itself without allowing outside interference: