No one from MPD spoke up until it was too late.

Delgado has a history of not being too careful with his listserv posts.

We have a right to safety in our city. We have a right immediately. not when these kids all get counseled.

What of all this mounting anger and resentment? it WILL explode. services for the "unfit for trail" or whatever.
We want these kids off of our streets. and the worse this gets the less we will care how it happens.

You want us to have sympathy for these kids?
then speak to our outrage and pain as victims.

cuz until then. fuck them.

I agree with you on that. We all want the judicial system to work so that the people who could do us harm are taken off the streets. Everyone wants that. Who could argue otherwise?

But that's not what this thread is about. (Or at least not what this thread was supposed to be about.) What this thread is about is the question of whether or not Delgado was justified in starting the email campaign. I say absolutely not. Leaving aside all considerations of the D.C. justice system's flaws, I'd like to hear your argument as to why you think Delgado was justified in starting the email campaign.

Here's what I think is the strongest argument as to why Delgado shouldn't have done this: He just gave a huge gift to this guy's defense attorney. If/when this guy gets charged and goes to trial, his lawyer will bring up this listserv business again and again to prove that the police investigation was flawed and biased. Delgado may have just jeopardized - if not fatally wounded - the case against this teenager.

Thanks for playing the Freud.

No it's better to chortle that those who suggest public safety ought to be an issue are thugs who need a Constitution to remind them of basic facts. How evolved. It seems that many have such low expectations of people accused of crime, as if these people are space aliens to be studied and "empathized" with rather than respected and treated as anyone else, that they fail to note these same folks make up the normal pool of victims as well. Not a word about victims here because this isn't about the reality lived by actual people in this city, no, this is about satisfying pre-conceived notions scribbled in a college notebook and well-rehearsed at dinner parties FAR, FAR away from "that side" of town.

I would note that the basic premise of that document in your pocket is that we all should, under law, be treated the same and protected by the law. The question here is why that is not the case.

Try reading it.

Of course, it's all too easy for me to say this as someone who doesn't live in Petworth. I hope I'd still have the same opinion if there were a chance I could be mugged by this guy but, to be honest, I'm not sure. I have the utmost sympathy for everyone in Petworth who has to deal with this awful situation. But police officers simply cannot do this kind of shit and get away with it. Period.

What is it about MPD and neighborhood Listservs throughout D.C. that you always find so much reactionary talk?

I agree that the point of view of this article is completely mystifying and ill-informed. Speak first and find out the facts later.

I find the witch hunt concept to be, again, both insulting and mystifying.

Potentially if Jason was to suggest that mob justice has a troubling history, well of course we are adult enough to recognize that. That's why I was so interested in this as a way to address crime as a "community impact statement." Could you have community involvement that WASN'T a mob? We know that pro-criminal, reduced punishment, advocates make their voices known in the community because almost all of us have run across them. In many cases, such as juvenile cases, I agree that rehabilitation is the first step. What scared the community to the core about this issue was a repeated failure by everyone except the police rearresting this person. This wasn't someone suspected of three crimes, they were suspected of 20 crimes. Suddenly calling 911 on a man beating up a woman at the metro was no solution at all because of unelected officials normally immune from community input ignoring the realities of life in our city.