News and Commentary About Chicago You Won't Get From the Mainstream News Legal, Media Machinery Goes into Overdrive in Police ShootingReed's lawyer, Andrew Martin Stroth, and the union that represents police officers are not strangers.
Will police oversight agencies, radical attorneys and the corrupt media allies conspire to turn another attempted police killer into a victim, and later a hero? Such is the process born and perfected in Chicago, a process in which even the obvious evidence on the camera that Dexter Reed pulled out a gun and shot at the officers, wounding one in the wrist so badly that he may never work again. An inch in any direction and the officer could very well have been killed. In Chicago's current state of demise, anytime Chicago police are wounded or killed during the course of their jobs, opportunity knocks for Chicago's ruling party. A well-honed legal and media machine takes shape, instantly turning the police into criminals and the offenders into folk heroes.
Many news outlets didn't bother to mention that Reed was on pretrial release for a felony gun case at the time of the shooting. Rather, all the news outlets went with the narrative that Reed had been a successful basketball player in high school. The five officers who were fired upon, one wounded, garnered a few sterile sentences. Reed's lawyer, Andrew Martin Stroth, and the union that represents police officers are not strangers. In 2018, attorneys for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 (FOP) in Chicago threatened a defamation lawsuit against Stroth and his clients for claiming that Chicago police had shot and killed a youth on the West Side that summer. At the time of the incident, the Chicago Police Department reported that 15-year-old Steven Rosenthal killed himself on the stairwell of a building where he lived in the city's Lawndale neighborhood. Following Rosenthal's death, Stroth held a news conference where he stated: "Within moments, these officers, without cause or provocation, shot and killed 15-year-old Steven. ...Based on several eyewitness accounts, these officers ended the hopes and the dreams of a talented young man with a bright future." In response, an FOP attorney sent a letter to Stroth stating that such claims were defamatory, writing: "The Cook County Medical Examiner ruled the death a suicide based upon the autopsy and physical evidence. The ballistics indicated that the officers did not fire their weapons and the body-worn cameras clearly depict the location of the officers when the shot that killed Steven Rosenthal was fired. Despite all this independent evidence, your firm and Mr. Rosenthal's family have made slanderous and libelous statements about the incident. . . You also claimed to the Chicago Sun-Times that you have hired a doctor and investigator whose analysis did not indicate suicide and that there were eyewitnesses who claim the police shot Mr. Rosenthal. If this is true, I would suggest you tender these witnesses to the detectives handling the investigation." Stroth is the same attorney who filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago and a Chicago police officer after an offender, Bernard Kersh, spat in the mouth and eyes of an officer during a street stop in 2019. Kersh was charged with felony aggravated battery, but the video recording of the officer taking Kersh to the ground became a media sensation. Kersh's bond hearing was attended by Rev. Jesse Jackson. City Council eventually approved a settlement of $750,000 for Kersh, according to media reports. In 2018, Stroth had his law license suspended, according to records from the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC). Stroth was suspended for 30 days after "the hearing board found that (Stroth) failed to act with reasonable diligence in representing his client, provided improper financial assistance to the client, knowingly made false statements of material fact in connection with a disciplinary matter and engaged in dishonest conduct," according to ARDC records. The offenses cited by the ARDC, particularly "knowingly made false statements of material fact in connection with a disciplinary matter and engaged in dishonest conduct" would generally merit far more discipline for a Chicago police officer than the 30-day suspension Stroth received. Chicago's ruling party, particularly its media, have been on a roll when it comes to police shootings. In the last few years, Jackie Wilson was released through a kangaroo court system for his role in the murder of two police officers in 1982. In a trifecta for the radical left that has turned Chicago's criminal justice system into a surreal horror show, two prosecutors were also fired, then we watched Wilson collect more than $5 million from the taxpayers. At the same time the Jackie Wilson criminal conviction was destroyed, the one-party conspiracy in Chicago set their sites on getting three Spanish Cobras off the hook for their roles in the murder of off-duty officer Clifton Lewis. They got two off, but a third is still in prison. Cook County State's Attorney Kimberly Foxx, a seeming advocate of freeing killers, not convicting them, nudged the floundering media narrative employed to justify dropping the charges by firing one of the top prosecutors in her office ludicrously accused of misconduct in the prosecution against the gang members. But no case illuminates what is at stake in the Dexter Reed case more than the 2005 shootout between police and off-duty railroad cop Howard Morgan. Morgan, like Reed, pulled out a gun on four cops during a traffic stop and fired 15 rounds at point blank range, wounding three of the officers. They returned fire and hit him 18 times. Evidence played less and less of a role in the shooting as it moved into the media and courts. Nine years of legal wrangling and depraved journalism followed, the first trial ending in a hung jury as Morgan's supporters filled the gallery for every hearing and paraded a host of lunatic theories about him. Morgan was convicted on four counts of attempted murder in the second trial and sentenced to 40 years. Shortly before leaving office, Governor Pat Quinn commuted the sentence of Morgan with no new evidence of innocence and without explanation. Is a similar process taking shape in the Reed case? Martin Preib is a retired Chicago Police officer. An author of three books, The Wagon and Other Stories From the City, Crooked City, and Burn Patterns, Mr. Preib's written work has also been published in Playboy, Virginia Quarterly Review, New City, and Tin House. For his essay appearing in Virginia Quarterly Review, Mr. Preib was awarded the Staige D. Blackford Award for Nonfiction in 2005. In addition to his role with the City of Chicago, Mr. Preib served as the Second Vice President of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7. |
Tuesday, April 09, 2024
"Will police oversight agencies, radical attorneys and the corrupt media allies conspire to turn another attempted police killer into a victim, and later a hero? Legal, Media Machinery Goes into Overdrive in Police Shooting"
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2 comments:
Didn't they have a show called "Chicago Hope ?"
That city is BEYOND hope.
--GRA
Colored guy fired the first shot. The usual nonsense. Just cannot cooperate with the cops. Never can obey a simple order like roll the winder down.
George Floyd the same way. Has to be "ax'ed ten times to put his hands on the steering wheel.
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