Detective Jeremy Hendricks. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Las Vegas, Nevada. Here in Vegas, Jeremy Hendricks, a cop working for the Las Vegas city government’s police force, shot John Paul Hambleton in the back while Hambleton was running away. Hendricks was questioning Hambleton (who was 32) about an alleged sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl; Hambleton decided to leave. Hambleton was not under arrest; he was not accused of a violent crime; he also was completely unarmed. But Detective Jeremy Hendricks wasn’t done with him, and, seeing how running away from a cop is apparently treated as a capital offense in this country, Hendricks started out by tasering Hambleton twice. Then he tried to force Hambleton down on the ground. Hambleton managed to get away Hendricks’ taser, and then started to run away again, so Detective Jeremy Hendricks shot him in the back. Hendricks claimed in court that Hambleton turned around and pointed the taser at him. If so, nobody else who saw what happened — not Hendricks’s own partner, not four non-cop witnesses who watched what was happening — ever saw Hambleton turn around or point the taser at Detective Jeremy Hendricks. But thanks to the magic split second, which absolves all sins and justifies all cop shootings in the eyes of the Law, somehow, this supposedly belligerent Suspect Individual who supposedly was threatening Detective Jeremy Hendricks’ sacred hide with a taser shock, ended up getting shot in the back anyway. Oops.

If you tore off chasing after someone, and then shot him in the back and killed him, allegedly in order to avoid the alleged threat of a less lethal taser shock, which threat, if it even existed, was solely the product of a confrontation that you yourself had created and escalated, then you would probably be in jail for years. Of course, Detective Jeremy Hendricks is a cop, working for the local government’s police force, so the local government’s coroner’s inquest ruled last month that he was justified in shooting a fleeing suspect in the back.

It’s Sunday. If you don’t know that means Shamelessness, where have you been for the past year?

What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

From Jesse Walker at reason online:

The speech will do little harm in itself. Schools shovel nonsense down boys’ and girls’ throats every day; today’s menu will offer just a slight change of flavor. But that’s why the protests are healthy. It’s a rare day when parents across the country explicitly tell their kids to take their lessons with a grain of salt.

Children shouldn’t be taught that the president—any president—is a beloved paternal figure with a grand plan for everyone. (From the original lesson plan: Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?) Children should be taught the truth: that presidents are polarizing figures who are constantly dogged by controversy. That Americans don’t always agree about proper public policy, and sometimes they disagree enough to do something as drastic as keeping their kids home from school. That politics is about conflict, not listening in unison while a friendly face on a TV screen dispenses instructions.

— Jesse Walker, reason online (2009-09-08): The President Is Not a Guidance Counselor

Read the whole thing.

As you may know, today is National Labor Relations Day, a day of mourning and reflection in this secessionist republic of one. But, hey, it’s also a three day weekend, and since yesterday I was out all night at a literary function with L., I’ll also take this day to note that it’s never too late for Shamelessness.

What have you been up to over the past week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

Senior Corporal Michael Vaughn. Dallas Police Department. Dallas, Texas. Cops are here to keep us safe by killing 10-year-old kids on bicycles while tearing down the road at at 30 mph over the posted speed limit with no lights and no sirens on.

If you or I slammed into a 10 year old on a bicycle while doing 70mph in a 40mph zone on a major thoroughfare like Belt Line, we’d be crucified in the press and locked away for years on a vehicular homicide charge. But since Senior Corporal Michael Vaughn is a cop, even though he admittedly violated established policies for safe driving and killed a 10-year-old child through his recklessness, he gets Internally Investigated and given a one day vacation from his job.

See also:

• GT 2009-07-31: The Police Beat
• GT 2009-05-22: Friday Lazy Linking