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In the cosmic irony category, former Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau was recently honored. The Sydney Morning Herald reports: 

Ms Harteau was named the 2017 Woman Law Enforcement Executive of the Year on Thursday [3 August, 2017]. [skip]

She received the award at the annual conference of National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives in Kansas City.

‘Chief Janee Harteau has made a real difference for the police officers and citizens of Minneapolis, and those she has touched through her various teaching, mentoring and speaking engagements,’ NAWLEE officials said in a statement.

Let us, gentle readers, spend a bit of time looking at how others are viewing this case and related issues. For the purposes of this article, I do not suggest any definitive understanding of these issues; I can’t say they have actual bearing on the case. I’m merely providing food for thought as we wait to discover more of the facts.

Politics Rears Its Always Ugly Head, courtesy of The Star Tribune:

Reforming the police department has been a priority for [current mayor Betsy] Hodges since Jamar Clark was shot and killed in north Minneapolis in the fall of 2015, but Damond’s death in voter-rich southwest Minneapolis has renewed calls for change and thrust police reform into an already heated mayoral campaign.

The most striking proposal came from [Ray] Dehn, a state legislator who finished first in the Minneapolis DFL’s no-endorsement convention on July 8, beating out Hodges, Council Member Jacob Frey and Tom Hoch and attracting more than a third of the support from party insiders.

‘We must divest resources, disarm officers, and dismantle the inherent violence of our criminal justice system,’ Dehn said in a statement Friday.

This sounds almost like the classic “come see the violence inherent in the system” skit from Monty Python And The Holy Grail. Of course, Dehn is a leftist, and leftists tend to see everything though the lens of tribe and victim/identity groups. What one member of the group says or does is what all say and do, particularly if they’re on the Right.

He later elaborated on what sounded like a call to take guns from cops, adding he is not advocating against police officers having access to weapons when they need them.

‘Officers don’t need to carry guns on their person all the time,’ Dehn said Tuesday. ‘Currently, officers carry all sorts of assault weapons in their cars. So why can’t one of those weapons be the side arm? It’s important that we begin to have a conversation, and I would say that all things are on the table.

OK Mr. Dehn. Here’s my side of the conversation, also from Monty Python And The Holy Grail: “You’re a looney.” Disarm the police until they need guns. Right. “Excuse me criminal gang raping that woman. Don’t go anywhere. I need to drive back to the station to check out a gun. You OK Miss?” This is what apparently passes for rational “police reform” in Minneapolis.

But it’s even better, as Powerline reports:

State representative Raymond Dehn came in first in the endorsement balloting. Dehn identifies as a former drug addict, reformed criminal and dogged community organizer. Dehn attributes his early conviction for burglary to his habit.  He says that he received a full pardon for his conviction in 1982, though he condemns the unfairness of it: ‘I am privileged. I live as if I never committed an offense. It’s systemically unfair.”

Dehn does not shy away from talking about his conviction. It endows him with the authority to opine as he did in a recent press release:

‘Crime is not a product of individual morality but the consequence of scarcity in our society,” Dehn said in a press release. “We must divest resources, disarm officers, and dismantle the inherent violence of our criminal justice system which continues to uphold white supremacy. Our approach to public safety must reflect a belief that our communities are safer when they have housing, clean air and water, access to education and employment, and quality healthcare.

No wonder Dehn is considerate to the needs of criminals; he is one! Let’s see if I understand this: Mohamed Noor, a black Muslim immigrant wielding the violent supremacy of the evil white supremacist state shot and killed Justine Damond, a white woman, to “uphold white supremacy”? No wonder Dehn is the early favorite to replace Hodges in the People’s Republic of Minneapolis.

Demographics Are Destiny, courtesy of WND.com:

Minnesota is no longer the state I moved to in the mid 1960s,’ [former U.S. Rep. Michelle] Bachmann told WND in an exclusive interview. ‘Then, we were a well-ordered society with a high-functioning population.’

Now Minnesota has the largest Somali [mostly Muslim] community in the United States, with Census numbers putting the population around 40,000. ‘It’s the biggest Somali community in North America, possibly in the world outside of East Africa,’ Arthur Nazaryan, a freelance photojournalist told CNN. ‘It’s like the cultural hub of the Somali diaspora, you could say.’

‘Minnesota is a super liberal state. … They have that whole history of accepting refugees from I think initially Vietnam and then the Hmong and then the Bosnian crisis. So they have this whole infrastructure set up already, in terms of nonprofit agencies and NGOs, where their primary purpose is resettling refugees,’ Nazaryan continued.

And this has been a good thing? Not according to Bachmann:

This is a failed multicultural experiment that is killing people and destroying the future of the West,’ Bachmann added.

‘Parallel societies kill assimilation from the Third World and create havoc in American societies,’ Bachmann said, noting that the Somali population in Minnesota has chosen to largely ignore assimilation into American culture, seeking instead to live in completely Somali communities. [skip]

‘Somali women in Minnesota are almost always covered with clothing from head to toe,’ Bachmann claims. ‘There is very little evidence in Minnesota of Somali women adopting Western dress and Western ways. In fact, Mohammad Noor was photographed with three females from his family, all of whom were covered with traditional Somali clothing.’

Bachmann said this drastic cultural rift could have contributed to Noor’s decision to shoot Justine, positing, “Was Noor acting like the Muslim religious police, maintaining strict adherence to keeping women’s bodies covered when he shot Justine? Was he acting from a cultural instinct?

Bachmann suggests Somali/Muslim culture might have played a role in the shooting of Justine Damond:

The ‘Shariah mindset’ is rife among Somalis in Minnesota, as evidenced by a history of female genital mutilation, Shariah enforcement groups and Islamic terrorism.

A Michigan doctor was charged with the genital mutilation of two Minneapolis girls this year, and the investigation suggests there were ‘multiple’ other victims, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

WND previously reported on ‘Shariah cops’ in Minneapolis, a group called the General Presidency of the Religious Affairs and Welfare of the Ummah that pays regular visits to Somali households to enforce Shariah law, including prohibition on the use of alcohol and restrictions on dress for women.

The group’s leader, Abdullah Rashid, is a convert to Islam who married a Somali woman and moved to Minnesota. Rashid has said he wants to turn a Muslim enclave of Minneapolis into a ‘Shariah-controlled zone,’ where Muslims are required to submit to Shariah law and non-Muslims are ‘asked to respect’ it.

Rashid: Religious Police

I wrote about Rashid in April of 2017 in Religious Police: Coming To a Town Near You?  As much as the Left loves to hate Bachmann, she is, in her recitation of problems caused by unassimilated Muslim immigrants, correct:

In Minnesota, Somali households live as they do in Somalia, only with improved living standards,’ said Bachmann, noting that these living standards come from subsidies funded by taxpayers. ‘There is evidence of continued practice of [female genital mutilation], of domestic abuse of women, and of polygamy.’

‘As people from Third World, impoverished, dysfunctional, war-torn countries establish communities anywhere in the world, from the tiny island nation of Nauru, to Minnesota, we see that transplanting the followers of Islamic Shariah law brings with it the continual problems of Islamic Shariah,” Bachmann opined.

‘There are no success stories of mass Islamic migration anywhere in the world.

Bachmann suggests all immigrants should willingly accept and practice complete assimilation, including repudiation of Sharia. This would make the Left’s collective heads explode. “How dare we ask immigrants to obey the rule of law and accept American culture and traditions!” To normal, actual Americans, this is not only unremarkable, but common sense.

The True Nature Of Islam, courtesy of Discover The Networks, provides the background of Sayyid Qtub, the father of modern Islamic fundamentalism. He is generally considered to be the most important Muslim Brotherhood theorist. He was educated in America, and actually worked in multiple American colleges. Here’s what he thought of America in the 1950s:

Moving to Greeley, Colorado, Qutb was impressed by the number of churches in the city, but not with the piety they engendered: ‘Nobody goes to church as often as Americans do. . . . Yet no one is as distant as they are from the spiritual aspect of religion.’ He was thoroughly scandalized by a dance after an evening service at a local church: ‘The dancing intensified. . . . The hall swarmed with legs . . . Arms circled arms, lips met lips, chests met chests, and the atmosphere was full of love.’ The pastor further scandalized Qutb by dimming the lights, creating ‘a romantic, dreamy effect,’ and playing a popular record of the day: ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’ Qutb regarded American popular music in general with a gimlet eye: ‘Jazz is the favorite music [of America]. It is a type of music invented by [American] Blacks to please their primitive tendencies and desire for noise.

Not much desire for assimilation there. In fact, Qtub’s 1950s era Muslim attitudes have, for many, changed not at all, particularly his antipathy toward Blacks and women.

Janell Ross, WaPo Race Reporter

The Race To Inject Race, courtesy of The Washington Post and its race reporter–I’m not kidding–Janell Ross:

But now, this Minneapolis cop has killed a beautiful, middle-class white lady they don’t know how to vilify,’ [black activist Kim] Thompson said. ‘White people are outraged. And you know what? I say, ‘Come on,’ because we need their voices. We need their white power. We need their white privilege. . . . They will not be ignored, and nobody is going to try.

White people are outraged not because Damond was white, but because they understand the potential danger the shooting represents for and to all Minneapolis residents. 

Robert Bennett, an attorney for the Damond family, drew the ire of many police reform advocates last month when he described Justine Damond as ‘the most innocent victim’ he’d seen killed by police. The comment, he says, was a reference to the way Damond will be viewed by the general public and Minnesota’s predominantly white juries.

‘There just isn’t anything [negative] that can be said about Justine,’ Bennett said.

Ross grossly misrepresents Bennett’s comments. His comment about her innocence refers not only to her lack of a criminal record, but to the manner in which she was killed, the circumstances surrounding her death, and her reason for calling for police help. Race had nothing to do with it.

Michael Harriot at The Root, wrote a heartfelt plea for racial harmony:

To be fair, maybe the All Lives Matter people are so blinded by the combination of privilege and reflexive defensiveness that comes free in every package of white supremacy that they have no idea that responding to ‘Black lives matter’ with ‘All lives matter’ is akin to telling a man dying of a heart attack about their bout with acid reflux. Perhaps they don’t know that there is not a sane human being in the United States who wonders whether white lives matter. Maybe All Lives Matter is just stupid.

Heartfelt indeed, but when the victim is a white woman with no criminal record apparently doing nothing to provoke the black police officer that killed her, the whole black/white social justice narrative tends to become a bit confused.

Mohamed Noor (center)

Defining Culture: We do not know that Mohamed Noor’s culture had any direct bearing on his shooting of Damond. The most likely scenario, given the current facts, suggests Noor, in an unreasonable panic, fired wildly, like a hunter with buck fever, at sound and movement, having no actual idea who or what he was shooting at. That does not mean, however, that culture played no role in potentially putting a man culturally unqualified, even dangerous, in a position of unique authority, a position that demands actual tolerance, judgment and calm he was incapable of giving.

Americans tend to have difficulty truly understanding other cultures. Raised in a culture of actual tolerance for others, a culture characterized by the rule of law and equal opportunity, a culture with respect for women unheard of in most of the rest of the world, it’s hard for them to see foreign cultures as little more than people with quaint languages who dress as Americans and love American movies and consumer goods.

There are some people, particularly men, who are simply not capable of fully assimilating to western, particularly American, culture. Ann Coulter explains:

As soon as the story broke about the Somali cop fatally shooting the pretty white Australian girl in Minneapolis, one of my Muslim fans emailed me a story:

‘Re: Hunting in Kuwait as explanation why this Noor guy shot through the car

‘I remember being in Kuwait with the president of the investment bank I worked for. We were invited by one of our directors to hunt turtle doves. There were five of us in all and each had a 12-gauge shotgun.

‘Instructions were: Only shoot straight and up; shotgun point in air resting on shoulders when not being used. That’s it. I was on the far left, and the fellow on the other end was a Syrian.

‘Well, we were out there and no straggling turtle doves were migrating. A half-hour later, not one shot was fired. Then, two birds from a tree ahead darted out, between me and the houses on my left.

‘We all looked, but the Syrian turned toward us and began shooting over our heads at the birds. The rest of us hit the ground. Even though our host took his gun away, I gave them mine and went back because, if there is a way to overreact, the Syrian would think it is natural and can’t even consider the consequences.

‘You cannot place these people in a position of authority (for example with a gun in their hands). They will always shoot as a default reaction to anything that is instant. Neither training nor thinking can change their natures.

‘And that is why he shot. He had a gun.

It is well known by our military that Middle Eastern and North African cultures tend to be very much “spray and pray” shooters. They are difficult to train, do not aim, don’t deal well with authority, and are as dangerous to themselves and their allies as they are to their enemies. One cannot suggest this was the motivator of Mohamed Noor; there is simply insufficient evidence at present. We know little of Noor, but here is a bit more from Coulter:

Noor’s African-American neighbor, Chris Miller, said he was shocked when he heard about Damond’s shooting — until he found out it was Noor. Miller told The Daily Telegraph (Australia) that his Somali neighbor was quick to anger and was always going off on women and children. ‘He is extremely nervous,’ Miller said, ‘a little jumpy … he doesn’t really respect women, the least thing you say to him can set him off.

Trying to assimilate cultures outside the Judeo/Christian, western enlightenment tradition is a long process, likely a multi generational process, and that’s if everyone involved is truly anxious and determined to fully assimilate. Immigrants of the American past were people who came to America to become Americans because they understood the deadly flaws of their nations and cultures of birth. They understood America as the beacon of liberty it is and were determined to fully partake of its opportunities. They gladly learned English and American customs and attitudes, and their children were as American as any whose parents were born here. They were thankful and grateful, and passed that gratitude on to their children.

Unfortunately, far too many want to come to America and fundamentally transform it into a larger and more powerful version of the pathologies they fled.

Not all Muslims reject assimilation. Many have become good and loyal Americans, embracing all that is good about our culture, our laws and nation. They prioritize: American first, faith second. One might argue Mohamed Noor is among them, but we don’t know enough to say this with certainty. Seeking positions of authority over others is not limited to American culture.

Far too many Muslims and others are incapable of assimilation. Islam, as practiced by its word, is fundamentally incompatible with religious tolerance and with democracy. It is fundamentally incompatible with America. Not only does Islam teach them to conquer all nations for Islam, it explains, in great detail, precisely how it is to be done, and women have no place in the new order, other than as property.

Final Thoughts:

Damond, her fiance Don,(center) and his son, Zach

In the Justine Damond case, we need to keep the fundamental issue in mind: did Mohamed Noor violate the law? Were his actions inherently reasonable, given the circumstances? Would any reasonable police officer have done what he did were he in Noor’s place that night?

Only when those questions have been definitively, professionally answered can we delve into the other issues:

*Did race play a role in this case? From what we currently know, no.

*Did Noor’s Islamic culture or beliefs play a role in his shooting of Damond? There is currently insufficient evidence to make that determination.

*Was this shooting merely an anomaly, a bizarre, isolated incident in an otherwise well trained and supervised police force?

*Did the push to hire and train 100 officers as quickly as possible lead to inadequate vetting, training and supervision?

*To what degree did progressive politics play a role in any hiring, training and supervision issues relating to Noor?

*To what degree did and do progressive policies negatively impact policing and public safety in Minneapolis?

*Are the BCA and MPD trying to blacken Damond’s character and actions as a way of protecting Noor and the MPD?

*Is a fundamentally progressive criminal justice system capable of fairly and professionally handling a case that stands favorite and much-loved progressive narratives on their heads?

There are, of course, other issues to consider, but for the time being, these will suffice. More as required gentle readers, and thanks, as always, for your thoughtful comments and kind patronage.