Being Homeless in America means facing derision, demonization, and death

America is a Pauper Nation.  And it's very costly to be poor or unhoused.  From New York to San Francisco social media and cell phone cameras are letting America see some of the abuse the less fortunate face in America.  We don't have a housing or a border or a migrant crisis we have a crisis of compassion.  The United States of America, the supposed richest nation on the Earth, has a paucity of humanity.

In early April, Faux News, Corporate Media, and rightwing on-line agitators hyped and highlighted the brutal attack by a homeless man on an honorable retired Don Carmignani!

Would you buy a used car from a fucking guy
who poses for this kind of picture?

Carmignani's friend Joe Alioto-Veronese did a media junket bemoaning the attack and highlighting how San Francisco bleeding heart liberals are allowing criminals free reign over good people!  Rightwing media tried to tie this attack into the murder of CashApp creator Bobby Lee and conservatives constantly use the tried-and-true method of repetition repetition repetition to make people absorb and uncritically regurgitate conservative lies about crime and grant people the ability to unconsciously know that liberals are [n]-word lovers and criminal coddlers.  Thus, the implicit bias (as well as explicit bias) becomes the default position and reinforces the lie that Republicans are for Law & Order. 

Carmignani wrote, without a sense of shame or irony, “I firmly believe that the city needs to promote the safety of its law-abiding citizens over those who chose to do drugs and commit violent acts in our streets. I am hopeful that this unfortunate incident will lead to policy changes to better protect the interests of San Francisco residents.”

Except it turns out that Carmignani is far from law-abiding and has, since November 2021, been walking around San Francisco committing violent acts in the street by assaulting homeless people throughout the city.  There have been 8 documented attacks in the last year and a half where a fat criminal matching Don Carmignani's appearance used "bear spray" on random unhoused persons.  How many people did the violent criminal Carmignani assault who didn't report it?

So, a month ago when Carmignani pepper-sprayed his latest victims, a trio of homeless people, one of them grabbed a pipe and fought back.  That man Garrett A. Doty was initially arrested and charged with several felonies.  But, fortunately, 

Prosecutors have alerted former San Francisco Fire Commissioner Don Carmignani they will be moving to dismiss charges in a brutal beating he suffered outside his mother's home in the city's Marina District earlier this month, according to his attorney.

Carmignani's attorney said the assistant district attorney said the office now considers the incident self-defense and indicated other evidence of attacks on homeless people believed to have been committed by Carmignani has led to the decision to dismiss the case. 

Doty's public defender, Kleigh Hathaway, told reporters Wednesday that in the last 24 hours, her office had received new information about what appears to be a pattern of incidents allegedly involving Carmignani, all within a four-block radius of the Marina District home. 

"The district attorney and the police have now reason to believe that Mr. Carmignani was involved in eight - eight - separate acts of violence," said Hathaway. "These eight separate acts of violence were perpetrated against people who are homeless. The district attorney and the police gave us, the defense, yesterday, these police reports because they believe these acts are related to Mr. Carmignani."

So, as always a rightwing asshole went out to attack people and then when they fought back he claimed to be the victim and used the legal system to go after his victims.  I guess Doty and the multiple other victims, Carmignani terrorized are lucky he didn't just shoot them because then Carmignani would have the Rittenhouse Defense of dead men telling no tales.  

Meanwhile on the New York City Subway, a mentally ill, unhoused man was choked to death by a a big bad Marine Veteran. The god-awful New York Post framed this is the most rightwing way ever highlighting the homeless man's previous arrests for disorderly conduct and fare-jumping and using the passive voice of a man on subway lost consciousness and could not be revived, as though an unseen force of nature were responsible for his death.

The white dude, cheered on and helped by other callous villains, decided to use deadly force on a mentally ill person because; why not? If Tucker Carlson hadn't been fired for a level of vile bigotry, grotesque sexual harassment, and racist white supremacist rhetoric, (which proved even too much for Fox News!), he would be lionizing the 24 year old's actions.  And too the eternal shame of New York Governor Kathy Hochul she seemed to justify this killing.

What we are witnessing is Fascism in Action;  certain peoples are never afforded protection from the state.  Migrants, the homeless community, LGBTQ are unpersons and don't count to the rightwing mind.  And in every Republican controlled state, legislation has advanced to look the other way when people do violence on them or even justify it.  But, never forget that once rightwingers destroy one group of people, their bloodlust is not satiated, Republicans will look for a new group to demonize, deride and destroy.

Prepare yourself because Rightwing death squads and Republican run death camps are certainly in the air and one disastrous election in 2024 away...

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 5: Oh well, on the Streets of San Francisco

One of the laments from conservatives centers around how those dastardly hippies destroyed the American society by bringing down classic authority figures; like Police Officers. So now rightwing #agitprop centers on showing how The Left continues to demonize Police Officers in service to the DemocRAT Agenda of bringing down 'Murica. One of the favorite targets of Rightwing fury is San Francisco; harbor and haven of all that is not Real America.

Well, don't expect the Police of San Fran-Cisco to put flowers... in your hair... because it's more likely they will kill you.

Just before Thanksgiving Deputy Charlie Blount thought he was chasing a stolen car. After a 5 minute chase involving the infamous pit maneuver, Blount's blood was up he and the other LEOs exhibited a complete lack of control and the ability to calmly and cooly analyze what they were dealing with. After drawing down on the driver, repeatedly screaming at him to "Show me your fucking hands", and violently assaulting the driver, Blount eventually choked the man to death.

Another Deputy apparently realized the driver, who was laying dead face down in the street, was the vehicles' owner.

"Oh well," Blount replies...

Oh, well.

Oh, well.

Blount's attorney Harry Stern of course blamed David Ward for Blount being out of control, "Frankly, Mr. Ward caused his own death.."

Stern then went on to list Blount's 40 years of service in the military and police finishing with the pièce de résistance, "His actions during this arrest were entirely reasonable."

Officer's can't access higher brain functions, can't calmly access the situation, get caught in a repetitive verbal loop, lose control over their emotions in high pressure situations and choke a a feeble scared man, with no weapons, no "active resistance", no aggression, to death and it's "entirely reasonable". Oh well...

Not to be outdone on at 830 in the morning of December 7th, SFPD Officer Sterling Hayes and his trainee Christopher Flores responded to an in-process burglary and upon identifying an apparent burglar, the vicious criminal violently assaulted them and they were forced to shoot him.

Or so the Police claimed. In reality, it appears the Officers rolled up on a "usual suspect" and escalated the encounter until it ended in the Officers chasing and shooting the man, Jamaica Hampton. Predictably the body cam worn by the Officers did not capture the initial alleged assault but, independent cameras captured the Officers shooting Hampton in a manner entirely inconsistent with the official police report.

Hampton will apparently survive and beginning 2020 the San Francisco Police use of force doctrine is going to change from "reasonable" to "necessary", thus putting a higher threshold upon the Police to prove the force used was appropriate as opposed to the Officers just deciding to kill the perp.

San Francisco Officers had several questionable shootings in 2018, but of course, this is not some problem confined to San Francisco but, is endemic to Modern Policing. American Police Departments have slowly morphed into Paramilitary Armies of Occupation. Officers don't live in the communities they police and often don't associate their role in a community in accordance with Sir Robert Peel's original 9 principle's of Policing but, view themselves as The Thin Blue Line protecting Real America, and as such... Oh well has replaced to Protect & Serve.