Applying a band-aid to a disease

Original story here.
Follow-up here and sorta here.

Ever work on a post for a couple of days, tweaking here and there, then just before publishing, someone else comes along and writes it better, than you? Yep, happened to me. John Sugg of Atlanta's Creative Loafing has nailed the recent indictments of the police officers who illegally obtained an illegal warrant and ended up with Ms. Johnston dead:

The final insult to Johnston is that her death has become a gold mine for political opportunists. Last week, District Attorney Paul Howard, always adept at playing the race card, threw an entire deck onto the table. He announced plans to indict three white officers for murder, burglary and other crimes. Those aren't the appropriate charges. Manslaughter -- where the crime is an unintended death -- would be more appropriate. But it makes good headlines for Howard in a black community that sees itself under attack by police. Howard's political gambit has possibly undermined a careful investigation by the FBI by ending plea negotiations with the three cops. But that's irrelevant to the vote-hungry prosecutor.

Even worse, the three officers have told the feds that many, many more drug cases were based on evidence obtained by shortcuts such as lying to judges. Howard's theatrics are an attempt to obfuscate his role in prosecuting those cases. Did his office have knowledge of cops' tainted investigations?

These three cops, corrupt as they might be, are going to be the scape goats for a system run amuck with corruption stemming from the insipid "war" on drugs.

It's going to be bad when these three walk, too. No jury in their right mind is going to convict them for murder and burglary. Further, what happens then? I mean, once the case is over (which will probably take years), the feds will probably have moved on to something else. If they haven't, what do they have to offer the cops in exchange for their testimony of just how corrupt the system has gotten? They'll either be free as a bird or serving time for something the federal government can't get them out of.

Hat tip: The Agitator