22 Mar 2021 Mob’s Influence Threatens Fair Floyd Trial in Minneapolis
In Minneapolis, jurors are being selected for the trial of Derek Chauvin, one of the former police officers charged in the death of George Floyd.
After a riotous year of racial strife generated by the incident, Raymond Arroyo – guest-hosting on the Fox News Channel program “The Ingraham Angle” – asked Project 21 Co-Chairman Horace Cooper: “Do you expect a repeat of last summer’s riots?”
Horace noted that the liberal establishment and mainstream media have helped promote a mob mentality in the alleged pursuit of justice. But he warned against their divisive strategy.
“It will never be a good idea to take this approach,” he said.
Horace went on to explain:
We’ve seen evidence over a hundred-year span that when the crowd, when the mob, decides that they’re going to determine whether or not a trial is gonna take place, whether or not a prosecution is gonna take place, when they do that, all of the evidence shows bad things happen.
You can look at Wilmington in 1989, where a black community was overwhelmingly destroyed. You can look at Atlanta in 1906. You can look in East St. Louis in 1917. In each of these instances, people pretended that the prosecutors had failed to intervene and prosecute people they wanted. And, as a result, they decided to unleash mayhem.
Not unlike the $1+ billion worth of damage that we’ve seen in America as a result of so-called riots that were called largely or mostly peaceful.
In particular, with regard to the Chauvin case, Arroyo asked Horace if the city’s decision to offer and announce – with great fanfare – a $27 million settlement with the Floyd family “pollute[s] the juror pool.” Horace replied:
It absolutely pollutes the pool!
In fact, even as they’re doing jury selection, they’re finding jurors who are aware that this staggering $27 million award occurred.
Horace added that this already appears to be tainting the case as well as sets a bad precedent:
Let me tell you something. That influences people. You could go to a typical black American and say to them: “I’ll give you $27 million if you just vote to acquit in the Chauvin case.” And guess what? You’d get takers.
The point is, that kind of information, and that kind of activity, has a negative and deleterious effect.
“Our system is supposed to say to every person – every person – that they’re entitled to a trial that is fair on their terms,” Horace noted, “and not one that is subject to what the mob wants.”