When did it come to be that competence is a flaw and hyperbolic ignorance an asset in public service?
Seriously. When did a certain segment of our society determine that they are far more interested in soundbites, hyperbole and inch-thin tough talk than the sound, sane ability to do serious jobs? Jobs like attorney general.
That’s the position that Jay Mitchell is seeking: The Attorney General of Alabama. A position currently held by a pandering, hyperbolic, attention-seeking do-nothing who has proven himself utterly useless as a defender of laws and more than willing to do pretty much anything to advance his own career.
Mitchell is trying to one-up him.
On the heels of a campaign ad in which he cosplays a tough-talkin’, hard-nosed law-and-order guy while spewing bigoted insults at various minority groups (because nothing screams tough guy like punching down at minorities), Mitchell this week released an op-ed defending killers.
But not just any killers—those wearing badges and killing Black men.
“A war on cops,” Mitchell calls the prosecutions of former Montgomery police officer Aaron Cody Smith and former Decatur cop Mac Marquette. He has harsh criticism for the current AG’s office over its prosecutions of both men, and Mitchell paints both as good cops who did the right things but were in impossible situations.
“It was wrong to prosecute Officer Smith then, and it’s wrong to prosecute Officer Marquette now,” Mitchell writes. “You would expect this kind of anti-cop vendetta from leaders in woke, soft-on-crime states like California. But it’s shocking to see the Alabama Attorney General’s Office defend coordinated, politically-motivated prosecution of law enforcement officers.”
There is a word for this. It is bullsh*t.
A steep, steaming pile of it. With the word racist in front of it.
Because that’s exactly what this is. It is an entire op-ed filled with the subtle racism of painting poor, hapless white young male cops as victims of overzealous prosecutions after properly killing scary Black men who definitely had it coming.
Let’s add some context, shall we?
And start here: Aaron Cody Smith was convicted by a jury—a majority white jury—in a county outside of Montgomery. He got every possible break imaginable. And he went to jail because he broke the law.
He shot and killed Greg Gunn a few steps from Gunn’s front door after first detaining without cause, chasing him without cause, tackling him without cause, hitting him without cause, and tasing him without cause.
And do you know who said all of that? Aaron Cody Smith did. In the interview with an Alabama Law Enforcement Agency investigator after the shooting.
The Montgomery DA’s office and its investigators also believed Smith (and possibly others in MPD) lied about the events that led to the shooting, claiming that Gunn was holding a painter’s pole when it would have been impossible for him to have done so because he was also holding his hat.
A jury heard all of that evidence over several days in court and convicted him of manslaughter.
But Jay Mitchell knew better. Serving on the Alabama Supreme Court at the time, Mitchell ignored the jury verdict and the opinions of the appeals court and determined that Smith probably would have gotten off if there had been better jury instructions or if words didn’t mean what they mean anymore.
That started the ball rolling for Alabama’s current AG to cut a plea deal with Smith after the fact. He served about two years of a 14-year sentence imposed by an impartial judge who had been hand-picked by the Alabama Supreme Court to hear the case.
The former Montgomery DA called the decision to release Smith disappointing and made it a point to note that Smith was “finally admitting” to killing Gunn and called Smith a “convicted killer.”
Letting one killer out of jail isn’t enough for Mitchell, though. He’s gunning for two, with Marquette.
If you haven’t followed that case out of Decatur, it goes like this: Marquette and three other Decatur cops ignored department protocol and local laws to go help a tow truck driver attempt to repossess a truck from Steve Perkins. The tow truck driver and Perkins had already met earlier when Perkins, believing his truck should not be repossessed, chased him away from his yard while holding a firearm. (That’s absolutely legal in Alabama, by the way.)
Instead of parking in front of Perkins’ home and going to his door, or in any way announcing their presence at the scene, the cops hid. At 2 a.m., they parked their vehicles way down the street and took up positions in the dark around Perkins’ home. When he exited his house, again carrying the same firearm as before, to chase away the tow truck, Marquette and his pals sprang from the shadows and began shouting.
Before the words barely had time to travel to Perkins, Marquette started firing. He died in his front yard. Ambushed by police.
And this person who served on our highest court and who wants to be our top law enforcement officer actually argues that because the cops who didn’t shoot Perkins are not charged, Marquette shouldn’t be either.
Not, hey, we should prosecute everyone who gunned down a man who broke not a single law in his own front yard, because they all broke the law and violated police protocols.
Thank God there are decent prosecutors and decent people still working in law enforcement in this state—people who refuse to sink to the depths of Jay Mitchell and put personal ambition in front of rule of law. People who will take on the extraordinary task of holding those with power accountable, and do so even knowing that some jackass politician will use it against them in a desperate campaign ploy to lure the votes of racists and bigots.
I just wish I knew how to make such competency and courageousness as coveted as pandering and bigotry with today’s voters.
