Finally ...

A Texas jury … again, a Texas jury … has convicted former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger of murder in the fatal 2018 shooting of Botham Jean, an innocent man, eating ice cream in his own home after mistaking his apartment for her own.

Guyger was fired from the Dallas Police Department shortly after the shooting now faces a prison sentence of five to 99 years.

Finally.

Finally, a police officer who shoots an unarmed black man is being punished for the crime. Finally. I don’t have any ill will toward Guyger, but let’s remember what she did, and did not do …

Amber Guyger  told the jury that on the night of the shooting she was tired from a long day at work and mistakenly parked her car on the wrong floor. She then went to what she thought was her apartment door and said she heard someone walking around inside.

She put her key into the lock and noticed that the door was "cracked open" and that putting the key into the lock forced the door open to the dark apartment. She claimed she’d had troubles getting her door to lock completely, so she entered.

Botham Jean was sitting on his couch in his apartment when Guyger opened his front door and shot him without giving him a chance to surrender. She says she saw the silhouette of a figure, so she pulled her "gun out and I yelled at him." She said the figure was moving around and she could not see his hands, and that the man "was yelling, 'Hey! Hey! Hey!' in an aggressive voice” and was moving toward her.

"I was scared he was gonna kill me."

In his apartment, eating ice cream on the couch.

Guyger's defense team attempted to use the Castle Doctrine, which is similar to Florida's "stand your ground" law, as a defense, arguing that while she was in the wrong apartment, in her mind she believed she was in her own unit, which was a floor below Jean's.

Seriously. She made the mistake; she entered the wrong apartment; she fired a gun; she murdered a man, and the defense is what?

“Oops?”

In his closing arguments Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Jason Fine asked jurors to reject Guyer's "crazy" contention that she shot Botham Jean in self-defense because she believed she was in her own apartment and that the victim, who was sitting on his couch eating ice cream, was going to kill her and read an excerpt from Guyger's testimony:

"I never want anybody to have to go through or even imagine going through what I felt that night."

Fine was livid:

“Are you kidding me? That is garbage. Most of what she said was garbage. Ninety-nine percent of this trial has been about the defendant [and not Botham Jean]. He's eating ice cream on his couch. So, if you're sitting and eating ice cream you get shot in the heart? Is that what we're saying?"

Not yesterday; yesterday a jury said that Black Lives Matter.

Finally. Justice for Botham Jean.

Amber Guyger Indicted For The Murder Of Botham Jean

With an option to indict her for manslaughter, or murder, or nothing at all, last week, a Texas grand jury indicted Amber Guyger for murder in the shooting death of Botham Jean in his apartment this past September.

Guyger, who was a Dallas police officer at the time of the shooting, was arrested and charged with manslaughter three days after she shot and killed the unarmed Botham Jean in his apartment; she was eventually—and don’t get me started on eventually—fired from her job.

Here’s what the Grand Jury learned … Amber Guyger, on the night of the murder, had just ended a 15-hour shift when she returned home, in uniform, to her apartment building; she parked on the fourth floor, instead of the third, where she lived, which suggests she was confused or disoriented … or something.

Guyger went to an apartment, put her key in the door, found it unlocked, slightly ajar, and entered the apartment. Inside, the lights were off, and she saw a figure in the darkness. In her statement, she said she her apartment was being burglarized and gave verbal commands to the figure, who ignored them, and then she drew her weapon and fired twice.

She called 911 and when asked where she was, she didn’t say she was at home, she went to the front door to find that she was in the wrong apartment.

However, two independent witnesses have said they heard knocking on Jean’s door before the shooting, and one witness reported hearing a woman shouting, “Let me in! Let me in!” before hearing gunshots. The witness says he then heard a man saying:

“Oh my God! Why did you do that?”

Those may have been Botham Jean’s last words and hopefully, if amber Guyger decides to be truthful, we might actually learn why she did it.

When asked why the grand jury indicted Guyger on the more serious offense of murder, Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson said, "We presented the evidence and we explained the law."

And the law states that murder constitutes someone "intentionally and knowingly" committing a crime, whereas manslaughter involves "recklessly doing something." Johnson believes that, at “the moment of the shooting it was a knowing ... offense."

Meaning Amber Guyger knew what she was doing when she fired her gun that night, and the only person who didn’t know anything was Botham Jean.

I hope his family, after the trial, will know justice.

The Grio

CNN

Bobservations

Today is my Mother's birthday. She would have been 81 if...........
I remember many things about my Mom.
The Mom who baked things for school.
The Mom who made the best Clam Chowder on rainy winter days.
The Mom who painted.
The Mom who laughed.
The Mom who loved you no matter what.
The Mom who, as soon as Carlos and I moved in together, would introduce him as her son-in-law.
The Mom who was married to my Dad for over 50 years.
The Mom who was a Nurse.
The Mom who loved to travel.
The Mom who taught me to love books.
I love my Mom.
I miss my Mom.

So, y’all know Carlos plays trumpet in our local community band …and if you don’t know, where the hell have you been??!! At any rate, the other night, while he was at rehearsal, he called to let me know he had a ride home, and then said:

“You’ll never guess what happened at rehearsal! Something bad.”

“You farted during a lull in the score?”

“No!”

“You crapped your pants because you blew the trumpet too hard?”

“NO!!”

“Oh my god, you sang? Please tell me you didn’t sing.”

“NOOOOOO!!! Worse than that!”

“You.Danced. Dear god, you danced? Honey. You can’t dance!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

“I have no idea ….”

“A snake came in the room ...”

“Oh, so you screamed like a girl and jumped onto your chair, farted, crapped your pants, sang for help and them danced out the door?”

“I don’t like you.”

But he does.

This week ______ spoke at the UN and was high-larious. Seriously, the UN erupted in laughter when Hair Furor claimed his administration is the most successful administration in history. The UN laughed; the world laughed in his face. And he said:

"I didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK."

But, as he does, he is now spinning it that he meant the statement as a joke and wanted them to laugh:

“Well, that was meant to get some laughter."

He says they were laughing with him, but they, and the rest of the world, were laughing at him. Asshat.

In Good News, this week the New York Yankees, under pressure for being the Major League team without an LGBTQ pride night, made a commitment to the LGBTQ community by creating a scholarship to honor the gay rights movement at Stonewall 50 years ago.

The Yankees-Stonewall Scholars Initiative will honor New York City graduates from the public-school system in all five boroughs and five $10,000 scholarships will be given out.

Good on them.

PS Next season the Yankees will have a Pride night.

The march goes on!

In Pig news, and, no, it’s not about Kavanaugh … Jason Miller, a former aide to _____, announced that he will leave his role as CNN political commentator following an accusation that he administered an “abortion pill” to a woman, without her knowledge or consent, he impregnated during an affair.

Miller said that the allegation is not true but, c’mon, his boss is a sexual predator and many of the people on his staff and his nominees for high positions in government are sexual predators, so is it such a stretch to think Miller would do something like this?

No.

In my hometown of Sacramento, California this week local veterans took a knee to show solidarity with the athletes who have been kneeling during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality at a city council meeting.

One veteran, John Rieger, from the Sacramento chapter of Veterans For Peace, said:

"We've served our country, we didn't serve it to support racism, we didn't serve it to support police brutality, these are things that are un-American."

I say Bravo. And thank you for your service, and your continued service to making this country less hate-filled.

And perhaps this is why they kneel, too … Jamal Speaks plays football for Ballou High School until he was removed for residency issues.

Yes, Jamal Speaks is currently homeless; his father is deceased, and his mother is no longer present in his life. And he is fighting to stay on the team after Principal Willie Jackson blocked him from playing during a game because he’s homeless and cannot prove residency.

Speaks was set to participate in a game between Ballou and Anacostia High School, but Jackson stopped him from playing and even threatened to the team’s coach Minoso Rodgers if he allowed the teen to play. His teammates stalled the game by 45 minutes and petitioned the principal’s decision but Speaks was unfortunately benched.

Even worse? Football recruiters from Temple University were at that game to watch Speaks play, but the student was forbidden to do so.

Jackson claimed he prevented Speaks from playing because the District of Columbia Interscholastic Athletic Association [DCIAA] ruled Speaks ineligible in August.

“I worked so hard on and off the field. Have a good GPA, work in the classroom and outside of school. … I’m homeless, so me just trying to stay in the area to get back and forth from school, it’s already tough.”—Jamal Speaks

District of Columbia Public Schools officials said they’re working with the District of Columbia State Athletic Association to resolve the incident. In the meantime, a fine athlete, and a good student, may miss the opportunity to go to college because he’s homeless.

Ain’t that America?

A vandal attempted to deface the sign in front of the Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida, but the congregation got the last word.

Church employees arrived to work on Monday to find someone had spray-painted the words “gay pastor” in large, black letters on the church’s roadside sign. The Reverend Andy Oliver, the church’s pastor said:

“Of course we were disappointed that someone chose to do that, but we saw this as an opportunity to turn what was intended to be hateful words into something beautiful. We decided to leave the spray paint up, because we wanted to surround it with love.”

And so, instead of removing the graffiti, the congregation surrounded it with colorful hearts and the phrase “Love Always Wins!”

Cuz it does.

Nordstrom is the latest Bad Taste Winner, after selling a $530 pair of sneakers which are artfully scuffed and look like they’re being held together with a piece of tape. 

Shoppers are “outraged” that the retailer is apparently glamorizing poverty and they aren’t the only retailer doing so; the shoes, an Italian brand, Golden Goose Deluxe Brand, are also sold at Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman.

Shoes designed to make you look poor but cost more than a car payment.

That’s where we’re headed?

The Indiana chapter of The Satanic Temple was accepted into the state’s Adopt-a-Highway program two months ago, having since—much to the distress of locals—completed two clean-up events for their town’s roads. But not everyone is happy … like Jill Konija, whose property is directly next to one of the Zionsville Adopt-a-Highway signs reading “Satanic Temple Indiana Chapter.”

“It’s like advertising a satanic church in front of our home. We raised our sons here.”—Jill Konija

Damien Blackmoor, the head of the Satanic Temple Indiana Chapter, said that the group would be doing the acts of altruism regardless of whether or not they got a sign:

“We would do it even without the sign. It’s not about the attention, it’s about doing something good, and we like to show people that we’re doing that good.”

Who knew Satanists were into beautification?

In Great News …this week Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall fired Officer Amber Guyger, three weeks after Guyger shot and killed Botham Jean in his apartment after mistaking it for her own.

Good.Bye. Now, howsabout some prison time?

And speaking of prison time ... serial sexual predator Bill Cosby was taken away in cuffs this week after being sentenced 3-10 years for being a perv.

His ambulance chasers are set to appeal, but Bill will have to register as a sexual predator for the rest of his days.

Good. Now, if we could just get Kavanaugh behind bars.

I was bored one night and watched a movie …which clearly had a budget of about ten dollars and a case of Bud Light … called The Other Side. It was boring and dumb and oh so predictable but, shallow me, it also starred one Brad James; smoking hot.

I also caught the reboot of Flatliners …what the hell was Ellen Page doing in it …and spotted Hot Ginger James Norton. I’m trying to come up with some double entendre about he and I flatlining but it escapes me just now.

Lastly, a good film, Rebel in the Rye, about the life of JD Salinger. Very interesting life he lived, before writing Catcher in the Rye. And Nicholas Hoult, who played JD is quite the stunner, though having him play Salinger as a college student all the way through being an older man seemed a bit odd because I didn’t buy him as older JD. Still, he was easy on the eyes …

Just sayin’.

Botham Jean's Murder, Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz

Down in Texas, Congressman Beto O’Rourke is running for Senate against Ted Cruz.

O’Rourke has said he supports firing Dallas police officer Amber Guyger after she entered the wrong apartment and killed Botham Jean, an innocent man. He agrees with calls by Jean’s family, and many others in Dallas, that should be fired:

“There has to be a full accounting for how young black men continue to be killed in this country without accountability, without justice, without these full investigations, without respecting their civil rights. This cannot continue.”

Ted Cruz had a different response; he says people are rushing to judgment on the case and that O’Rourke and Democrats were “quick to always blame the police officer”:

“It may well be that two lives were destroyed that night. That obviously the individual that was at home in his apartment and found himself murdered — that is horrific and a nightmare.”

Yes, he said that Botham Jean—and he cannot even say the man’s name—“found himself murdered.” And then he claims that Amber Guyger’s life was also destroyed that night except that Guyger is still alive; the only thing she ruined is her career, except Cruz doesn’t think she should be fired for entering an apartment she thought was hers and then murdering the occupant of that apartment and then taking three days to get her story straight.

Let’s make this perfectly queer for Ted … according to Guyger’s own account, she came home on September 6 after a long shift and didn’t know that she’s gotten off on the wrong floor of her building and that the apartment she entered was in was not hers and instantly began shooting at the “large silhouette” in the darkened room. When she turned on the lights in the apartment, she realized her mistake.

Mistake?

Botham Jean’s family disputes that account, saying Guyger should have noticed obvious signs that she was in the wrong apartment on the wrong floor; in addition, witnesses say they heard her knocking on Jean’s door and yelling.

But still, in America in 2018, Amber Guyger, after shooting an innocent man in his own home, is the victim in all of this for people like Ted Cruz, and Botham jean is simply the man who “found himself murdered.”

That’s it in a nutshell Texas; do you want a senator who sees this shooing as disturbing, as something that needs to stop, or do you want a senator who blames the real victim for being gunned down in his own home, and then calls the shooter a victim. Do you want another police officer going unpunished for a fatal shooting?

Vox