(The cops had been ignoring his family begging them to check in for months.)
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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from the wiki article on the murder
Assistant DA Kelly Wolford said, "A hate crime would make this charge about Sam’s gender or about Sam’s race, and it’s so much bigger. To limit us to a hate crime would be an injustice to Sam. Sam was beaten, assaulted, sexually abused, starved, held captive. And we cannot make sense of that. We cannot put that on his gender, and we cannot put that on his race"
like what are you talking about
Once she got a cop who raped a kid weekend sentences.
Here’s what happened to Sam by the way - I’m sure this was just a regular murder and none of these actions were motivated by transphobic hate.
He was also denied proper nutrition and hydration, forced to eat feces, forced to drink urine and chew spit, Wolford said. He was physically restrained, forced to obey commands like a dog, covered in the face with towels and shirts, duct taped and had bleach poured on him by the defendants, she said.
He was repeatedly struck with numerous objects including sticks, dog toys, rope, bottles, belts, canes and wooden boards, according to court documents.
So if I call Trump a slur in AZ, stab him, and run off that's cool, right?
No. Because he is wealthy.
But if you say Donald was gay, maybe?
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
Sounds like someone should find that attacker and do the exact same thing to them, seeing as it’s non-chargeable behavior.
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait...
The title made me think the attacker couldn't be charged with a HATE crime... Which is dumb and shitty and makes me want to revolt.
But they aren't charging him with ANY CRIME.
What in the actual fuck
Gays don’t have rights per fatheads who think a fairy tale is reality. Remember these people think they are going to heaven.
A self invented reward that they argue over. I think when you die you're dead and that's it, so to me it's just people making up bizarre ways to congratulate themselves on following their own cancerous code of ethics. Like sure whatever it takes, man. Just... Maybe your ethics are fucked up and wrong and you're in a cult.
Dude... he was fucking stabbed? That is assault with a deadly weapon and/or attempted murder/manslaughter at least.
Yes, but look at what they where wearing.... Also that baby was being kinda a dick.
Wait wait wait, you said it was a gay man that was stabbed? Sorry, my hands are tied. Playbook says gay guys can't get stabbed.
The body has a way of shutting that whole thing down.
He probably asked the knife to penetrate him, it's what the gays do, you know. - Detective Brownbeater
So we are allowed to stab people if there’s no cameras?
Billionaires don't like this simple trick.
Neither do judges
just in case anyone thinks this is just about it being designated as a hate crime. No they did not charge anything despite this guy having massive injuries and the other guy having nothing to show for it. If you luigi, do it in arizona with no cameras:
But the county attorney’s office ultimately viewed the case as a “he said, he said” scenario, with Lawton claiming he acted in self-defense. According to the police report, Lawton told investigators that while slowing down the vehicle, he was “punched in the back of the head and on the side of his body so many times that he saw stars.”
No witnesses corroborated Lawton’s account, and it's unclear how much the county attorney's office leaned on his story. But without video footage of the attack—Uber allows drivers to install them but does not require it—the evidence collected would appear to focus heavily only on eye witnesses.
“I don’t understand how it could be deemed self-defense or why it was turned down,” Almaraz said. “I was unarmed, he had multiple weapons in the car—it just didn’t make any sense. It was heartbreaking. I was completely assaulted and violated. I could have lost my life.”
“punched in the back of the head and on the side of his body so many times that he saw stars.”
Surely there would be bruises or medical records if this were the case.
with Lawton claiming he acted in self-defense.
Ah, the gay panic defense.
Now not just for cops!
The left really needs to get over their weapon aversion. There's no alternative anymore.
You should probably look up Marx's idea about workers arming themselves. The left has no issue with rming themselves, you're thinking of liberals.
The left has no issue with rming themselves
The last decade of the left withdrawing to their own spheres of niche ideology-sub-spectrums has resulted in nobody, even the left themselves, really knowing what "the left" is for or against anymore on a broad level. This is why there's so much infighting and disagreement and confusion about who believes in what, and of course all the endless purity testing and tribalism that comes with it. Some of this is because of deliberate social sabotage by paid agents, some of this is because of sociology and the nature of our brains. Either way it needs to be identified and understood as an obstacle to unified action.
I don't give two shits what specific brand of marxism you believe in, or if you're just a working liberal who wants things to go back to normal, or if you're some deeply sheltered and naive pacifist who genuinely thinks we're going to have some idealistic solarpunk future if we just did X, Y and Z. You all need to get armed and get prepared and probably do a lot of things you're either emotionally or ideologically uncomfortable with. Such is the nature of conflict.
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Get armed. If firearms really scare the everloving shit out of you, or if you've already painted yourself in a corner by preaching against guns around your peers your whole life, then get a fucking crossbow, I do NOT care, as long as you have means to put holes in someone from a distance. At the very least, you need pepper spray, tasers and other personal defense items and you need to practice how they're used and be ready to deal with multiple people who want to hurt you. Take self defense classes if you can.
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Get your shit together. If you're unhealthy, depressed, or have a list of issues that are preventing you from doing X, Y and Z. Now is the time to get that shit managed. Get to a doctor while you can, if you can't or they can't help, then do the very best you can on your own as soon as you can. You've been putting off the changes you know you need to make, now is the wake-up alarm, time to do that hard thing you've been waiting for "the right time" to start on to get your life managed.
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Save money. Freeze your credit cards. Stop ordering fast food or doordash. Stop eating out altogether. Rice and beans motherfucker, do you speak it?? If you don't know how to cook your own simple food at home, the only thing stopping you from learning how is your own motivation to type "How do I cook my own simple food at home?" into google and actually putting effort into it.
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Kill your vices. Related to above, I don't care if the substance you do daily is completely harmless to you and something you claim is medicinal and helps you sleep/stay awake, you gotta start stepping it down and putting that cash under your mattress and finding alternatives. This isn't about ethics or legality, this is about not spending your money on things you can live without even if the adjustment period will be hard. Again, now is the time to make those changes.
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Fix your attention span. It's worse than you think and it's preventing you from doing a lot of things you could be doing to make your life better and get healthier. If things get really, really bad, we need as many people as possible who can think clearly and analyze situations from many perspectives. We need people who have read books and can be patient and calm in the face of stress. If nothing else, you will have a better normal life if you don't need to always have youtube videos of people reacting to tiktok videos playing on headphones before you can even read a work email.
If things somehow get better all around for everyone, then having done all this will only have made you and your life and outcomes better.
Gotta get in that divisive jab. Can't just say a thing.
.....liberals are on the left. And I believe they're talking about the ones in the states today, not in 1850, Germany.
If you think 3% differently than I, you=evil
Signed, -Lemmy
braces for the flood of messages about how evil I am
Okay Hitler. The right amount to tolerate is 4%
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Get strapped, the law isn’t going to protect us and seems to be used to harass us
Armed minorities are harder to oppress.
Organized armed minorities make governments afraid.
Make no mistake, this is yet another message, "we do not care about you or your struggles". Listen when they tell you they won't protect you.
Sounds like we need the Pink Panthers
Armed and gritty inspector Clouseau isn't the worst idea for a reboot. Maybe because there's been so many terrible reboots of other franchises.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Rules for thee, but not for me
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has been a rolling human rights disaster for years. It needs to be torn the fuck down.
Frankly sheriff's offices in general need to be abolished. It's a relic of the frontier colonial era and, surprise, they never gave up their power willingly. They often have the lowest training standards in the profession, and are the face of partisan politics in law enforcement, to the benefit of conservatives 99% of the time. A lot of the time I hear about some flagrant abuse of power from cops it's from a sheriff's deputy.
EDIT: doesn't seem like the sheriffs were involved here, just the county prosecutor and Phoenix police. What you get from scrolling at work and not reading articles.
Doesn't mean you're wrong though. Your comment is still very relevant.
They often have the lowest training standards in the profession
Law enforcement isn't a "profession." Practitioners of real "professions," such as medicine, law, and engineering, have "professed an oath" (that's where the word comes from) to act in the public interest (i.e. to protect the public) and abide by a code of ethics. That includes things like acting against their own interests and refusing orders from people with power over them, if necessary. In contrast, the courts have ruled in Warren v. District of Columbia that law enforcement officers explicitly have no such obligation.
On one hand I like how the sheriff's office decentralizes police power and gives the community a direct say. In the other hand that's been a disaster
Because there is no law in Arizona.
The Rule of Law is dead in America.
i'm so glad i left that shithole
I used to drive thru Arizona several times a year. It was tradition for me and my dog, once we were in Arizona, to pull over and take the biggest, greasiest shit we could, on Arizona. Like it deserved.
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Maricopa County Attorney rules there is enough evidence to lay charges on the victim. However the victim had not show up to their scheduled court date, allegedly detained by ICE in the lobby of the court, on the day of the hearing. /s
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