Laying awake thinking about the enigmatic, subjective construct of justice.
There will be no Justice for Jack Yantis.
Not for lack of evidence. Not for lack of eyewitness accounts. No, Jack Yantis passed from this life to the next in a pool of his own blood on US 95, having died after being shot 12 times by two sheriff deputies who will not be charged or subjected to the scrutiny of a grand jury because the State Attorney General does not believe that the case meets a prosecutorial standard for proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Translation: they aren’t sure they can win the case. The discrepancy between eyewitness accounts and the fact that Yantis’ weapon -probably- discharged is apparently enough to warrant the wholesale abandonment of any further scrutiny of what happened that night 9 months ago.
Of course, if you get on a bridge and posture to defend unarmed protesters who are staring down the barrels of weapons aimed by militarized “land management” agents… something like that where no weapons were discharged and testimony is all but guaranteed to be wildly conflicting… well, then you would be looking at a dozen or so criminal counts that could land you in federal prison for decades.
But… pump 12 rounds into a rancher who you invited to come and euthanize an injured bull; that, incidentally, you shot at least six times but failed to kill; make no effort to diffuse or deescalate a tense situation where a firearm has already and will be required to be discharged… behavior like that, in Idaho anyway, will net you nine months of paid leave and result in no criminal charges.
Maybe they didn’t do anything wrong and their actions are wholly justified due to a rapid deterioration of tragic circumstances beyond the their control. I wasn’t there… I just think a jury should decide.
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