Losing My Perspicacity September 10, 2024

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Losing My Perspicacity.

Today: The Tyreek Hill bodycam footage is out, and it’s exactly what you’d expect; America says goodbye to James Earl Jones; Deshaun Watson is sued for sexual assault; and Netflix forces an Aaron Rodgers docuseries on America.

Here we go.

Tyreek Hill Body Cam video is out

As you can probably guess, it’s just as bad as you thought. Because the bar is on the floor, I guess we have to give kudos to Miami PD for doing what they were supposed to do and releasing the footage quickly, rather than hiding it for weeks like other departments have. That seems to hint that they have some idea of how egregiously their officers behaved.

Nothing about this video is surprising, and the fact that super-lawyer Ben Crump is seemingly all over this is very bad news for Miami.

So, a few things here: 1) I don’t know why Hill kept rolling his window back up if he didn’t want cops to bang on it. That’s not how I would have handled the situation, but it certainly didn’t merit the reaction it got from officers. There’s no law that says you have to be polite and respectful to officers, as long as you comply with their directives. 2) At least one of these officers has been placed on “administrative leave,” and an internal affairs investigation has been opened into the incident. And 3) I see a lot of people on social media confusing Miami PD with the Miami police union. Those are two different things, and police unions, like the Fraternal Order of Police, typically defend cops no matter how heinous their actions are. A police union does not speak for the police department.

In Florida, drivers do not have a right to stay in their cars during a traffic stop if an officer orders them out. Typically, though, cops must have probable cause to search the car or a reason to fear for their own safety. Searches are usually for one of two things: weapons or “the fruits of a crime” (ie, drugs). That means that the police need to 1) have a reasonable concern that they are in danger or 2) have a reasonable concern that there are drugs in the car that could be easily disposed of by someone in the car. They can also force you from the car to have a K-9 search the car.

What the police can’t do, however, is force a driver out of the car and onto the ground because they don’t like your tone, think you have an attitude, or feel that you should show them more respect. As a practical matter, though, cops haul people out of their cars because they aren’t sufficiently deferential all the time.

While my guess is that Hill will file a lawsuit that will be settled very quietly out of court, I honestly have no idea where we go from here. When I was a public defender, my experience with cops was that they demand a level of respect from everyone that is unrealistic, and that they use their frustration in not getting that to justify their actions. That’s likely a problem in every police department in the country, not just in Miami.

The fact that cops still behave with this much impunity knowing everything they do is being recorded on body cams speaks volumes about what they think they can get away with, or what they even see as crossing the line in the first place.

RIP James Earl Jones

It’s not unusual to see the name of a beloved actor trending on social media for innocuous reasons, but I just had a bad feeling when I saw “James Earl Jones” at the top of “What’s Trending” over on threads. Sure enough, James Earl Jones, perhaps the greatest orator in American history, passed away yesterday at age 93. He was one of a minuscule group of performers to ever win an EGOT, and he brought to life some of our most iconic characters.

Look, you can go on about Terence Mann (who was actually JD Salinger in the book), Mustafa from the Lion King, Mr. Mertle from The Sandlot, Sesame Street, whatever. He was undeniably great in every role he was in.

But as a Gen Xer, for me there is one role leaves all the rest in the dust.

Of course, kids today have an entire backstory for Anakin Skywalker that our generation never had. All we had was this incomparable villain, one who supposedly used to be good, and the only hint of his greatness behind the machine was that voice. I can’t even imagine Vader without the voice. The voice was the only thing that seemed to prove, undeniably, that Vader was meant for far more than where he ended up.

That voice haunted my nightmares as a kid, which is why I was so glad we got to see scary, homicidal Vader in Rogue One. That was the greatest villain of my childhood — and I’ll love James Earl Jones forever for bringing him to life.

Once, as an adult, I was waiting to cross a street in Chicago. This was before Comic Con and all its progeny had taken off, so people walking around in costumes was rarer than it is now. I felt this enormous presence behind me, and turned around to see a wall of black. It was a giant of a person, probably 6’4 with shoulders like a barge, dressed very convincingly as Darth Vader. And let me tell you, for a brief moment, I was terrified. Felt my stomach drop into my feet. Fight or flight kicked in. I’m sure this was muscle memory from being a child and seeing the scariest guy in the galaxy, but that was the power of James Earl Jones’ voice.

Also, as this is a Simpsons-titled newsletter, I feel compelled to include this:

And, of course, if you haven’t seen the Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, James Early Jones is wonderful as Leon Carter, who is a thinly-veiled Josh Gibson.

Rest in Peace to an American Treasure.

Deshaun Watson sued again

Despite having settled, at last count, 30 lawsuits with women accusing him of varying types of sexual misconduct, Browns QB Deshaun Watson is facing yet another civil lawsuit — this time for sexual assault and battery in October of 2020.

Per NBC News:

Absolutely sickening. Congrats to the Haslam Family and the entire Browns organization for ignoring the stories of 30 women and choosing this guy to be their franchise QB. Fantastic character judgment.

I’ll admit that, at some point, all the allegations about Watson that came out in 2022 started to blur together, but I don’t believe we’ve heard these allegations before, and I think it’s the first time Watson has been accused outright of forcible rape.

The question now is if the NFL and the Browns will have the guts to treat this as a new allegation, or if they’ll try to insist it’s all part & parcel of the same behavior that earned him a suspension in 2022. If I were the Browns, I’d do my damndest to use the newest lawsuit to void Watson’s contract. Whether they can do that depends on whether or not Watson disclosed the potential suit to the Browns when he signed his contract.

The docuseries no one asked for

I didn’t get to watch the Jets - 49ers game last night because of the ongoing and extremely aggravating dispute between DirecTV and Disney. But if there’s one thing I don’t need in my life, it’s more Aaron Rodgers.

The title of this docuseries that literally no one asked for is “Enigma,” which is ridiculous. An enigma is a person who is mysterious or hard to figure out. There is nothing hard to figure out about Aaron Rodgers. He can’t take even the slightest bit of criticism, believes he is the smartest guy in every room, and is too stupid to know what he doesn’t understand (he thinks he knows more about epidemiology than Anthony Fauci). That’s Aaron Rodgers, solved. I just saved you all hours of having to watch this docuseries.

Have a great day today!