On February 7th, LeSean McCoy and several other former football players were involved in a fight with off-duty police officers in a Philadelphia night club. TMZ has grainy, dark video of a portion of the fight, and then brighter video of the aftermath. It was reported that the fight started over a bottle of champagne, but from the video, it’s unclear who started it, or how. Today, nearly two months later, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced he would not be seeking charges against anyone involved in the altercation because of “insufficient credible evidence to determine which of the participants was the initial aggressor or whether some participants were acting in self-defense or in the reasonable defense of another.”
In making the announcement, the DA explained that if he couldn’t determine who started the fight, then he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the men involved were not acting in self defense. Since that is a legal defense to any charges arising out of this incident, this case would almost surely be a loser. District attorneys are not in the business of prosecuting crimes they can’t prove. This is for a variety of reasons, including that prosecutor’s own self interest, but there’s also, you know, the whole concept of justice. Williams then rattled off some stats from the investigation:
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Over a nine week period, Assistant District Attorneys and Central Detectives built a comprehensive timeline of the events leading up to and following the Recess Lounge incident. They also conducted 44 interviews speaking with a total of 27 individuals, made a site visit, examined the medical records of multiple participants, and reviewed photographs and video surveillance footage.
The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, as you might imagine, is not too happy about this. Even though the officers were off duty and in a club late at night, and even though nothing good happens after midnight, it appears the FOP thinks the nature of these men’s day jobs entitle them to preferential treatment from the district attorney. Weird!
We know this because the FOP issued a statement of its own to members. It is one of the most self-pitying things you’ll read and might has well come along with a Movie Guy voiceover telling you From the guys who brought you The War on Football, comes The War on Cops. Even better, the FOP comes amazingly close to threatening the entire city it pledges to serve and protect with straight-up chaos during the upcoming Democratic National Convention in retaliation.
This is pretty amazing stuff. I can’t decide what my favorite part is, really. It could be the part where two whole examples are provided of cases in which video of an incident led to charges, while ignoring that in both instances the initial aggressor is plain and unambiguous. Or it might be the part where the union tells its members to shirk their work to protect themselves from injury.
But, really, it doesn’t get any better than a fucking police union ending with the kicker quote “justice delayed is justice denied.”
