- revise (an aspect of a fictional work) retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events."I think fans get more upset when characters act blatantly out of established type, or when things get retconned"…(Oxford Languages);——————————————————————————————————————
COMMENTARY: The retconning of George Floyd, part three: The retconning of George Floyd, part three: the great flattening," by renowned journalist and criminal justice analyst Radley Balko, published on 'The Watch' on February 13, 2024. (Investigative journalist. Proprietor of The Watch newsletter. Ex-Washington Post. Author of Rise of the Warrior Cop, co-author of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist);
SUB-HEADING: "The revisionist campaign to exonerate Derek Chauvin is about one thing: preserving police impunity."
(Note: This is part three of a three-part series on the effort to retroactively justify Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd.)
GIST: (As this is a very lengthy analysis, here is a taste of this important substack. (It can be read in its entirety at the link below. HL): "This brings us to the focus of this series — the campaign to retroactively exonerate the police for killing George Floyd.
The main reason why Floyd’s death sparked the largest civil rights protests in U.S. history was that video.
We all saw with our own eyes the nonchalance with which Derek Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd’s back as Floyd grew weak, went limp, and lost consciousness.
It was as clear and demonstrative evidence of a police officer’s utter disregard for the humanity of a black man as you’ll find. Most of us saw no justification at all for the way Floyd was treated.
The unassailability of that footage is also why so many white people joined the protests. It’s why there were protests in the suburbs, the exurbs, and in small town America.
Even my hometown of Greenfield, Indiana — where the Klan was still active while I grew up — had a Black Lives Matter protest.
Something about Chauvin’s callous body language as a man died beneath him lit a fire even in people who rarely experience police profiling, harassment, or brutality.
Polls showed an unprecedented percentage of white people acknowledging police racism and abuse, as well as support for reforms that would have been nonstarters prior to Floyd’s death.
This is a big reason why it’s so important for police advocates like the people behind The Fall of Minneapolis to discredit the state’s case against Chauvin.
If you can convince white people that it was all based on a lie, they can go back to dismissing black people’s allegations of police abuse.
If you can persuade a large enough portion of the population that none of it happened the way we all saw it happen — if you can get them to reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears (to borrow a phrase) — you not only chip away at their support for reform, you make them reluctant to sympathize with the protests yet to come."
The entire sub-stack can be read at:
"https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-retconning-of-george-floyd-part-382
———————————————————————————
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resurce. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
——————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
------------------------------
YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
————————————————————————————————
