Male, Black And Guilty Until Proven Innocent
By Mitch Berg
Let’s be clear on two things:
- Domestic abuse is bad. Don’t abuse your significant other. Physically, verbally, emotionally. Just don’t.
- If you are male in Minnesota (or, pretty much, anywhere), you need to get over the idea that you have any right to self-defense. If a kerfuffle turns into a rhubarb and thence into scuffle, even if the woman clearly starts the fight, if the police are called and she has so much as a bruise on her wrists (from pummeling the male), and the male doesn’t have a meat cleaver stuck in his forehead, it’ll be he that goes to jail, and run into a domestic abuse charge in which he may not legally be “guilty until proven innocent”, but in which guilt is designed to be incredibly easy to prove, unless you are wealthy enough to afford quite the lawyer. (Some of our more depraved leftybloggers, and at least one idiot state legislator, will no doubt copy this paragraph and tweet “Berg Supports Domestic Abuse!”. Far from it. Seriously, you’ve been warned).
Cook was jailed and charged with domestic assault by strangulation, which can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.
But in a phone call to a police detective 20 days after the incident, Baker recanted her claim about the choking. She said she started the fight and had beaned Cook from behind with one of her shoes, cutting him behind the left ear.
The slap that knocked her into the wall was a reflex to that, she claimed.
She also acknowledged punching him and pulling out three of the shoulder-length dreadlocks he wore at the time. (She later testified she kept one of the dreadlocks.)
She also told the detective that Cook’s slap had ruptured her left eardrum. With that information, prosecutors amended the criminal complaint to add a count of third-degree assault, which accused him of causing “substantial bodily harm” by breaking her eardrum.
The injury healed by itself.
Before the case went to trial, prosecutors offered Cook a chance to plead guilty to one of the felonies in return for a three-year probated sentence. He rejected the deal.
Baker maintained her recantation when prosecutors called her as a witness. She took the blame for the fight turning physical, saying she’d been drinking that evening, didn’t handle booze well and had made up the choking allegation because she was mad at Cook and wanted to see him jailed.
So that goes to show you – the domestic abuse system works! Provided that you’re a millionaire who can afford a top-flight lawyer and the plaintiff actually admits to having lied about the whole thing. Oh, and here’s hoping he can recover from ten games’ suspension to make the roster and keep your exceptionally-hard-to-achieve career.
All you guys living in trailer parks in Elko or duplexes in Minneapolis or ramblers in Hugo who might run afoul a similar situation? Without the whole “top flight lawyer” bit? No, no – it doesn’t work that way for you.
March 16th, 2012 at 8:21 am
This is the second serious charge Chris Cook has escaped. The first brandishing a firearm was dropped. Either CC just has some serious bad luck or he needs to clean his life up.
March 16th, 2012 at 8:32 am
Maybe that lap dance in front of your girlfriend at the strip club during the NFL season wasn’t such a good move. Maybe you shouldn’t be driving down back alleys with a loaded gun looking for a potential girlfriend you met online while in the middle of a divorce, either. And the Planned Parenthood thing is pure coincidence. Bottom line is that men do some pretty stupid things when they think with the wrong head.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2010/11/24/armed-mn-lawmaker-arrested-near-planned-parenthood/
March 16th, 2012 at 9:04 am
JP: The fact that he needs to clean his life up – clearly he does – doesn’t change the point.
OJ – It took me a second to get what you were trying to talk about there – switching from Cook to Hackbarth. There’s a good reason it took a second; the situations have nothing in common. No charges were even considered, much less filed. The gun was legal and he had a permit. And the burden is on you to show us that the “Planned Parenthood thing” was not a coincidence. Dating in mid-divorce is usually a mistake – just ask me – but it’s not illegal. In short, the Hackbarth case was much less ambiguously a partisan group character assassination smear.
You hit the quadfecta!
March 16th, 2012 at 9:18 am
Nothing in common? Being stupid is what Cook and Hackbarth have in common. I AM SAYING the Planned Parenthood thing is totally coincidental. But the Security people did their job. You see a guy get out of a truck carrying, you ought to pay attention. I would say there are plenty of examples of unheeded warnings or hands tied abuse cases that go bad because no one noticed or couldn’t stop what they wanted to stop because of the rules. The cops that picked up Hackbarth did their job. No where did I imply that Hackbarth did anything illegal. To compare driving around back alleys to “dating” is anything but courtship. Read Hackbarth’s own statement to the police if you need some illumination. It’s your site, you can do what you want. Both men’s actions got them in unwanted spotlights, and there’s nothing black, white, rich, poor about stupidity.
March 16th, 2012 at 9:45 am
OJ is a threadjacker. He did it yesterday, too, but no one bit on it.
The comparison is ludicrous, of course. It’s like saying the deaths of Dale Earnhardt and Mary Jo Kopechne were related because they both involved cars.
March 16th, 2012 at 9:49 am
Mitch I wasn’t trying to contradict your point. CC does have access to a legal system most of us do not. He still lost most of a years income because of at least poor choices.
We are sure that Baker lied. However, we don’t know which time she lied.
But, what the heck, let’s build these guys a stadium!
March 16th, 2012 at 10:20 am
Does it matter? When you can get shot dead by a rent-a-cop for being an unarmed black teen walking in a gated community we have to take serious stock of this whole “society” thing. Being on the sidelines of the concealed carry debate, I find myself wondering is both sides aren’t contributing to the insanity.
As for Mr. Cook, he bears the burden of guilt by association for A) being black and B) working for the NFL. How do these relate? Neither is fair.
March 16th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Threadjacking (whatever that is) apparently is something one should not do, and the definition is apparently up to the insiders of the club. Yesterday’s post that wasn’t taken up was that somehow the DFL was continually trumping up the Koch-Brodkorb thing. Sheesh, that thing is so totally self-induced by those directly involved that it’s pretty much a sign that says “Free Beer Here.” Not long after I said that there was Brodkorb in front of the camera with his money lawyer talking about, ahem: “he-said, she-said” and how men are treated differently than women. What is it about public office that lends itself to all this fishing off the company dock?
March 16th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Dear oldjohnnie,
Welcome to the Internet!
Here is a helpful link for you on the topic of “threadjacking”:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=threadjacking
You’re welcome!
March 16th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
“When you can get shot dead by a rent-a-cop for being an unarmed black teen walking in a gated community…”
Did I miss something?
March 16th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
Confucius say “man who live in glass house should dress in basement.”
Pabst Blue Ribbon!
March 16th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Old Johnnie, you seem to want to take up the mantle of Penigma’s Chihuahua, with the ” I notice you are not blogging about so and so” meme. That mantle ill suits you.
March 17th, 2012 at 10:16 am
MNBubba, it just happened this week. It means something. Or something. I’m not sure which.