Shortly after Joe Biden introduced he wouldn’t search re-election, the Donald Trump marketing campaign turned its consideration to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
The official account of Trump’s “Struggle Room” (the cool-sounding title given to the marketing campaign’s opposition analysis geeks) instantly started posting trending articles about Harris on X, the platform previously often known as Twitter. . However one of many assaults was very unusual:
“Kamala Harris helped elevate cash for a far-left group that bailed a rioter who shot at police out of jail,” the Trump Struggle Room stated. write on X yesterday.
Kamala Harris helped elevate cash for a far-left group that bailed a rioter who shot at police out of jail. https://t.co/DweB3pf3mO
— Trump Struggle Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 21, 2024
The Trump Struggle Room seems to be referring to Jaleel Stallings, a Minnesota man who was certainly charged with rioting, tried homicide and assault throughout the 2020 George Floyd protests. Police use lethal power.
This is not the primary time the Trump marketing campaign has tried to make use of the Stallings case as a political cudgel. As early as 2020, the Trump Struggle Room launched details about Stallings a number of occasions. call him A “potential cop-killer jailed for capturing at police throughout ‘peaceable protest’.”
“Now he’s free, thanks partially to donations from Biden marketing campaign officers to pay for his bail,” the account wrote. “Will Joe Biden apologize for serving to cops endanger themselves?”
Jaleel Stallings, a would-be cop killer, is in jail for capturing at cops throughout a “peaceable protest.”
Now he is free, thanks partially to donations from Biden marketing campaign officers to pay for his bail.
Will Joe Biden apologize for serving to put cops at risk? https://t.co/UzSNt06fuC pic.twitter.com/muwZVYOxBS
— Trump Struggle Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 31, 2020
What the Trump Struggle Room missed yesterday is that the jury Stallings was acquitted of all chargesand he later Won $1.5M lawsuit The settlement resulted from his violent arrest. In truth, one of many police plead guilty Attacked him final yr.
Stallings, a veteran with a hid carry allow, was in a parking zone on the night time of Could 2020, 5 days after George Floyd’s demise, as Minneapolis SWAT officers drove by An unmarked van started firing rubber bullets at him.
Police patrolled the streets, firing non-lethal bullets from 40 mm catapults into individuals who had been out after curfew. “The primary bastards we see, we will hit them with 40 rounds,” the crew’s sergeant reportedly ordered. body camera footage Appeared at Stallings’ trial. Earlier than arriving at Stallings, additionally they shot and pepper-sprayed a household attempting to guard a fuel station from being robbed. vice information Journalists who had been imagined to be exempt from the curfew.
Stallings claimed he noticed the unmarked white van pull up, its lights out and its doorways open. He heard a “pop” after which felt a pointy ache as a rubber bullet hit his chest. He stated he thought it was a drive-by and thought he had been grazed by a bullet. Stallings returned hearth on the van, firing three pictures however hitting nobody. When he realized he had fired at police, he dropped the gun and surrendered. body camera footage Stallings’ trial confirmed that police beat and kicked Stallings when he tried to show himself in, together with after he was handcuffed.
The Trump marketing campaign and conservative media centered on the case after the Minnesota Freedom Fund paid Stallings’ $75,000 bail, and Harris tweeted her assist for the fund.
“Meet the rioting criminals Kamala Harris helped bail out of jail” federalists title acknowledged in an article mentioning the Stallings case.
It was a weak assault, however fully shattered as soon as the information of the case had been recognized.
The ostensible perform of bail is to make sure that a defendant who’s presumed harmless will seem in courtroom for trial. In impact, it has turn into a monetary lever to maintain individuals arrested in jail, whatever the hazard they pose to the general public. Bail bonds are one answer to this drawback. (In response, a number of purple states have launched or handed legal guidelines banning them.) In Stallings’ case, the bail fund and money bail mechanisms labored precisely as they had been imagined to: They stored him out of jail throughout the trial, he efficiently defended himself, and retained his presumption of innocence regardless of There is no such thing as a higher method than conservative media and the Trump marketing campaign to publicly discredit his efforts.
The case of a person who turned out to be an harmless sufferer of police violence was repeatedly cited by the Trump Struggle Room as a reminder that the Republican Social gathering’s obsequious and ubiquitous “blue lives” rhetoric doesn’t replicate real issues about police security. Reasonably, it’s a hasty demagoguery designed to maintain a popular class of public staff immune from criticism and above the regulation.
