it will always be telling when something like this happens & so many self-proclaimed activists will skirt around concrete statements of judgement & guilt UNTIL an arrest is made. then all bets are off.
The most recent arrest for the UHC CEO Assassination was made under suspicion, and yet I’m still seeing people refer to him as “the shooter” without a second thought. So many people are purporting & accepting the alleged guilt of someone simply on the account of an arrest being made– a form of violence often directed towards people of color and other marginalized populations time and time again.
Newsflash: The Police just arrest people, even when a crime hasn’t been committed. The idea that ‘arrest = guilt’ both ruins and ends lives; better to kill the cop inside your head than to uphold systemic violence that kills thousands upon thousands.
Even the cops aren’t calling him a suspect in the murder, just a person of interest. i.e., they think he might be somewhat related to the crime but they have absolutely no evidence tying him or the gun to the scene. And even if they do find that and charge him, that’s still no evidence of his guilt, the government still has to prove that.
Also consider that people are routinely arrested – and convicted – on evidence at least this spotty. Probably the only thing stopping the NYPD from outright declaring they got the killer here is the high-profile and sympathetic nature of the shooting.
NYPD just charged Mangione with the murder, though little has changed. First, there’s still nothing public linking him or the gun to the crime scene, though the ID and manifesto are pretty suspicious and might be enough to convict depending on the jury. There’s not a lot to go on to determine the truth of what the police have or if they have anything else they’re not sharing, so it’ll be interesting to watch as we get closer to trial. It’s far from certain that this man is the shooter, even if it looks likely.
Second, and more importantly, digging up everything about the man’s personal life is still part and parcel of the violence of an arrest, whether or not he did it, whether or not they convict him. The violence of the legal system does not start and end at prisons – investigation, arrest, trial, sentencing, and appeal are all incredibly violent processes, and putting a person’s life on display after an arrest is an all-too-common way this violence plays out. Kill the cop inside your head.
amhrancas 