Hi Don:
Seattle has a lot going for it, I am told... however, here on the other coast we do not have civilian police review boards, we campained for them and got, civilian complaint police review boards, a lot of difference, the police looking into complaints about the police... you can imagine.
Racism by state actors is what makes a police state for Black Americans...
Filbertos case is very complicated. He was aquited for shooting at the FBI, as it was proven they had come to kill him the first time. For over 20 years EVERYONE knew where he was, but no attempt to arrest him was made, as there was no evidence against him - he had been held awaiting trial for almost a decade, when a court ruled the government needed SOME evidence, or should try him, but could not hold him awaiting trial forever.
He was exicuted a week or so after the loss of New Orleans, a city lost because of wasted resourses on the "war on terror" and because there was little evidence of progress finding real terrorists in the US, other than arresting lawyers for doing their job... they shot Filberto, to show they were making progress in their war on terror. They shot him because a trial would have not gone anywhere, as they had no new evidence against him. But, it backfired because they did a terrible job of shooting him, it would have blown up in their faces, if it were not for the remarkable apathy of the American people, which is the reason most people don't know how bad it is here. It is much eaier to point at Amadeenajad (eaiser to point at him then spell his name, I can tell you that!) than do the hard work of ending our adiction to prison as the solution to the death of the American dreem.
Don, dear fellow (and I mean that) you still have not addressed the 2.3 million in jail as evidence of a police state
All the best
lor