After three days of deliberations, a jury San Diego — a militaristic community thoroughly besotted with people in state-issued costumes — acquitted police officer Frank White of felony gross negligent discharge of a firearm and a misdemeanor count of displaying a firearm in an “angry manner.”
The charges arose from a March 2008 “road rage” incident in which White shot Rachel Silva and her eight-year-old son. Silva had cut off White and backed into his car. She was shot twice in the arm and her son was hit once in the knee.
White, who was off-duty at the time and accompanied by his wife, initially claimed that he fired in “self-defense.” He later claimed that he fired his gun when Silva refused his demands to get out of her car. White never displayed a badge or identified himself as a police officer; witnesses to the shooting didn’t recognize the incident as a traffic stop or other enforcement action, but thought it was a domestic squabble.
Larry Ludlow, who has covered this case in the past, informs me: “During the trial, [White] lied several times and was caught in these lies, but the military-worshiping jurors didn’t care. They even swallowed the `fear of death’ excuse despite the difference in the size of the two vehicles — with [White’s] vehicle being much larger.”
The case was also distorted by a grotesquely lenient charge: White should have been prosecuted for felonious assault with a deadly weapon, rather than “negligence.” In any case, owing to the fact that White was one of the state’s sanctified armed enforcers, he was acquitted of all charges and reinstated on the force.
Rachel Silva, on the other hand, admitted to being intoxicated and had the book thrown at her. She pleaded guilty to felony child endangerment and misdemeanor DUI charges. The only potentially positive aspect of this case is that Silva’s son will grow up with a usefully cynical attitude toward our tax-devouring “protectors.”
4:23 pm on June 25, 2009
