Smell the Retaliation

Scott Greenfield is more familiar than I with the history of Joel Rosenberg’s recent conflicts with the Minneapolis police department, leading up to Joel’s arrest, and in his latest post Scott offers this important bit of background:

For a fellow who sincerely believes in principles, there comes a point, a threshold if you will, where he decides to take a stand.  Some of us have such a threshold. Others have none, though they may talk as if they did and lie to themselves that there’s a point where they would take a stand.  These people never, ever reach that point.  Others, like Joel, decide where that point is for themselves.  As he likes to say, your mileage may differ. The point is personal.

Joel hit his point when a mother/daughter altercation broke out.  Not a particularly big deal, except that an overly helpful passerby observed SWMBO, also known as Joel’s wife Felicia, trying to get their daughter, who can be a bit rebellious toward parental authority, to follow the rules of their home.  The backstory there is neither particularly relevant or interesting enough to provide details, but Joel learned, as his wife was arrested on the word of an ersatz good samaritan (which was subsequently dismissed, then subsequently reinstated after Joel’s run-in with Sgt. Palmer that gives rise to his arrest), the ordinary injustice of cops’ lying to make a case wasn’t something he could stomach.

Even if we assume for the sake of argument that the initial arrest of Joel’s wife was reasonable–in the sense that an officer honestly thought something illegal was going on–the chronology is suspicious:

• Felicia arrested by Minneapolis police.
• Charges dropped against Felicia.
• Joel requests public records about the matter.
• Joel arrives at police station to pick up public records and has a run-in with Sergeant William Palmer.
• Joel files a complaint against Palmer and releases public statements.
• Charges reinstated against Felicia.
• Joel arrested.

No word yet on whether Sweden will be filing rape charges…