The Rule of Law is no more | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    We have recently learned that the Federal Government has an assassination program that has been in operation for several years now. It is justified as an anti-terrorism tactic first enunciated by George W. Bush when he declared that America would launch pre-emptive attacks to avoid another 9-11. More recently we have learned that Barack Obama has order the killing of American citizens by armed drones and just recently we learned that Attorney General Eric Holder has declared such assassinations legal "if those in charge have reason to believe" an American citizen is "operating" with a terrorist organization. All this without an indictment or trial or even an arrest warrant being issued.

    We recently published an article here entitled "Read this and if it does not scare you to death you're not paying attention." Little did we know it would be prophetic so soon. Nor did we anticipate the routine domestic events that played out that resulted in an assassination of a suspected cop-killer.

    But what we learned yesterday and today (2-12 and 13, 2013) is that Christopher Dorner was murdered by law enforcement officers who had him surrounded with little or no hope of escape. They burned a cabin in which he was holed up in to the ground, apparently intending to kill him.

    As awful as that sounds there is overwhelming evidence to support the conclusion from none other than the police themselves. We now have audio and video recordings of this evidence.

    And being in the news business we must also point out that while this manhunt was coming to a close, and by all appearances at about the time they made a decision to torch the cabin they order the news media to stand down and began a systematic scrubbing of scanner traffic, much the same as we saw locally here in Washington in June of 2011 as reported in our series To Protect and Serve.

    Click here to read the story of what happened in California yesterday, including links to video and other stories that document the intent of law enforcement officials to kill a suspect who had not been arrested, indicted or tried for any crime.

    Commentary

    February 12, 2013 will probably not be recorded in the history books children will use in the coming years. But in our opinion it is one of the blackest days in modern American history. The Rule of Law ended on a mountain in California and the Rule of Man suspended constitutional protects that hundreds of American have fought and died to preserve. Among these is the right of a fair trial, even by a guilty party.

    We have little sympathy for Christopher Dorner, the man. If what has been reported about him is true he deserved to die. But not the way it was done.

    And yes, we strongly support the police having the authority to use deadly force to remove an imminent threat to their safety or that of others. But the key word there is "imminent." A lone man holed up in a cabin surrounded by dozens of heavily armed officers is not an imminent threat to anyone except the suspect.

    The Rule of Law says that Doner should have been taken into custody, indicated and tried by a jury of his peers. Presumably he would be found guilty and we would hope executed.

    But it should not have been done by some police commander giving the order while the media was blacked out of observing the actions of police.

    And we're not going to debate whether the tear gas canister were the appropriate method of ending this siege. That is not needed. There is no evidence that tear gas being fired into a flammable structure was even appropriate, much less necessary. Standard conventional police tactics would dictate that the suspect be "waited out."

    We think we all know why the police did not follow conventional tactics in this case. And while we understand their emotion, they are paid--it is a major part of their job--to not make decisions based on emotion.

    The real issue here is not Christopher Doner and what he did. It is not even what happened on that mountain. It is about the next time police are confronted with another such situation. And the next time. And the next time.

    It is cases like this, and Ruby Ridge and Waco, that cause the negative attitude toward policy these days. It is seen when a local officer stops a young girl three times in three weeks and asked "where have you been...where are you going..."etc. It is even the same principle as a sheriff's deputy passing us running 20 mph above the speed limit while not on a call. What we're talking about is disregard for the Rule of Law and the duty of every sworn officer to abide by the Rule of Law.

    Is it little wonder that millions--literally tens of millions--of American feel the need to "keep and bear arms" to defend themselves and their families in the face of Rule by Man and the loss of the Rule of Law in our nation.

    God help us all.