ABOUT RITT GOLDSTEIN

by Justice

While some have hailed him and others attacked him, it seemed time to discover a little about Ritt Goldstein, an American who sought political asylum in Sweden.

Searching on Google.com and putting his name in quotes, then doing a second search to include the omitted items, I found reports by the European Parliament supporting Goldstein, as well as an article from The Guardian reporting how a European Parliament committee urged the Swedes to "re-think" giving him protection. Other stories dated from when Goldstein was leading a drive for police accountability, the articles from the Fairfield County Weekly and The Massacusetts Daily Collegian being particularly interesting. It appears Goldstein's for real.

To his detractors, hate to break the news, but the fact is that the Swedes found that Goldstein had been attacked repeatedly. He brought police reports with him documenting: how the steering on his car was purposefully unscrewed; that he was shot at; that he was repeatedly pepper sprayed, etc.

According to sources familiar with the case, he also passed several lie detector tests regarding his story, submitting those in evidence to Swedish authorities and Amnesty International's Swedish section.

What Swedish immigration said was that the attacks against him were by "individual police", acting without authorization, and so Goldstein didn't need protection as the US is a "democracy with a just legal system".

Part of Goldstein's apparent problem was that he had no hard evidence to prove the police attacks (ie, video, witnesses willing to testify, etc), only that he had been attacked. Given the treatment of the guy who supplied the video in Inglewood, one can appreciate how that might happen. The other part of Goldstein's problem was said to be the willingness of people to condemn him, regardless of the facts. And since people acquitted the officers who beat Rodney King at their first trial, despite the video of the beating, some unsettling questions come quickly to mind.

In a radio interview of his I recently heard, he likened it to the way rape victims were once treated, saying that it's easier to demonize the victim than address the problem. Amnesty International documented that police, themselves, routinely demonize police abuse victims as well. And Goldstein added that many police abuse victims are just assumed to have done something to "deserve it", or are fabricating their stories for an ulterior motive...just as once happened with rape victims.

Since Goldstein has some pretty sound journalism pieces that are being printed all over the world (check the net), including one that warned of internment camps two weeks before the LA Times broke their story, and since he broke the news on TIPS too, it seems that maybe it's not him that's so crazy.