Lucas County Common Pleas Judge James Bates sentenced Jamaine Hill to 47 years in prison for shooting a police officer during a no knock raid. James who is in a wheel chair thought that his house was being broken into so he shot through the door hitting a Toledo police officer. This is yet another case of the dual justice system whereby citizens are expected to immediately recognize that someone is a police officer even when they can’t see them and react accordingly, meanwhile police can commit all kinds of atrocities as long as they claim to have felt threatened. The prosecutor Frank Spryszak claimed that if Hill was found not guilty that “it would set a dangerous precedent that it would be on season on police”, which is an absurd claim. Mr. Hill did not intentionally shoot the officer, in fact he couldn’t even see the officer.  If anything this case suggests that it is open season for police to break into people’s houses for petty crimes under the cover of night and then claim to be the victim when the unsuspecting home owner reacts in a defensive way. This was not justice, this was the criminal injustice system protecting itself. The judge had a vested interest in throwing the book at Hill, because had he been found not guilty it would have looked bad for the judge who authorized the no knock warrant. The defense also argued that because Hill was already a felon he wasn’t supposed to possess a firearm so there was no justification for the shooting. There again the prosecutor used a lazy argument to justify this conviction. If him having the firearm was such a big deal then they should have just charged him with having a firearm under disability and dropped the felonious assault charges. This precedent that this case sets is that citizens of Toledo have no right to defend themselves  or their property because it’s possible that the person assaulting them might just be a police officer.