Charlie Hebdo Cartoon Solidarity, Boko Haram Massacres & Murder Charges in Homeless Man Shooting

Criminal defense attorney Mike Cavalluzzi shares his thoughts on the provocative cartoons by artists of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo - site of the deadly terror attack in Paris – and also discusses the larger issues of freedom of speech and press solidarity.

Cavalluzzi gives his opinion that while the satirical cartoons poking fun at political and religious figures like those published by Charlie Hebdo are “obviously protected speech,” the First Amendment does not provide protection for anyone to say anything without regard to the actions it might provoke.

“It’s also true that you can’t use speech that incites violence against a type of person,” he said, citing the example of someone calling on others to kill gay people – which would likely not be covered as free speech.

“However, something that is clearly satire - clearly meant to make fun of or lampoon, a sacred religious figure - is absolutely protected speech because it does not incite violence against any of those people. It’s merely tearing down a sacred cow, that’s what it’s really doing, and that is what speech is about.”

Cavalluzzi points out the potential problems when a government or other entity takes it upon itself to determine what individuals or spiritual figures would be okay to criticize, and which ones not. “That’s for each individual to make their choice.”

When asked about the choice by some news organizations not to run cartoons that provoked death threats against the artists, Cavalluzzi said he feels the images should in fact be published in order to protect freedom of speech throughout the world.

“I think that the message needs to clearly be sent to these terrorists who would kill people for exercising their freedom of speech – the message that in fact when they engage in behavior like that, the image will then be telegraphed tenfold.”

Switching to recent massacres carried out by Nigeria’s militant Islamist group Boko Haram, Cavalluzzi said he thinks media coverage of the violence has been minimal due to the image already formed by Americans of many regions in Africa.

“Going back to the massacres in Rwanda, I think we look at that entire civilization as somehow a place where this happens and we don’t seem to get upset about it as when it’s a place like Paris, which looks a lot more like New York City than any part of Nigeria.”

Despite the frequency of horrific events taking place there, he adds that on some level, it just doesn’t shock Americans. “And then I think on some level, it’s the color of people’s skin, there’s just more of a disconnect when people don’t look like you than there is when people do.”

The discussion also focuses on whether the lack of consistent media coverage can also be attributed to the fact that many victims of the violence have been women.

Addressing the shooting death of a homeless man by police officers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the panel takes a look at police footage captured from the incident, for which two SWAT team officers have been charged with murder. “They’re going to get acquitted of this, I promise you, they will not get convicted of murder in this case,” Cavalluzzi said.

“I just think there is almost a refusal by the public at large to call cops murderers, they don’t like that, they don’t want to do it, it takes much more than this video – and you know that I think it’s horrific,” he said. “But it will take more than this video to change that perception that people have cops are simply not murderers and they will refuse to see them that way, and they will do it in the case as they have in every other.”

Watch the full episode to also hear a discussion of the friction between NYPD officers and Mayor Bill de Blasio, as well as an update on the Bill Cosby situation, in which rape allegations against the beloved comedian continue to pile up.