Lionel Timms, research reveals, is a career criminal.
For example, in 2012, while under investigation for credit card fraud, he was arrested on burglary charges in Maple Grove, MN.(1)
More recently, Timms had been jailed pursuant to an assault that took place on a bus on July 11th, 2020. Seeing incarceration for assault as unjust, Paypal(2) helped the Minnesota Freedom Fund, who characterized Timms as “a popular and well respected member of our community,” raise the money to bail him out of jail while he was awaiting trail on felony assault charges.(3)
As is well-known, Paypal exercises discretion in who it chooses to fund, and routinely chooses to ban or deny service to people based on advice provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center.(4)
As Paypal exercises such discretion on the grounds of politics, beliefs and behaviors, removing hundreds if not thousands of well-known people from its platform on such grounds, it can only be concluded that Paypal specifically approves of those whom it allows to use its service. This is similar to the phenomenon of the “blue check mark” on Twitter, which used to denote people whose identity had been verified as accurate, and gradually became a mark of the platform’s approval.
Given the extensive bannings on the part of Paypal, it can therefore now be concluded that the behavior of any entity that is allowed to use Paypal’s services is actually endorsed by Paypal.
And thus we find that after Paypal assisted with and endorsed Timms’ release, the career criminal has now been arrested for yet another assault on August 14th. During this assault, Timms was seen brutally assaulting a man and repeatedly kicking him in the head as he was balled up on the ground, causing brain bleed, concussion and traumatic brain injury. (3)
This brutal assault was proudly brought to you by the Minnesota Freedom Fund with Paypal’s enthusiastic assistance.
I have heard substantial complaining and — dare I say, kvetching — about Paypal’s treatment of anyone to the right of Chairman Mao. But a company is not just defined by what it refuses to support. It is also defined by those it supports enthusiastically, even in the face of outcomes resulting in human suffering.
So isn’t it time to call attention to Paypal’s endorsement and enabling of these crimes?
References
(1) https://patch.com/minnesota/maplegrove/police-arrest-suspect-in-maple-grove-minnetonka-home-ed0096eeed
(2) https://mnfreedomfund.org/donate
(3) https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/08/26/minneapolis-man-lionel-timms-accused-in-serious-assault-after-being-bailed-out-by-mn-freedom-fund/
(4) https://www.foxnews.com/tech/conservatives-call-for-paypal-boycott-after-ceo-admits-splc-helps-ban-users