Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Young black man shot dead by cops for shopping in Walmart

A young black man wanders into Walmart, walking up and down the aisles while chatting on a cell phone. He finds an air rifle left out on a counter top and picks it up. He continues shopping – or doing the Walmart version of window shopping, eventually wandering into the pet department.

There, still holding the rifle – perhaps he’s taking it to the checkout counter – and still chatting on the phone, he seems to be looking at merchandise on a dog food rack.

Meanwhile, a vigilante do-gooder calls 911 and reports he sees a man with a rifle loading the weapon in the store and pointing it at people. None of which is correct, store surveillance videos and later investigation show.

The cops arrive. They have real weapons that really are loaded. They dash into the store. Later they claim they told  the young man, who was still talking on his cell phone, to drop the gun. Even assuming that they are telling the truth, he clearly doesn’t hear them. His head doesn’t appear to  turn their way. He still continues chatting on the phone. About one second later, they blow him to kingdom come.

Cops, desperate to justify the shooting, bully the dead man’s girlfriend, still in shock from learning of his death, first trying to get her say that her boyfriend had the gun when he arrived at Walmart, then accusing her of drug use, and also threatening her, “You lie to me and you might be on your way to jail.” You can watch a small piece of this disgusting interrogation here:



A grand jury convenes. Need I tell you the outcome? Right. The grand jury decides the police were “justified” in ending the young man’s life. 

If you’re from Ohio, you already know this story. It’s been in local papers, including the Dayton Daily News, and others for weeks. But although the shooting has had some television airtime and some play in The Guardian and The Huffington Post, similar events in Missouri and New York, with bigger media presence, have drowned out the story for most of the rest of the nation.

So here’s another dead body to add to the growing mound of young black corpses, on top of the second corpse within a few miles of Ferguson.

The rage in America is growing. Keep it up, cops. Get just a little more trigger happy and we all might get stuck with a full blown revolution on our hands. The American revolution started with the “justified shooting” by British law enforcement that resulted in the Boston Massacre. Study the history or repeat it. Police and prosecutors seem hellbent on making sure the latter happens.

And with that said, Merry Christmas. I suppose.

Cross-posted at The New York Crank

19 comments:

The New York Crank said...

Aw. crap! The interrogation video didn't work, for some reason or other.

You can find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ6StZ13F38#t=35

Have a cranky Christmas,
The New York Crank

Raymond Smith said...

It really appears that the police have declared war on Blacks and the courts are supporting it as well.
Do these people realize how big a populace of Blacks there are in the USA? These people are insane to try to insight Blacks to arm themselves and react. The police and court system had best wise up before a race war happens.

Victor said...

IMO - a large part of the blame for all if this, falls on the NRA.

Not only have they advocated for everyone to purchase a lot of guns, and badgered politicians into making sure that's easy, the advertising they use, casts young black males as the ones gun-owners need protection from.

So, as people have more and guns over the last few decades - yes, less people have guns, but the ones who do, have a lot of them - the police know that everyone has easy access to guns, and have to be careful, because any routing police call can turn out fatal.

In the 60's, few people had guns.
As guns proliferated, police saw that more and more people have guns.

The NRA racialized gun ownership. You have to be better armed than some young "Blah" thug.

And the police, with more an more guns - in the hands of more and more crazy people - shoot first and ask questions later.

And, of course, just like with DWB, it's easier to target black youths.

But the NRA will never accept any responsibility.
Our politicians are scared to death of the NRA's influence.

And so here we are - reading about yet another young black male being killed by the police.

All of this, while white loons with automatics march around in cammo, and police either look the other way, or politely question them.

No 'shoot first and ask questions later."
After all, these white guys are just out there protecting themselves from minority thugs. The NRA has made that clear!

Yastreblyansky said...

Uh, cranky Christmas to you too. I can't believe there are now so many of these cases that most of us don't know about all of them, that's terrifying in its own right.

I went back and found this one mentioned in Op-Ed pages of yesterday's Times, where it slipped by me yesterday, with a short but powerful documentary video attached.

Never Ben Better said...

Never forget, there's a small but fervent segment of the white population out there who actively desire a race war so they can kill blacks with impunity, and who expect to win it. One has to wonder how many of them are in a position to promote it.

Anonymous said...

"Never forget, there's a small but fervent segment of the white[/black] population out there who actively desire a race war" because then Saul Alinsky's words can be brought to pass!

Tom Hilton said...

When I hear about the Crawford shooting (or Tamir Rice for that matter) I can't help thinking about all those videos of Open Carry assholes with assault rifles.

Maybe duffandnonsense can explain why those shitheads weren't gunned down by the cops and John Crawford was.

Professor Fate said...

Wos. Citing Alinsky is just sad. Still all Duff has to do is deny climate change and I'll have bingo.

Yastreblyansky said...
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Yastreblyansky said...

Duff, that's real trolling. What words of Alinsky's do you have in mind? I don't believe there are any relevant to whatever you think you're talking about.

Grung_e_Gene said...

If events continue on this way it will please conservatives immensely. Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists have been aching for an imagined Casus Belli to murder minorities, liberals and unconstitutional government bureaucrats.

Glennis said...

a small but fervent segment of the white population out there who actively desire a race war

I lived in a historical African-American neighborhood that was gradually gentrifying, in Seattle at the time of the Rodney King trial. One of the people who regularly attended our block watch meeting, along with African American and Latino neighbors, was a white guy who fancied himself an "urban pioneer" (his words), often likened our situation to "Fort Apache the Bronx" and bragged that he would be armed when "the animals" came for his property. I looked around at the faces of my neighbors when he said this and thought, "just who the hell are you talking about, asshole?"

Of course, there were no incidents in our neighborhood, or anywhere else in town, that I recall.

Anonymous said...

Funny you should write that, Prof. Fake, because I have just had some fun at the expense of some professorial trickster who showed that oceanic acidification was on a huge increase because of the equally huge in increase in CO2 emissions.

Alas, his 'hockey stick' began in 1988 and now another scientific swot has popped up to point out that the preceding 80+ years of over 200 million measurements had been ignored/forgotten/eaten by the dog/used to "hide the decline".

If you use them it shows that there has been absolutely no trend in the last 100+ years.

Whodathunkit?

Ten Bears said...
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Ten Bears said...

Out here on The Rez, duff, we have a saying... no picture no fish. You have again made incredible claims lacking in credible source. Alinsky cwn be forgiven, it's a racist dogwhistle of which you clearly know nothing. There is, however, a direct correlation between increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and ocean acidification thoroughly documented by ice and geological coring spanning a Couple of billion years and due to its potential to break the food chain are in a greater threat to the survival of the species than the actual rise in temperature or sea level.

We have another saying: shooting Your mouth off and letting the world know you are a damned fool is only a good thing in Beatles songs and the Tarot.

You are a clear and present danger to my grandchildren's future.

Anonymous said...

@ 10 Bears - but first an apology to our distinguished host for going off topic, although it wasn't me that started it!

Alas, no, 10 Bears, there is absolutely no correlation between increased CO2 emissions and ocean acidification. The two second-rate swots who deliberately confined themselves to 1988 and onwards did not use recorded data, they used computer modelling - yeeeeeees, quite, and we all know what that means!

If you use the actual measurements taken since the early 20th century - *measurements*, mind, not models! - there is absolutely no trend.

Of course, you may follow the lead of one of the guilty swots by claiming that these historic measurements are not accurate. In which case, you need to explain why the mighty NOAA used them when it recently re-issued its World Ocean Database! Apparently NOAA thought they were OK! So what do you know that NOAA doesn't?

I will forbear on any comment concerning your grandchildren!

Professor Fate said...

Bingo.

Dark Avenger said...

Duff, you haven't kept up with the latest research, as has Ten Bears:

The ocean absorbs carbon dioxide like a sponge; scientists say that about one-third of all CO2 emitted historically by burning fossil fuels is now in the ocean. “This is a good news/bad news situation,” said Alan Mix, an Oregon State University oceanographer and co-author on the study. “It helps to slow the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, but it makes the ocean more acidic.”

http://www.eurasiareview.com/01122014-ocean-absorbs-carbon-dioxide-like-sponge-making-acidic/

Ten Bears said...

The MS is for Mad Scientist.