There are ongoing demonstrations against the Charlotte Mecklenberg Police Department’s shooting of an African American man this afternoon.
#BREAKING Keep hearing loud pops, protesters clashing with police @WBTV_News pic.twitter.com/SszFDeRm0V
— Alex Giles WBTV (@AlexGilesNews) September 21, 2016
#BREAKING It appears gas has just been sent into the crowd @WBTV_News pic.twitter.com/LTXk8w0vDX
— Alex Giles WBTV (@AlexGilesNews) September 21, 2016
Early today plainclothes, undercover officers from the Charlotte Mecklenberg Police Department (CMPD) shot and killed 43 year old Keith Lamont Scott.
The shooting happened around 4 p.m. at The Village at College Downs apartment complex on the 9600 block of Old Concord Road. Officers said they were searching for a person with an outstanding warrant when they saw a man get out of a vehicle with a firearm.
When the man, later identified as 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott, got back into the vehicle, the officers approached. The report states Scott then got back out of the vehicle “armed with a firearm and posed an imminent deadly threat to the officers who subsequently fired their weapon striking the subject.”
His family has argued that he was waiting in his truck and reading a book while waiting for his son to be dropped off from school.
The brother of the man police shot and killed tells me he was holding a book and waiting for his son to be dropped off from school @wsoctv
— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 20, 2016
And they are directly contradicting the CMPD account that he was armed:
Sister of the man police shot and killed: "he didn't have no gun, he wasn't messing with nobody" @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/37k55Lt70H
— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 21, 2016
Not that it makes anything better, but WSOC 9’s Joe Bruno has just reported out that the officer who shot Mr. Scott is also African American:
From CMPD sources: both of the officer and the victim involved in this shooting are African-American @wsoctv pic.twitter.com/fUFYYESz1m
— Joe Bruno (@JoeBrunoWSOC9) September 21, 2016
Given the community response to today’s events and the CMPD’s response to the community, this is going to be a fluid, dynamic, and quickly changing situation. As more info comes in, I’ll update until I rack out for the night.
Updated at 11:55 PM EDT
Here’s the link to WSOC TV 9’s Live Feed.
And here’s WBTV 3’s Live Feed.
The Mayor of Charlotte has just tweeted out the following:
The community deserves answers and full investigation will ensue. Will be reaching out to community leaders to work together @CMPD @ncnaacp
— Mayor of Charlotte (@CLTMayor) September 21, 2016
lamh36
this is from The Root…
UPDATE: Keith Lamont Scott Identified as Disabled Black Man Shot Dead by N.C. Police While Reading in Car
lamh36
More outrage over Kaep protest from certain quarters than the the two deaths in Oklahoma and North Carolina…smh
Colin Kaepernick on death threats: Killing me would only prove my point
lamh36
there’s saying in the community Adam… “all our skin folk ain’t our kin folk”…so no it doesn’t matter that the cop was Black.
Heck, I’m in NOLA and 1/2 the Danzinger bridge 2 of the 5 cops were Black guys…and majority of NOPD are Black…so naw…in some cases that Blue Wall transcends race…smh
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: You do know you have to give me a minute or two to finish the post, right?//
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Tracking. But it was one of the first updates that was reported out and also why I indicated it doesn’t make anything better.
lamh36
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah…sorry :-)
I’m up and couldn’t sleep with this news…I was just getting updated on Terrance Crutcher in Tulsa when this came across my feed…ugh.
Mike in NC
We really need to get rid of the Koch Brothers’ puppet and homophobe Art Pope’s favorite scumbag Pat McCrory in NC this election.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: No worries. But please remember I can only type so fast.
Aleta
Four days ago, Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old unarmed black man, was tased and shot dead in Tulsa, Oklahoma while his hands were in the air. Several videos, including aerial, (they are released and online) contradict police statements that he was reaching into his car when they killed him. The Justice Department has opened a separate civil rights investigation.
lamh36
This list just seems to get longer and longer each time…soon enough they’ll be nothing left for Black folk to do freely in this country without dying at the hands of police…smh
Omnes Omnibus
Not quite OT: MA Supreme Court rules that Black men may have a legitimate reason to flee the police.
ruemara
The national FOP endorsed Trump, a white supremacist’s wet dream. Cops, the white male ones, not only get off no matter how disgusting their behavior and rake in the blood money from goddamned law & order conservatives. A good 40% of the electorate are voting for the neonazi. And many liberals spent a good part of last winter into this spring yelling at stupid black people for not seeing their problems were really about economic insecurity, not out of control cops.
The core of hate in this country for dark skin… it’s been hard to acknowledge but even harder to watch nothing fucking change.
@Aleta: oh good. They diddle themselves for 2weeks, shrug and then say, oh inconclusive. Fuck them too.
Adam L Silverman
Here’s the link to WSOC TV 9’s Live Feed:
http://www.wsoctv.com/live-stream
And WBTV 3’s is here:
http://livestream.com/accounts/10950088/events/3587954
lamh36
In this NC case, apparently undercover police were looking for someone with a warrant, and they took the victim for the person they were looking…but he wasn’t the one…
Today, they sent an email at my job about a robbery at a bar near the hospital. The criminal was a woman with brown complexion, and wearing scrubs with our hospital logo on it, along with a large brimmed hat. My first thought was jokingly, what are they gonna do a lineup of employees? Then I thought, thank goodness I don’t own any wide brimmed hats…
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t mean to seem facetious or sarcastic, but how, exactly, does the MA Supreme Court see this being applied?
scav
I’m bitter. Cops now threatened by reading — perhaps not so surprising in North Carolina where they once had laws to prevent those sort of problems. “Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion to the manifest injury of the citizens of this state” etc etc etc. Uppity and worse, Un-‘merkan behavior, public reading! Far more dangerous than open carry by the right sort.
piratedan
well, nothing will change until there is some outreach between the communities themselves and the Police and for the Police to recognize that this is a serious fucking problem. I was raised to the thought that the police are public servants not fucking on the spot judges and juries and executioners. It seems that if even if they do get immediate compliance, it doesn’t fucking matter if you’re black.
This shit needs to change the police need to stop with this fucking omerta and recognize that yes, they ARE part of the problem. Also too, perhaps if they weren’t scared of everyone owning a fucking arsenal, there wouldn’t be a need to shoot first and then read them their rights.
Kropadope
It is often pointed out that police officers are scared for their lives and may shoot people as a panicked reaction. Police work is dangerous, but it doesn’t even make it into the top ten most dangerous jobs. This list places it as thirteen.
Fishers are more than eight times more likely to die on the job than police and make less money. Garbage collectors are twice as likely to die. It is more dangerous to be a cabbie and if a cabbie panicked and shot an unarmed person, who thinks it would get a pass like so many of these police shootings?
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Prosecutors have been known to argue that fleeing is evidence of guilt. This ruling kills that line of argument.
Adam L Silverman
@Kropadope: There’s a self accredited “PhD” from a non-accredited psych program in
WisconsinOhio with an institute in Minnesota that has set up his own research institute that is the go to for both training cops to respond to their fear response and to provide expert witness testimony that that is perfectly legit law enforcement response.Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: What school?
redshirt
That first Twitter quote is like out of a sci fi dystopia.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I understand that part, let me try to clarify my question: I think its great that the MA Supreme Court has ruled that fleeing law enforcement isn’t a sign of guilt, but how do they expect this to be applied in real world encounters between African Americans and law enforcement given what we have been observing for the past several years of some members of law enforcement using pain/force for immediate compliance and using non compliance as a justification for using and escalating force responses?
Kropadope
@Adam L Silverman: I’d like to read his dissertation on the sanctity of the thin blue line.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: That will take years of lower court decisions to sort out.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
Something else Black people can’t do: Read a book in a car .
This hits me hard. My father was an older parent. He retired when I was 8 years old. So, he spent many afternoons waiting for me after school.I see him, in the car, reading anything, waiting on me or my sisters .???
Adam L Silverman
I apologize its Minnesota, not Wisconsin – I’ll clarify the original comment in a sec. They guy’s name is William Lewinski. His research center is the Force Science Institute. His “doctorate” is from a distance learning program in Cincinnati: Union Institute and University. His center is affiliated with Minnesota State Mankato.
He’s a very dangerous, but well recompensed, fraud:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/expert-in-deadly-force-training-criticized-for-record-on-police/article_20a0f770-c507-5312-90b4-dc5d291a377b.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/canada-warned-about-controversial-police-shooting-expert-1.1374682
Mike J
@redshirt: The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I apologize its Minnesota, not Wisconsin – I’ll clarify the original comment in a sec. They guy’s name is William Lewinski. His research center is the Force Science Institute. His “doctorate” is from a distance learning program in Cincinnati: Union Institute and University. His center is affiliated with Minnesota State Mankato.
He’s a very dangerous, but well recompensed, fraud:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/ne…..a377b.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08…..later.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/…..-1.1374682
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Thank god.
redshirt
@Mike J: I got that reference!
Mike J
Everybody knows intellectually that the Trump campaign reminds them of It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. Have you actually read it in the past couple of years? Jeebus. It’s not even parody, it’s prognostication,
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m going to try again: how does this stop cops from escalating force against fleeing African Americans and non African Americans given that a lot of law enforcement seems to be trained on immediate compliance or escalation of force, with nothing in between.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Didn’t they have something similar about a year or so ago in Minneapolis? African American man sitting on a park bench reading a book, cops come by and give him a hard time, and the situation was immediately escalated.
Mike J
@Mike J: Do italic tags not work anymore? I only put in ital tags because I had no html toolbar.
But yes, I’m rereading ICHH, and I don’t know why there’s no character called Wolf Biitzer.
Aleta
White liberals speak of the possibility we are witnessing the rise of fascism as Trump has gained power. How we need to stop him or else we may see something happen as it did in Nazi Germany. But what else would you call years of black citizens gunned down in the streets, within minutes, by the state? Whose officers and officials feel fine about openly threatening, and posting violent cartoons and statements about, black citizens? A state whose black citizens are afraid to let their child leave the house?
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: Cause no one would believe a character called Wolf Blitzer that acts like Wolf Blitzer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I will clarify my answer. High court decisions give guidelines to lower courts. How it shakes out will take years of lower court decisions and the results of the appeals from those decisions. It was a good decision. Its effect will play out in the future.
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: There are lots of steps on the way. Just because a lot of people are ignoring them doesn’t mean they’re not happening or that they’re not important or that more care and attention should have been given to them as they occurred.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay, that makes sense. I thought my question wasn’t clear enough for you.
redshirt
We’ve had a Wolf Blitzer for some time, and that’s kind of ridiculous.
Kropadope
@Mike J:
Try “em” tags.
hovercraft
@ruemara:
The justice department has to be able to prove that the act/ murder was intentional and motivated by race/sex/sexuality, as far as I know. So basically unless the cop(s) are dumb enough to announce before or after, there is little that they can do except investigate. Their power at this point until laws are changed is investigate the departments and evaluate patterns and practices, and then get consent decrees. Lawyers help me out I’m in way over my head here.
RaflW
That mayor’s tweet needed to read “Am now reaching out to community.”
FFS this isn’t the first time (hell it isn’t the 200th time) cops have killed a black man in circumstances that look bad for the cops. Are politicians still this fvking clueless (answer: yes.).
Kropadope
@hovercraft: So basically, we don’t only have to prove the act, we have to prove the person’s mindset, an impossibility. Sounds like the mindset that got Zimmerman off his murder rap. Are all murder suspects afforded this consideration or does it depend on the victim?
Mary G
A woman on Red State (they’re against Trump, too) wrote a column about Terence Crutcher’s killing titled
An Unarmed Black Man Was Shot By Cops In Tulsa – Don’t Look Away.
I was surprised.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Yes, that is how the law works.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: The federal courts are going to hear if you pass the HTML bar?
RaflW
NC: Unarmed black man. And “a Taser was used on her father, then he was shot at least three times”
Tulsa: Unarmed black man. And “her gun drawn and a second officer approaches with his Taser drawn.”
What is the damn point of Tasers then, if cops just start popping bullets asap. There is so much wrong here. So much. And the bullshit of cops with Tasers is just one of the many. Fucking useless, frankly.
Mnemosyne
Jesus fucking Christ. Going by the last thing I heard about the Philandro Castile shooting in Minnesota, this sounds like a similar situation: nervous cops are looking for a suspect and overreact to an innocent man’s actions.
In a normal job, this kind of fuckup would get you fired, at a minimum, but I doubt any jury would convict a cop “who was just doing his job” when he shot and killed an innocent man.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: Probably too tech savvy for me.
lamh36
All the outrage and CYA from some athletes over Kaep protest…maybe this case and the Tulsa case will wake some of them up
@TheNBACentral
Russell Westbrook on instagram:
#TerrenceCrutcher ?
ruemara
@Adam L Silverman: I hate that man with the passion of a thousand suns. People refuse to target that problem. This unaccredited evil man is allowed to masquerade as an expert, train cops and provide expert witness that inevitably gets murderers off. Is there a just, righteous god? I don’t know, because this guy is alive, still respected and thriving.
@hovercraft: No, you’re correct. That doesn’t mean it’s essentially a make work wankfest that does nothing, because the criteria is based on feelings. And it seems negligent homicide is off the table. Cops’ feelings are not a worthy criteria for them to kill a man.
Kropadope
@ruemara: In this life, but perhaps he’ll spend the next ten as oppressed minorities in violent fascist states.
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara: The Feds generally can’t do murder. Unless it is Fed territory. They can only do violation of civil rights suits. It is a function of our federal system.
Aleta
@Omnes Omnibus:
This has an effect in itself, because small towns and cities will experience the court costs of these cases. As towns find themselves responsible for the increasing cost of the type of policing they allow, I think well-off white taxpayers may finally be motivated to care a little more.
The horrible part is that the citizen videos are only so recently possible, and still just represent a tiny fraction of what has been happening for years.
RaflW
@Mike J: Do folks around here follow @GreatDismal on Twitter?
His early books had a big impact on me in college (mid/late 80s). Seems kinda strange to be where we are now given what he was showing us of a future possibility then.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
There does seem to be something specifically about the Tulsa case that is upsetting people who weren’t upset before. My cousin-in-law the (black) cop who normally does a Facebook post like hey, we don’t know all the facts yet whenever there’s a police shooting did a post where he said it was totally indefensible.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: It’s a female cop. Lower on the totem pole of privilege. Look at which cops have ever even lost their jobs over things like this.
The hierarchy is as follows: White male
White female
POC (not black) male
POC (not black) female
Black female
Black male
I forgot which death by cop where the cops who murdered the unarmed man got a reprimand, but the supervisor who wasn’t there, she got fired.
lamh36
Ok I’m going to bed. But first I was just discussing with some friends that I feel like I’m getting more militant in my old age. I’m finding that unlike when I was younger, I’m speaking up more than I used to when it comes to talking about this type of stuff in mixed company. For good or ill, I def find myself looking thru more interaction through a prism of “wait is this valid criticism, or is this racial bias” and I’m finding I’m more likely to react like this than I used to–>
✊?✊?✊? (link)
good night BJ
Omnes Omnibus
@Aleta: Yes. I did not cover every down river effect of the decision. I am a bad person. Nonetheless, the results play out over time. A black guy that runs tomorrow may/will still get shot. It won’t help him. But over time, the world may change. People who are unhappy with the rate of progress are right. But if the courts are involved, this is the pace.
RaflW
@Mnemosyne: It helps (well, it doesn’t, but it makes some twisted sense) when you realize that “just doing their job” is in fact only to protect and serve white people. This is the context within which, unconsciously I think for most cops, but as a direct result of 100s of years of America’s homegrown white supremacy being the air everyone breathes, cops immediately kill unarmed black men but bring people like CO anti-abortion killer and armed nutjob Robert Lewis Dear, Jr. or the whole Bundy clan in alive.
redshirt
@lamh36: Me too. I feel like a radical.
Mike J
Next google product:
mixtape next song roadrunner
hovercraft
@RaflW:
This is where the psychology comes in, studies show that people perceive ‘blacks’ as bigger, stronger and older than they are, so they think/ assume that the taser will be/ is not effective and move onto lethal force. It’s why an armed white suspect can be cajoled, negotiated with or even tackled, whereas a black suspect is assumed to be intrinsically lethal, no weapons required. Remember anything can be turned into a weapon, and with black men their entire being is the weapon. Basically black men are just screwed, I’d say put your hands in the air, get down on your knees and lay flat on the ground, but we’ve seen people get shot and killed when laying down.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
<i> no longer works, but <em> does.
Mike J
If somebody said “mixtape gimme shelter” to me I’d say “Kim the waitress”
redshirt
Pour some sugar on me
Villago Delenda Est
@Steeplejack: Which is unspeakably stupid. Openbracket i closebracket is the HTML standard.
TriassicSands
In the truck reading a book…
Confronting officers with a gun posing an imminent threat…
Those don’t sound much alike and the truth ought to be discoverable by forensic experts.
It was sad seeing one African American man (a brother of the deceased?) saying “…all white people are devils,” when, apparently the police officer who fired the fatal shot is an African American.
Virtually every police force in this country needs to be thoroughly screened and re-trained. I get the impression — in shooting after shooting — that many police officers today are simply too fearful when they are on the job. They are killing people unnecessarily and often getting away with what the system calls “justified” use of force. Justified is not necessary and the real question I want answered in every one of these shootings is “Was the shooting necessary?” The answer is almost always going to be “no.” With better training, less fear, a more thoughtful approach to the situation, and a priority placed on resolving every confrontation with no loss of life (not just no loss of police lives) there would be a long list of dead people who would be alive today.
Major Major Major Major
@Villago Delenda Est: IIRC `em` is designed for screen-readers: “this word is emphasized” whereas `i` just means “this is italic”, for display purposes.
Steeplejack
@Villago Delenda Est:
I believe <i> was deprecated for a while, may be back in HTML 5 with new! improved! semantic meaning as opposed to merely “presentational” meaning.
Shorter: FYWP.
gwangung
I think the police are now being trained to be trigger happy…..and if you try to use non-violent ways to get someone to surrender, you’re fired.
What kind of message is THAT to the wider community?
RaflW
@hovercraft: OK, but the psychology comes from a societal pathology. One that can, if we really want to, change.
In the near term, I’d agree that black men in this country are screwed. But then so are their kids. And their moms. And their sisters. And maybe even me, a white guy. Not screwed at the same horrible level as back men are. But we are all robbed of our humanity and our moral standing if we tolerate this utter bullshit.
It is right up in our faces now. We white people are the problem. We have to hold our cops to a higher standard, retrain them, fire the bad ones, replace the reluctant chiefs and mayors who support inaction.
Or maybe the Black Lives Matter radicals are right. I admit that my white self is currently very uneasy with the idea of dismantling policing. I have done too little to understand the full magnitude of their demands and plans. I do know that what we’re doing now is just wrong. And continuing to do what we’ve always done will get us the same terrible, deadly and dehumanizing results.
Mike J
@Steeplejack: There are cases where you want ital without emphasis, like a book title. I would be appropriate. Semantic html was mostly done by people who weren’t really word geeks, so they didnt really get it right.
RaflW
@TriassicSands:
But here is how whiteness works. It demands of the black person who becomes a cop that they adopt the paranoid white frame of the black community and the big black dangerous man. So that AA man can be right while it was a black cop who proximately caused the killing.
Mike J
@Mike J: ‘Stupid autocorrect. Grrr. Won’t bother. It’s on their side.
eclare
@gwangung: That just happened in West Virginia. The former officer said the man was suicidal and that he thought it was suicide by cop. Gun down by his side, not pointed at the officer, and the officer wanted to talk him out of it. Other police arrived and shot and killed him.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne:
For the love of God, why are all these cops afraid in these totally non-scary situations?!?! (This is rhetorical, I know the answer.) But for real—these situations are in no way anything to be afraid of. Do they all have PTSD and heightened fear response? Are they not trained in rational self-control? Are our police forces filled with paranoiacs and children?! It is simply ridiculous how often this is the excuse.
sukabi
@Mnemosyne: way more publicly, video that’s indisputable that contradicts “official” version. Too hard to look away, ignore. And the “hits” just keep coming. There is no claiming “isolated incident” any more, and the level of palpable racism is getting stronger. No more lying eyes.
RaflW
@Suzanne: But that isn’t the point. The excuse only has to be sufficient to get the officer off. It can be laughable as hell, as long as it works to keep cops armed and out enforcing societal order. It only has to satisfy Internal Affairs. Or a D.A. Or 51% of the electorate that keeps returning a mayor to office who presides over a dirty chief & their cops.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: And that doesn’t even take into account competing instructions. Where you have cop 1 staying put your hands up and don’t move. Then cop 2 chimes in with put your hands on the back of your head and get on your knees. Which order do you comply with? Which of the two is most likely to escalate if you respond to the other’s instructions? What happens if cop 3 or cop 4 who have only heard/fixed on cop 1’s order see you follow cop 2’s order and decide to escalate?
RaflW
Alright, folks. I’m fully marinated in cynicism and anger. But I gotta get some sleep. Over and out on this shit-tastic day.
Plantsmantx
No, police clashed with protesters. That’s what almost always happens. The police attack.
Mike in NC
We attended a funeral in Charlotte last year and all of the cops present appeared to be idiot wingnuts. Big surprise I know!
JordanRules
Wonder how Frank Luntz will advise the Panthers and Cam to address this now that it’s right in their backyard?
Aleta
@Omnes Omnibus: I was agreeing with the points you made about the welcome court decision and how the courts will help change policing. That was my only thought about one way. I don’t doubt that you already understand that and many other effects in depth.
Lige
Why do the police really need to carry guns all the time – it seem like they are just asking for trouble. I think you could have the majority of police especially traffic cops etc unarmed and they would be able to do their jobs just as effectively and probably better. I think the fact they are cops, and anyone who actually attacked one would be hunted down and captured with all available manpower would be enough of a deterrent to keep the majority safe. It’s worked for Britain for a really long time.
joel hanes
@Suzanne:
Fear is the mind-killer
Damien
I had a real knockdown, drag out fight today with a near-total stranger about this stuff. It was astonishing to hear her just repeatedly say how cops should always have assumed immunity, and me trying to explain how that is literally the definition of a police state. Couldn’t even begin to grasp the idea that it’s not like they’ll ever give the power back that you give them.
Arclite
Reading while black.
Punishment: death.
I didn’t realize it was still the year 1850.
Patricia Kayden
@Omnes Omnibus: But only in Massachusetts for now at least. How does a fleeing person pose a threat to police anyways? Makes no sense.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: From the link about about the MA supreme court:
Putting out descriptions that basically equate to “we think he was black” means open season on black males by police. This has to stop.
bs
@Plantsmantx: yep. If you want to know who started a riot, look at who came dressed for one. But the greater community can’t do anything about it. Every time this happens, (and we’ll see it in all 3 of this week’s murders of unarmed black men, [ok,one was a 13-year old who was shot in the back, but fleeing children are SCARY!]) we see every single cop circle the wagons and defend the indefensible. So all those “good cops” cover, lie for, and defend the “bad cops”, which makes them ALL “bad cops”. Until they flush their turds, & by that i mean not just firings, but trials and convictions, this will keep happening over and over.
Dave
@Suzanne: I have PTSD and a have zero or almost no sympathy for the pearl clutching pants shitting fear that many LEO’s seem to operate in (even less for the open carry asshats that should be playing D&D to get their fantasy fix but that’s neither here nor there). LEO’s are immersed in training and a culture that tells them everything and everyone is a threat (though in reality it plays out that black men are viewed as the threat).
I worked at a hospital as a security guard and we had to sit in on some of the training that the hospital police force received and I remember one video specifically that talked about the case of a trooper killed by a 97 year old woman in a wheel chair which even if true, and I’m pretty sure it’s not never been able to find that story, and how therefore LEO’s have to assume everyone is wanting to kill you which is actually a more paranoid response than when I was in Iraq or Afghanistan (Afghanistan in particular we couldn’t leave wire without having at least a few shoot and scoot incidents) and therefore they need to be on edge all the time. It’s absurd because with over 300,000,000 people in this country you can find an incidence of anything killing at least one person so I suppose we should be afraid of everything.
So they make themselves afraid and then dehumanize people and fill themselves with rage because that’t what you do when you are afraid for your life (when I was in that place at least people were actively trying to kill me daily) its just particularly grotesque because the reality of the situation doesn’t support the fear it’s something they’ve done to themselves. And almost to a man they aren’t willing to acknowledge this. And then you add in how racism turns black men (even often to other black men) into terrifying entities that aren’t really human and you have the situation we have. Sorry not sure this was coherent or insightful it all just pisses me off too much.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mike J: “When fascism comes to America, it will be topped with a tangerine combover & carrying a grudge.”
Uncle Cosmo
@Adam L Silverman: Get the character’s name right: It’s Woof Bluster, the bastard great-grandson of Phineas T. Bluster, & every bit the wooden puppet. (Edited to add a couple of generations to the line of Bluster spawn.)
tarragon
@Mike J:
Perfectly clear and evenly blue?
This used to be one of my favorite opening lines ever. But it’s been a long time since TVs showed static.
ChrisGrrr
@Mike J: Props.
Gibson is without peer…
Rick Kane
I went to check this before commenting, but I verified that North Carolina is a open carry state & that it is perfectly lawful to have a gun in your car. Except apparently when Black.