With the marches and riots that occurred over the last several weeks, we find that still not much has changed. Unarmed black men continue to die. Part of it is their own fault. I know that sounds like an unsupportable and undefendable statement, but wait for the explanation.
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| Rayshard Brooks with family |
Rayshard Brooks was killed two weeks ago after police were called to a Wendy's in Atlanta, Georgia. As always these days, there was decent video taken by witnesses, Wendy's surveillance cameras and the officers' body cams. The story told was Rayshard was DUI; passed out in his car in the Wendy's drive-thru line. When he failed the breathalyzer, police attempted to take him into custody. He scuffled with them; obtained one of the officer's taser and fled. He was chased down and shot dead when he used the taser on one officer and attempted to use it on the other. Categorically, he was armed. However, a taser may hurt like hell, but it's not likely to kill you unless you are tased 32 times. He shouldn't have been gunned down like he was.
Why did he flee? Getting caught with another DUI would have sent him back to prison. He would have eventually been caught and sent back to prison anyway. He was in his car. He should have submitted and taken his chances in court. Better to go back to jail then to go to the morgue. But when one is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, one does not think rationally.
The issue is not so much that he freaked out and tried to escape and take down a few cops with him, but that the officers never had full control of the situation. This sums up to BAD POLICING. Everything that could have gone wrong did. Brooks wrestled the one officer's taser from him, which he had aimed at Brooks. That taser should never have been pulled on less it was intended to be used. Immediately. That officer only threatened to use it, giving Brooks enough time to take it from him and tasing said officer. Rookie mistake.
Was deadly force necessary? No. Did Rayshard bring this on himself? Yes. If you behave badly, bad shit can and will happen to you. Could the cops have done things differently? That's a resounding fahk yes. First, they lacked training on deescalating the situation. Second, they lacked training on how to take down and keep a suspect down without it turning into a wrestling match or "choking him out." And thirdly, they should have been able to pull something else out of their bag of tricks besides a lethal weapon.
Some people proclaim if they needed to shoot, couldn't they just have wounded him? No. Are you fahken kidding me? Have you ever been to a gun range? The targets are sheets of paper with just a torso and head. There are no targets containing just arms, legs, tushies or any other body part. Chances are if a suspect was shot in the ass, it was his lucky day, and that cop would need to report to the shooting range to be retested. Cops are not trained to shoot to wound. They are trained to shoot to kill. Which is why cops need to learn to deescalate so that it never comes to two stupid things being done. The first is a suspect behaving badly; the second, the police reacting badly. And the topping on this shit-cake is after Brooks was down, they didn't render him medical attention. They demonstrated a terrible lack of respect for another human life. So being fired and charged with a crime is justified. His partner too should have been fired and charged. In for a penny; in for a pound. You and your partner work as a team. If one of you fuct up, you both fuct up.
In this time of Black Lives Matter, a lot of people are doubling down. Not a good thing to do, people. Cops are not backing down. People are becoming more emboldened. Meaning: Cops are exercising more Zero Tolerance. And some blacks are thinking they can get away with all kinds of shit because the Po-Po or the establishment are shitting bricks because of civil unrest. It's the same old equation that never adds up: 1 wrong + 1 wrong <> 1 right. In words, two wrongs don't make a right.
The officer who shot Brooks has had issues in the past, just like the "Kneeler" (Chauvin) did. He was once reprimanded for aiming his weapon at a car. To prove my point further, he shot Brooks in the vicinity of innocent bystanders, demonstrating a lack of public safety and common sense.
It's clear that police departments are too tolerant of bad behavior of their officers. I understand. It's a shitty job. You need to eat a lot of shit to do that job. And the boss has to give a lot of leeway to keep a force in tact. Becoming a cop, you are signing up for putting your life in danger. It's a stressful occupation. Which is why local governments and the U.S. Legislature need to reevaluate how cops are trained and how their mental health is. The times have changed. American Civil Rights of all people are on the line. Cops rights too. But they can't use being a cop and doing my duty to commit crimes either. There needs to be a line and not a wavy line. I mean a line that is the same in all states. A Federal line. Police behavior in New York City must be the same in Ferguson, Missouri. It must be the same in Atlanta, Georgia as it is in Los Angeles, California. All police forces need to exercise the same rules regardless of state. It's what we fought the Civil War over. And as I recall the American forces from the north prevailed. Fahken rebel scum. And the same laws should apply to this bullshit Stand your Ground laws. It's a bad law. And dumbasses who think they're within their rights are going to find themselves with life sentences or the death penalty.
Heed this advice: Before you pull that trigger, think about it. It may not be just your target's life you are fahking up.
I had the opportunity to join the Sunrise, Florida PD in 1978. A night shift Lieutenant was trying to recruit me. I declined. I knew I did not have the bandwidth to be a cop. I'm very judgmental. I'd use the old "shoot first and ask questions later" idiom. It's my personality. Just like I'd never make a good doctor, nurse or medical person. I have empathy but only a little and would probably ball out every patient who whined about their pain, especially those who think that giving birth was some kind of miracle on their part as if they're the only ones to have gone through this, ever. (You know there have been over 107 billion people born on Earth since the beginning of time.) I'm just saying, get over it. You did the deed; so now reap the benefits or the horror. You decide.
I know my limitations. I know what I like and don't like. I don't place myself in circumstances where I could fail especially when it involves other people's lives. Who is qualified or unqualified to be in law enforcement has to be more than it's a family tradition or you want to make a difference. You have to be able to do the job both physically and mentally. I see fat cops that should lose the weight or take a desk job or go work at a Wendy's.
What I'm saying: Everyone goes into a job with good intentions, I believe. I'm giving everybody the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure some go in because they're macho assholes who just want to stump on people. In every line, there are assholes that give the occupation a bad name. Unfortunately, those are the ones that are appearing on the news and online media these days.
The collateral damage that disturbs me is the Wendy's restaurant. It had nothing to do with what happened to Brooks. And it's believed the white trash bitch that is suspected of torching it was Brooks' girlfriend. People like her just don't get it. She's just displaced dozens of workers, who now have no income, maybe unemployment, which pays nothing. The owners, who most likely are franchisees, will have to go painstakingly through the insurance company in the hopes that it will be worth rebuilding. And the community will be without fresh, not frozen, 100% all beef burgers. We're not talking about a few people. And what did it solve? Not a fahken thing. She needs to be locked up and for a very long time.
In general, we're all on edge with the Coronavirus stats beginning to climb again in half the country. The ongoing systemic racism that has been ignored by the government for 155 years. No one being big enough to step up and really make a difference to stop all this hate and injustice. Tempers boil over extremely easy. But the one thing that we need on both sides of the line is education.
We all need to understand the other side's issues. We need to understand why the establishment treats people of color so poorly. After all, Whitey brought them into this country against their will. Whitey has to own that fact. And the fact that they should never have owned them in the first place. Did we enslave the Asians when they arrived on our shores? I know we didn't enslave the Native Americans, the first peoples who were already here when the Europeans landed. We systematically tried to eradicate them. Does Genocide ring any bells for ya? It makes sense because we celebrate this asshole Christopher Columbus, who never "discovered" America and was a genocidal maniac killing off all the natives on the Caribbean islands that he did "discover." Education. We need to stop teaching our children the bullshit that I was taught that was only about 60 percent true. I want a fahken refund of my parents' property taxes. Then I want that money to go to the purchase of books that will teach the real American History. We need to start respecting each other regardless of our backgrounds or ethnicity. This is a call to NO ARMS. We need words. Not unkind or abusive words, but words of understanding and information.
We have this issue because the system was built by Rich, White, Entitled Men, who only cared about money and whatever else was in it for them. Everyone else was expendable and worthless. And I mean the Vanderbilts, Morgans, Carnegies, Fords and Rockefellers. The tycoons of the gilded age. The only thing I have in common with those people is I have white skin and I'm a man. But I'm not 100% white. As mentioned in previous posts, I may be about 6% Iroquois. It's not much, but shit at least I can sleep at night knowing that I'm trying to make a difference and I'm not like that autocrat wannabe dictator, Donald J. Trump or his cronies.
I don't have a solution to any of what is going on. However, I do know if people stay home and behave, we might make it out of 2020 alive. Until next time, TTFN.
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