Updated: When I was eating breakfast, Hagar watched the video. When she came to the place where the cops opened fire, the cop yell’s “hands up”, not “Drop the Gun”. I got it wrong. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.
Honest, I wrote this before J.Kb. posted his version.
At the end of May in 2020 I watched camera footage of a police officer kneeling on the neck of a black man, slowly chocking him to death while the man repeated over and over again “I can’t breathe”.
I was so angry. I was glad I had not observed that in person. I did not know if I would have had the courage to intervene to save that man’s life. An out of control cop murdered a black man while people were screaming at him to stop.
When we discussed that horrific video at the table that night, we were all convinced that we had witnessed a cop killing an unarmed, handcuffed black man. Why? Why would he do that?
Over the next few weeks, we started to find out more. As always, it is best to wait to find out the facts, not what we think we saw. It turns out that the black man was a career criminal who was in the process of overdosing. He had just tried to pass off counterfeit money, was attempting to evade the police and had been just been removed from the squad because he was “having problems breathing”.
It seems likely that he had swallowed his stash, which is the cause of the overdose. Once he was out of the squad and before the famous video began, he was struggling with a police officer. The police officer was not “kneeling on his neck” but actually had his knee on the man’s shoulders holding him down, waiting until it was safe to transfer him to the EMTs for transport.
This incident led to a summer of violence in multiple cities and is still with us today. That one video with the massive narrative behind it has done more to damage our society in the last 5 years than any single event I can think of outside of 9/11 and 12/7.
And it was all based on a lie.
When I received an email describing the outrageous behavior of a bunch of cops that murdered a man, I started to write a highly emotional response, ready to slam the cops for their actions.
Here is how that article began:
On April 5th, 2023 an elite team of officers were responding to a domestic violence report. The cops showed up at the house and did the cop knock. Of course, the left plenty of time for people to respond.
— AWA, rough draft
I finished that short paragraph and realized that I wanted to verify the type of knock, the length of time that was allowed for the residents to respond. I watched the video. What I saw was stupidity that ended a man’s life and will or should end another’s career.
The facts of the incident:
Three cops respond to a domestic violence call. They approach on foot. The arrive at a suburbia home, nicely maintained, outside lights on, inside lights out. No noises from inside the house.
The lead officer opens the screen door and politely knocks. It wasn’t the demanding cop knock
of fame. It was a polite knock on the door. He waited about 40 seconds and knocked again. He waited another 40 seconds and knocked a third time.
At that point, the cops start talking with dispatch to have dispatch call the 911 caller back to get them to come to the door. To quote a television cop, Something seemed hinkey.
While waiting on dispatch, the three cops start talking and realize they are at the wrong address. The lead cop chuckles and starts to back away.
As this happens, he sees the male resident coming to the door. Lights come on inside the house for the first time. Lead cop exclaims something like “oh shit”.
As the door opens and the male resident starts to open the screen door, the lead cop’s gun starts to come up. In the video, I see what looks like a pistol coming up and the man going into a two-handed stance with the gun pointed straight at the cop.
When the door started to open, all three cops turned on their lights and pointed them at the door. The resident was not seeing anything but shapes behind those bright lights. There were no flashing red and blues. There was nothing except three very bright lights pointed at him.
Lead cop yells, Drop the gun!
About the time you hear the n
of gun
, he opens fire and the man drops. The other cops start firing as well.
The cops move back, a female resident comes to the door screaming about her husband. As she comes out the door, there is a very, very short flash from her hands. My first thought on seeing that flash was that it looked like a gun shot. There was no sound to go with it, but all three cops respond by opening fire once again.
You can go watch it yourself, sorry, but it is on the book of acquaintances.
So what happened?
The cops showed up at the wrong fucking house. They were at the wrong house number. Some reports say it was even the wrong street. They woke up the residents at 2330. The residents responded poorly by, to quote Miguel, Breaking the perimeter
.
These cops are going to get away with murder. They are going to be covered under qualified immunity. They fucked up so badly that at least one person is dead and another was wounded. They should be fired. They should have their cop licenses revoked. They should have to do pen entice for the next 40 years, daily.
Maybe somebody who is a law enforcement officer can tell me why they didn’t park in front of the house with lights on? That might have saved lives.
For us, it teaches us, once again, don’t break the perimeter. Don’t expose yourself. Know your target and what is beyond it.
I hurt for that family. I’m angry. I hope we all learn something from this.
