@albert69 - do you know anyone who rents out a room or apartment via airBnB or VRBO and doesn’t tell their insurance company or the city that collects taxes? I know a few people who do this. They are all white and they are all committing a crime, technically. Will it get them killed like illegally selling CDs or individual cigarettes? Not likely.
Do I really need to convince you that black people are disproportionately convicted of crimes, often quite ridiculous crimes? Mr. Sterling’s felony was being found in possession of marijuana while he was (legally) carrying his gun. The drug charge was dropped, so was it still a gun felony? Let’s all dig into the minor charges, often dropped, and petty misdemeanors in his past because after all, he was just killed by a policeman and we have to make ourselves feel good about that somehow, as if it weren’t completely and utterly horrifying that someone sworn to protect us would kill one of us.
And the man in Minnesota? He was a straight A student in high school but he was pulled over dozens of times by cops. Dozens of times - oh, that must make him guilty of something (besides driving while black). I’ve been pulled over 4 times and I am far older than Phildon was.
This is what I found just now. Facebook seems to have taken down the originial video. Is it a gun? I don’t know. Can I say it definitely isn’t a gun? No. I’m sure the FBI have high resolution ways to determine exactly what it is.
I don’t have all the facts and neither do any of you.
It appears that the Ramsey County (Mpls/StP) sheriff’s department had tweeted recently that Castile had never applied for a permit to carry and so therefore they had never issued one. So the kinds-of-people-who-don’t-think-things-through jumped all over it and said “see? he didn’t have a permit.”
Well, of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t live there. He obtained the permit in Hennepin County, where his residence was at the time he applied for a permit.
So again, nice try. God, some websites are just so … desperate, aren’t they!
Lawyer said the cop was reacting to the presence of a gun. Did he see the gun or did the guy say he had a gun? We don’t know.
Did the Hennepin sheriff say he had a permit? I hadn’t seen that. And permit or no, if the guy is reaching for a gun, it doesn’t matter if it is permitted or not.
We don’t have a video of the first moments of the encounter to know what was said.
Those facts clearly show working tail lights. So, the MN police pulled him over under false pretenses, lied to him, and the whole time had already decided that they were both likely guilty of an earlier armed robbery, because they “fit the profile”. From all these lies and assumptions come death and destruction. Nice police work there.
P.S. Whatever they zoomed in on and circled doesn’t look like a gun, or a piece of metal, and isn’t under his left leg! I suppose this site also showed a missile hitting the Pentagon on 9/11.
BLM demonstrators are seeming to continue to try to get onto and block the interstate in Atlanta. Things were escalating, but seem to be less overtly tense than 10 or so minutes ago…
Both the Minneapolis Tribune and KARE 11(the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis/ St. Paul) have reported that Castile was licensed to carry a firearm by Hennepin County.
In Baton Rouge, US-61 has been shut down a few times briefly. There are protests at police headquarters which is on 61. So far relatively peaceful. A few arrests last night, and more tonight, mostly for blocking the road. There area also rumors and one alert from a local station, that the interstate was shut down briefly.
“Let’s all dig into the minor charges, often dropped, and petty misdemeanors in his past because after all, he was just killed by a policeman and we have to make ourselves feel good about that somehow, as if it weren’t completely and utterly horrifying that someone sworn to protect us would kill one of us.”
In fairness, though, I think the BLM movement would do well to carefully pick and choose who are the “examples” they want to hold up for scrutiny.
Like it or not, most people are going to feel more empathy for / sorrier for the black guy with no criminal record who was just minding his business and doing nothing wrong, such as Castile, or that one young man (don’t know his name) who was shot while reaching for his license. People are going to feel a little less sorry for Sterling who had a record, and particularly less sorry for Michael Brown who had just knocked over a convenience store.
I think the BLM movement shoots itself in the foot (sorry for the expression) by treating these things all the same. You would all do better if you focused on the clean-as-a-whistle guys if you want to get anywhere.
Is the freeze frame faked? Maybe. But none of us know now where the gun was. Was it on his lap? Was it somewhere else in the car? Maybe.
But what did the lawyer mean when he said the cop was reacting to the presence of a gun? We don’t know.
2)The officer still sounds distressed as he explains, “I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand off it.”
Those are the officers words per a CNN article.
“It” must be the gun.
Doesn’t really matter. A licensed or unlicensed gun.
From comments here it appears it is going to be very difficult for this officer to find an impartial jury. I don’t know what happened but I am keeping an open mind.
Maybe. Or maybe he didn’t have time to make up a lie and blurted out the truth. We don’t know. But it is not right for anyone to say that the cop is guilty (or not guilty) because the all the facts have not yet come out.
It is linked to police misconduct with respect to black people. If black law abiding citizens are afraid to call the police (due to the risk of being mistaken for suspects) or unwilling to help the police (because they believe that the police are chasing or detaining someone because s/he is black, rather than because s/he is committing a crime), then the police become less effective, resulting in criminals having more freedom to commit crimes. Of course, that creates a vicious cycle in increasing the perception (among police and others) that the black neighborhood is more dangerous with respect to crime, leading to more prejudicial behavior among police, leading to greater mistrust of police, leading to police being less effective, leading to more freedom for criminals to commit crimes, etc…
You’re comparing apples & oranges. The question you should be asking is whether black property owners who let out on AirBnB are sanctioned for tax evasion more than white property owners who let out on AirBnB.
If one took the time to look into BLM, one would see that they are committed to addressing structural inequalities including criminal justice reform as well as poverty reform measures.
No, we won’t. Testimony about what was said will come down to the two cops versus the girlfriend. There will be evidence as to where the gun was. There will be evidence as to whether he was pulled over as an armed robbery suspect, which goes to the state of mind of the police when they pulled him over. There will be autopsy evidence including whether he had drugs or alcohol in his system. The police officer’s record may come into evidence. Has he been accused of misconduct or brutality in the past.
Media reports are often wrong. (Just look at the last few days. There were two, then three, then four shooters in Dallas at first. The guy in the camoflauge was a suspect).
@TatinG - lawyers are very careful. His wording, “reacting to the presence of a gun” implies that a gun was seen, but doesn’t say if the gun was actually seen or not. It does give the cop an out because he was “reacting to the presence of a gun”, not just shooting an innocent man.
The lawyer surely knows that none of us will be fooled by, “he was reaching for a gun” or “the policeman legitimately thought he was reaching for a gun” or even, “I was in fear for my life”. Those phrases have all been overused and are considered to be a bit shady by now. “Reacting to the presence of a gun” is a new one, but it basically is trying to set up the policeman to have an excuse for shooting and killing an innocent man.
@GMTplus7 - they are not apples and oranges. They are both “petty crimes” but one is more likely to have white perps and not be policed and the other is likely to have black perps and be policed.