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tamir rice
WaPo Tallies Police Killings-but Holds Back Some of the Numbers That Count
Dec 29, 2015
Concerned that official records undercount the number of people shot and killed by police in the United States every year, the Washington Post (12/26/15) attempted to compile a list of every fatal police shooting in 2015. The paper found nearly a thousand cases--more than twice as many as the FBI reports in a typical year.
The Post's project--which corroborates a similar tally conducted by the British Guardian (6/9/15)--is a journalistic accomplishment, as well as an achievement of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has worked to call attention to police violence in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.
But it's hard for me to escape the feeling that the Post story--by Kimberly Kindy and Marc Fisher--was framed by the paper to minimize the project's remarkable findings. Take the first paragraph that summarizes the details of the results:
In a year-long study, the Washington Post found that the kind of incidents that have ignited protests in many US communities--most often, white police officers killing unarmed black men--represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings. Meanwhile, the Post found that the great majority of people who died at the hands of the police fit at least one of three categories: They were wielding weapons, they were suicidal or mentally troubled, or they ran when officers told them to halt.
"The kind of incidents that have ignited protests...represent less than 4 percent of fatal police shootings." That sure sounds like an attempt to play down the number. Particularly since the write-up never presents the raw number for fatal police shootings of unarmed African-Americans in 2015--which is 37--or the more comprehensive number of all unarmed civilians shot and killed: 90. Those numbers can be found on a graphic that accompanied the story in the paper's print edition, and in an interactive feature online-but are nowhere to be found in the Post's own article on its project. ("Just 9 percent of shootings involved an unarmed victim," a sidebar accompanying the graphic began--that word "just" indicating that we should read that as "not so many.")
The Post's "meanwhile," juxtaposed against "incidents that have ignited protests," implies that the categories that follow would not inspire protest: those killed "wielding weapons," who were "suicidal or mentally troubled," or who "ran when officers told them to halt."
People very much protest these sorts of police killings, starting with Michael Brown, who ran when Wilson told him to halt. Laquan McDonald, whose death at the hands of Chicago police has resulted in a first-degree murder charge for officer Jason Van Dyke and the ouster of the city's police chief, was "wielding" a three-inch knife when he was shot 16 times, so he would have been counted in the first category--as would Tamir Rice, since the Post made the questionable choice to count "toy weapons" in the same category as knives.
The piece stresses that police killings can result from "a single bullet fired at the adrenaline-charged apex of a chase" and prominently cites the argument of Pennsylvania police union president Les Neri that "officers make split-second decisions" while "their bosses, prosecutors, jurors and the public have the luxury of examining every frame of video." Neri's quote becomes the pull quote in the print edition:
"We now microscopically evaluate for days and weeks what they only had a few seconds to act on," Neri said. "People always say, 'They shot an unarmed man,' but we know that only after the fact. We are criminalizing judgment errors."
With a background in law enforcement, Neri must be aware that people can be prosecuted for judgment errors that result in death; that's why there's a crime called criminally negligent homicide. Yet the piece presents his argument at length as though it were a novel legal concept to hold people criminally responsible when their bad decisions end up killing people.
A sample of how the Guardian puts US police killings in context.
The Post's delicate approach to police killings can be appreciated by comparison with the Guardian's similar project. For one thing, the Guardian contrasts the numbers with statistics on police killings in Europe, so you can see that the rate at which US cops kill people is far out of line with the frequency of such deaths in comparable countries. For example, England and Wales had 55 fatal police shootings in the last 24 years, while the US had 59 in just 24 days. (The higher level of crime in the US explains some but not much of this difference; the US murder rate is about four times the UK's but has a rate of police killings about 70 times as high.)
More viscerally, it's instructive to compare how the two papers visualize the toll of police killings. In the print edition of the Washington Post, those killed by police are represented by what appear to be stylized bullets--with black dots on the ones that represent African-Americans. On the Post website, the dead appear as stereotyped silhouettes:
On the Guardian site, by contrast, the dead are represented, when possible, by actual photos--revealing themselves not as a set of statistics or a collection of weapons wielded but as individuals, each a unique human life lost as the result of a police decision. An appreciation of that fact, more than anything, is what's missing from the Washington Post's tally of fatal police shootings.
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This is American Terrorism: White Supremacy's Brutal, Centuries-Long Campaign of Violence
There's a war being waged against Black Americans, whether white America wants to admit it or not
Jun 19, 2015
The evidence is clear. The reports are in. There is no other conclusion. It's 2015, and Black people in America are under a sustained and lethal terrorist attack.
In North Charleston, S.C., not too far from the place where the A.M.E. terrorist attack on 9 Black church members took place, Walter Scott was shot several times in the back as he fled from police on foot, posing no immediate threat. In Staten Island, N.Y., Eric Garner was choked to death by officers as he gasped for air, exclaiming: "I can't breathe." In Baltimore, MD, a frightened Freddie Gray fled from Brian Rice and two other white officers on foot. By the time he was placed in the police wagon, his leg had been broken. By the final time he was removed from the wagon, three of his vertebrae had been cracked and his voice box had been crushed.
In Barstow, Calif., a pregnant Black woman named Charlena Michelle Cook was viciously thrown to the ground as she screamed and pleaded, telling the officers: "Please! I'm pregnant." Recalling the incident later, Cooks stated that officers treater her "like an animal, like a monster, like I didn't exist, like I was not human." In St. Louis, Mo., protester Kristine Hendrix was walking home on the sidewalk when an officer cut off her and a male colleague and then proceeded to use a Taser on her twice as she lay on the concrete writhing and screaming in pain. She was able to capture the incident on her cellphone and the police are currently under investigation.
In the last month alone, the accounts of racial terror reports have been trickling in. We've witnessed former Officer Eric Casebolt verbally and physically attack a group of Black teenagers in McKinney, TX, forcing Black boys to lie down and then violently slamming Dejerria Becton to the ground. He then put his knee on her back, placed his weight on her body, and ignored her pleas for relief. All the while, he allowed Brandon Brooks, a white teenager, to stand and walk around freely. (Thankfully, Brandon used his privilege to film the entire incident.)
Then in Fairfield, Ohio, a whole gang of white police officers brutally accosted, pepper sprayed, choked, and slammed the family of Krystal Dixon to the ground as a young white male in his swim trunks forced his forearm onto the throat of a young Black teenage male as we was already being arrested by a white cop. A white female cop grabbed a young Black girl by the back of her neck as the other white male cops viciously manhandled other Black teenage girls, so much so that a 12-year-old has her jaw broken along with 3 ribs cracked by white Fairfield police. It ended up with a picture of a young girl in the hospital looking like this, with a solitary tear streaming down her face.
In a nation that saw 3,959 lynchings of Black people committed by an assortment of white American terrorists between 1877-1950 with no one punished for these nearly 4,000 atrocities, history reverberates through these most current traumatic incidents. This is a nation that has ignored multiple instances of mass anti-Black mob violence carried out by thousands of whites in the following cities:
- Wilmington, North Carolina (1898)
- Atlanta, Georgia (1906)
- Springfield, Illinois (1908)
- St. Louis, Missouri (1917)
- Chicago, Illinois (1919)
- Elaine, Arkansas (1919)
- Washington, DC (1919)
- Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921)
- Rosewood, Florida (1923)
This list only includes three of the 25-plus cities where Black people were met with white supremacist mob violence during the Red Summer of 1919. All told, thousands of Black lives were wiped out during these and other instances of racial cleansing. White supremacist racial cleansing destroyed intact and thriving Black communities and business districts, directly stunting Black economic growth and constraining the viability of future community health and wellness.
In a nation that witnessed the death of 4 girls and the injury of another at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, church by members of the arch-terrorist organization Ku Klux Klan, the slaughter of nine unarmed Black churchgoers at Emanuel A.M.E. Church and the assassination of Pastor and State Senator Clementa Pickney stirs up the ghosts of America's haunted past. Dylann Roof brutally murdered us as we worshipped in our sacred space. Dylann Roof butchered us as we talked with the "God of our weary years, God of our silent tears."
Meanwhile, the same media that declared a deadly shootout between biker gangs in Waco, TX, a "brawl," has labelled the murder of 9 in Charleston a "shooting." But this was no mere shooting. It was a cold-blooded, pre-meditated, white supremacist terrorist attack that ended the lives of nine unarmed Black people in the same church co-founded by the revolutionary Denmark Vesey, who sought to overthrow America's wicked regime of human bondage and chattel slavery.
The terrorist Dylann Roof has been caught, but the threat has not abated. Whether at swimming pools or churches, whether on suburban sidewalks or city streets, there is no place Black folk are safe from the police use of excessive force or guns of a white supremacist assassin. History has shown that white supremacist violence is grossly systemic and is an existential threat to Black people living in America.
We have not overcome. We are not post-racial. We are at the crossroads. The world is upside down when Dylann Storm Roof, James Eagan Holmes, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are captured alive while Tamir Rice, John Crawford III, and Aiyana Stanley-Jones lie in an early grave. The question now is: will white Americans confront the ideology of white supremacy and uproot it from every policy, practice, and community? Because domestic American white supremacist terrorism must end.
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Associated Press Publishes Hit Job on Tamir Rice
Jun 14, 2015
You are all familiar with this story. A young boy is playing in the park, a police car pulls up and in less than two seconds, 12-year old Tamir Rice is on the ground, bleeding from what would prove to be a fatal gunshot wound. For more than six months the investigation(s) into this videotaped killing has languished. Now, coincidentally, two days after a judge found probable cause that the police officer who shot Rice should face murder charges, and the Associated Press was presented with the opportunity to run a hit job on ... Tamir Rice. And, boy, oh boy, did they run with it.
It turns out that, again, after more than six months of silence and yet just two days after the judge's opinion, documents in the killing of Tamir were released "in the interests of transparency." Uh huh. Cue the Associated Press with its screaming headline:
Boy with pellet gun warned by friend before police shooting
That's right! Tamir was warned! No word if Tamir was warned that he would be shot without warning for the crime of being in a public park, because the only quotes in this article come from the prosecutor, an unnamed FBI agent and the shooter's lawyer.
So, what else do we learn from the Associated Press?
Investigators were told that Tamir used the airsoft gun, which shoots non-lethal plastic projectiles, to shoot at car tires that day.
Not only non-lethal, but non-able-to-shoot-out-a-freaking-tire. Not to mention, that's not why the police confronted Tamir.
The video appears to show Tamir reaching for the pellet gun, which is tucked in his waistband, after he was shot.
It does? The only thing I see is Tamir reaching for his stomach when he's shot.
And what about the police officers being "criticized for not giving Tamir first aid"? (Side note: Do you think the Associated Press could come up with a stronger word than "criticized" in describing two men standing over the dying body of a 12-year-old, doing absolutely nothing to help him?) Cue the unnamed FBI agent who happened to be in the area and did attempt to render some sort of first aid more than four minutes after Tamir was shot:
The officers seemed to freeze, the agent said.
"They wanted to do something, but they didn't know what to do," the agent told investigators.
Of course, the officers weren't too frozen to take down Tamir's 14-year-old sister, tackling her, handcuffing her, and tossing her in the back of their squad car when she had the temerity to run up to her brother.
And according to the FBI agent, the shooter was really upset!
Loehmann, who had sprained his ankle while falling back after the shooting, was described as distraught by the agent, according to the documents.
In fact, Loehmann was so distraught that the initial story was--you know, before the video proved that he was lying through his teeth--that:
A rookie officer and a 10-15 year veteran pulled into the parking lot and saw a few people sitting underneath a pavilion next to the center. The rookie officer saw a black gun sitting on the table, and he saw the boy pick up the gun and put it in his waistband, Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association President Jeffrey Follmer said.
The officer got out of the car and told the boy to put his hands up. The boy reached into his waistband, pulled out the gun and the rookie officer fired two shots, Tomba said.
All lies. Apparently the Associated Press forgot about that whole videotape thing because they dutifully conclude this absolute load of codswallop disguised as journalism with this:
In Tamir's death, Cleveland police said Loehmann told him three times to drop the weapon before the boy reached toward his waistband and the officer fired.
Sheriff's detectives wrote that from witness interviews it was unclear if Loehmann shouted anything to Tamir from inside the cruiser before opening fire.
Oh, and we also learn that Tamir was "big for his age," that the FBI agent guessed he was an "older teenager" and that police officers "shared the same belief."
So ... apparently he had it coming.
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Cleveland Judge Recommends Charges for Police Who Killed Tamir Rice
'We are grateful that the wheels of justice are starting to turn,' says family of 12-year-old killed in park
Jun 12, 2015
A judge in Cleveland on Thursday found probable cause that police officer Timothy Loehmann should face murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide, negligent homicide, and dereliction of duty charges in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice last November. The judge also ruled that probable cause exists to charge Loehmann's partner, Officer Frank Garmback, with negligent homicide and dereliction of duty.
However, Judge Ronald B. Adrine, presiding judge of the Municipal Court, said he did not have the power to order the officers' arrests without complaints being filed by a prosecutor.
The ruling came after a group of activists and community leaders--the 'Cleveland 8'--on Tuesday asked the court to have the officers arrested under a rarely used Ohio law that allows "a private citizen knowing the facts" to start the process by filing an affidavit with a court. They argued that the widely seen video of an officer killing Tamir while he played with a toy gun in a park had given nearly everyone knowledge of the facts.
NBC News reports that "In his 10-page ruling, Adrine called the video 'hard to watch,' saying he was 'thunderstruck by how quickly this turned deadly.'"
Adrine also noted how long Tamir was left to lie wounded on the ground with no indication that anyone was trying to help him.
"It is difficult to discern, because of the quality of the tape, what, if any, first aid anyone renders to Rice during these eight minutes," Adrine wrote. "Nearly fourteen minutes ultimately expire between the time that Tamir is shot and the time that he is removed from the park."
In response to the ruling, county prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty issued what the New York Times described as a "terse statement indicating that he would not be rushed into filing a criminal complaint."
That statement read: "This case, as with all other fatal use-of-deadly-force cases involving law enforcement officers, will go to the grand jury. That has been the policy of this office since I was elected. Ultimately, the grand jury decides whether police officers are charged or not charged."
Tamir's family, through attorney Walter Madison, called the ruling a "historic" victory. They released a statement that read:
The family of Tamir Rice is appreciative of their attorneys, Walter Madison, Benjamin Crump and Daryl Parks along with the efforts of the "Cleveland 8" who exercised civility and intellect by invoking Ohio Citizen Participation laws Tuesday to effectuate arrests of the officers responsible for the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.
The "Cleveland 8" has provided a blueprint for the nation to follow in addressing many of the relationship problems between African-Americans and Law Enforcement.
Judge Ronald Adrine heard the pleas of the Cleveland 8, took into consideration the affidavits provided and determined there was probable cause to issue a warrant for Officers Loehmann and Garmback. We are grateful that the wheels of justice are starting to turn.
Cleveland's Plain Dealer explains that "the court filings were a move to force the judicial system to quickly confront the case."
Progress has been sluggish thus far. Earlier this month, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department forwarded its investigation of the shooting to the prosecutor's office last week after a six-month investigation. Now, the prosecutor's office will review the case, conduct additional investigations if needed, and present the facts to experts for feedback before delivering the evidence to a grand jury. That process could take weeks or months.
At the end of May, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a settlement with the city and its police department following a deeply critical investigation that found an unconstitutional "pattern or practice of the use of excessive force."
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In Rare Move, Community Seeks Murder Charges for Cops Who Killed Tamir Rice
By filing affidavits, 'citizens are taking matters into their own hands utilizing the tools of democracy as an instrument of justice'
Jun 09, 2015
Forced by a sluggish and dysfunctional justice system to take matters into their own hands, a group of community leaders, clergy, and civil rights activists in Cleveland will ask a judge on Tuesday to order the arrest of the officers who killed Tamir Rice, the black 12-year-old shot dead in November while carrying a toy gun in a park.
The community group will make its announcement at a 11 am press conference Tuesday morning. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the group plans to file several affidavits under a rarely used state law asking a Cleveland Municipal Court judge to issue arrest warrants for Cleveland police officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback in connection with the November 22 shooting. That law, passed in 1960, allows any person with knowledge of the facts of a case to file sworn affidavits asking a judge to find probable cause to sign off an arrest warrant.
The group is seeking charges including aggravated murder and manslaughter.
"We are still waiting for the criminal justice system to enact justice in the name of Tamir Rice," said Rev. Dr. Jawanza Colvin, pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, in a press release. "It has been more than six months since his tragic death and, yet, the people still have no answers and no one has been held accountable. Today, citizens are taking matters into their own hands utilizing the tools of democracy as an instrument of justice."
The Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office completed its investigation into Rice's death earlier this month, and handed its findings over to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty's office. Now, McGinty's office will review the evidence and present it to a grand jury, a process that could take weeks.
The New York Times notes that "[i]n cases involving police officers, prosecutors are more likely to let grand jurors hear conflicting testimony or see evidence favorable to the officer."
The case would still eventually be sent to a grand jury if the community group succeeded. Ohio's constitution guarantees a person charged with a felony the right to have their evidence heard by a grand jury, which could hand up an indictment charging the officers, or decline to indict them. However, if the group's affidavits are approved, the officers' arrest would be followed by a public hearing, which community members said would be preferable to allowing prosecutors to operate in secret.
The Times writes that "[t]he highly unusual move is the latest sign that some African-Americans in Cleveland and around the country have lost confidence in a system that they see as too quick to side with police officers accused of using excessive force against blacks."
As Walter Madison, a lawyer for Rice's family who worked with the community leaders as they planned to seek charges, told the Times: "The writing is on the wall...If you look at every other instance, it ends up unfavorable to the families."
At the end of May, a white police officer in Cleveland was acquitted in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man and woman in 2012; also last month, a prosecutor in Wisconsin said a police officer in Madison, Wis., will not face criminal charges for fatally shooting Tony Robinson, who was mixed race and unarmed, earlier this year. In New York, a grand jury did not indict in the death of Eric Garner, who had been put in a chokehold by a police officer. And state and federal authorities said there was no evidence to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Tuesday's development comes on the heels of the announcement of a settlement between the city of Cleveland and the U.S. Department of Justice, following a deeply critical investigation that found an unconstitutional "pattern or practice of the use of excessive force."
In an interview Colorlines last week, Tamir's mother, Samaria Rice, recalled her dead son as "a kind and loving person, above all. And Tamir was very talented in all sports. He was my All American star. He could have been next LeBron James, I really believe that. He was advanced and not the average child because I made things available to him. I have sacrificed a lot for my children."
She added: "This is a nightmare and I have not woken up."
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For AP, Being Shot by a Cop Makes You a Suspect
Jun 08, 2015
I often think the clearest glimpse into a media outlet's view of an issue comes not in the articles that directly engage it, but in the little throwaway descriptions--the shorthand used to sum up the story.
Take a look, then, at this AP wire report (6/8/15), in which an account of a brutal policing incident at a Texas pool offered this by way of background:
Incidents involving white law enforcement and black suspects have raised concerns across the US, in particular since last August when a white police officer fatally shot a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, fueling sometimes violent protests and a nationwide "Black Lives Matter" movement.
No, the "incidents" raising concerns have not involved black "suspects." Freddie Gray was not a suspect, nor Akai Gurley. Tamir Rice and John Crawford held toy guns, and Ferguson officers evidently "suspected" Michael Brown of nothing more than not walking on the sidewalk. A number of those killed have been "suspected" of being mentally ill and in need of help.
As a matter of fact, the presumption by law enforcement--and media--that any black person involved in an altercation with police must be a criminal suspect is part of the outrage driving public protest.
Telling, too, that in its description of police killings in the news over the last several months--including one officer who went free after leaping on top of the car of two unarmed black people and firing dozens of bullets into them, and another who saw all charges dropped for a putting a bullet through the head of a 7-year-old girl sleeping on her living room sofa--the only thing AP sees fit to describe as "violent" are the protests.
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Newly Released Tamir Rice Shooting Footage Shows Cleveland Officers Tackling Sister
Extended security video shows aftermath of shooting as police refuse to aid Rice, handcuff teen sister
Jan 09, 2015
EXTENDED VIDEO Tamir Rice shooting incidentFull video of Tamir Rice shooting incident. CLEVELAND - Cleveland Police have released the full video of the November 22 ...
(Warning: The video above contains disturbing images.)
Newly released footage of the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November shows Cleveland police officers delaying first aid to Rice while he was still alive and tackling and handcuffing Rice's sister as she attempted to reach her wounded brother.
An extended surveillance video from the Cudell Recreation Center, which captured the incident, was obtained by the Northeast Ohio Media Group on Wednesday after city officials initially refused to release it. Other outlets received the video on Thursday.
The footage shows Rice's 14-year-old sister, Tajai, attempting to run to her brother's aid as he lay bleeding in the snow, only to be intercepted by two officers--including Timothy Loehmann, who shot Tamir--who pin her down on the ground, handcuff her, and place her in the backseat of their cruiser.
Loehmann and the other officer, Frank Garmback, are also shown refusing to administer aid to Rice for several minutes after the shooting. Neither moves to help the boy until a third man, identified by police as an FBI agent who was in the area, enters the frame and seems to attend to Rice for the first time in the four minutes that have passed. Paramedics arrive eight minutes after the shooting.
Walter Madison, an attorney representing the Rice family, called the video "shocking and outrageous."
"This has to be the cruelest thing I've ever seen," Madison said. He added that the officers displayed "overwhelming indifference" to Rice.
"No one thinks that it's appropriate to try to save him," Madison said. "The first person who does is not affiliated with the Cleveland police department. This is the level of service that makes people very upset and distrustful of law enforcement."
Loehmann shot Rice within seconds of pulling up in front of the boy as he played with a toy gun in a city park on November 22. Rice died hours later. The video confirms statements previously made by Rice's mother, Samaria Rice, who said at a December 8 press conference that her daughter was handcuffed and detained while trying to help Tamir, and that officers refused to help him while he was still alive. Tajai Rice also made similar statements on NBC's Today show in December, telling host Lester Holt, "I ran to the gazebo, and I couldn't get there all the way to him, because the officer attacked me, threw me on the ground, tackled me on the ground, put me in handcuffs, and put me in the back of the police car, right next to his body."
Loehmann was hired by the Cleveland police department after failing a written test to become a deputy with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's department, as well as forces in Akron, Euclid, and Parma Heights, records show. His action in the video "really explains why," Madison said. "This is not the professional standard we would expect or deserve, and the city of Cleveland put him in the position to allow this to happen."
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Conservative Media And Cop Killers Of A Different Color
Dec 23, 2014
On June 8, 2014, white, anti-government, tea party supporters shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers. Conservative media was conspicuously silent.
On Saturday, Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot and killed NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos as they sat in their patrol car, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Brinsley, who had made "very anti-police" statements on Instagram, was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Police spokesmen and conservative media were quick to blame the murders on the widespread protests of police killings of unarmed black males such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, and others.
- Patrick Lynch, of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said there was "blood on their hands [of] those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protest ... [blood] on the steps of city hall, in the office of the mayor."
- Former New York Police Commissioner and "stop and frisk defender" Ray Kelly accused New York City mayor Bill De Blasio of running an "anti-police campaign last year when he ran for mayor."
- Right-wing actor James Woods took to Twitter and called on police officers to turn their backs on the mayor and "PigSharpton."
- Clueless actress and Fox News Contributor Stacy Dash tweeted, ""These murders are the natural result of the #Jihad on cops that @TheRevAl & @deBlasioNYC has called for. They should be held accountable."
NYPD Union Head Whines: Mayor de Blasio Starting a $&#^ing Revolution!The head of the New York City Police Union accuses NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio of running a “revolution” out of city hall... This clip ...
None was more outspoken than failed presidential candidate, and former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani. On "Fox & Friends Sunday," Giuliani blamed the officers deaths on "four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police."
GIULIANI: We've had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police. I don't care how you want to describe it, that's what those protests are all about. The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged, the protests, even the ones that don't lead to violence, and a lot of them lead to violence, all lead to a conclusion: the police are bad, the police are racists. That is completely wrong. Actually the people who do the most for the Black community in America are the police.
Never mind that President Obama called for anyone who protests these shootings and grand jury decisions to "do so peacefully." Never mind that the president has said that there's "no excuse" for violence. The irony of a black president is that his most innocuous utterances that America still has racial problems are interpreted by conservatives as radical and "anti-white."
Never mind that a majority of cop killers have been white. Conservatives blame police killings of, and violence against blacks, on black lawlessness run amok.
Never mind that the #BlackLivesMatter movement has condemned the murders of officers Liu and Ramos. Conservatives blame the movement collectively for the murder of officers Liu and Ramos.
Never mind that Brinsley had his own run in with NYPD last year. Never mind that Brinsley had a long history of mental illness. Conservatives will blame the #BlackLivesMatter movement for his crimes.
This conservative penchant for collective blaming was absent on June 8, when Jerad and Amanda Miller -- both white -- shot and killed Las Vegas police officers Igor Soldo and Alyn Beck, as they had lunch at a strip mall. The couple dragged the officers' bodies from their booth, draped Beck's body with the yellow "Gasden flag" popular with the tea party movement, and pinned a note to Soldo's body reading "This is the beginning of the revolution." The couple stole the officers guns and ammunition, and fled to a local Walmart. Jerad Miller was shot and killed by police. Amanda Miller died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Reports surfaced of Jerad Miller's anti-government posts to Facebook, and Alex Jones "Infowars" message board -- including a post titled, "The Police (to kill or not to kill)." The Millers camped out at Cliven Bundy's ranch, where Bundy's "militia" pointed guns at sheriff's deputy's and threatened to kill federal officers. Jerad Miller was even interviewed at the ranch, before being booted for his "radical" views.
Conservatives were less than outraged. Instead of blaming Cliven Bundy, Alex Jones, or the tea party movement, they tried to paint the Millers as radical leftists. Conservative media refused to call the Las Vegas shooting terrorism.
Perhaps Ismaaiyl Brinsley is just a cop killer of a different color, as far as conservative media is concerned.
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NFL Star Refuses to Apologize After Plea for Justice for Police Victims
Cleveland Browns player said the 'number one reason for wearing the T-shirt' was the thought of what happened to Tamir Rice and John Crawford happening to his own son
Dec 16, 2014
Cleveland Browns receiver Andrew Hawkins says he should not have to apologize for wearing a T-shirt that called for "Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford," two Ohio victims of recent police killings.
Hawkins' shirt, which he sported while walking onto the field before Sunday's game against the Cincinnati Bengals, spurred ire from the head of the Cleveland Police Union, who called the statement "pathetic" and demanded an apology from the Browns organization.
"I have a 2-year-old little boy," Hawkins said during a passionate press interview on Monday. "That little boy is my entire world. The number one reason for me wearing the T-shirt was the thought of what happened to Tamir Rice happening to my little Austin scares the living hell out of me."
A Cleveland police killed the 12-year-old Rice in November as he was carrying an air gun in a public park; the coroner has ruled his death a homicide. Crawford, a father of two, was shot and killed in August by a local police officer in a Walmart in Beavercreek while holding a BB gun. In both instances, the officers had allegedly perceived the guns were real rifles.
"My heart was broken for the parents of Tamir [Rice] and John Crawford, knowing they had to live that nightmare of a reality," he continued, adding that he "made the conscious decision to wear the T-shirt."
Responding more directly to the police criticisms, Hawkins said: "My wearing of the T-shirt wasn't a stance against every police officer or every police department [...] My wearing of the T-shirt was a stance against wrong individuals doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason to innocent people."
He added that justice is "a right that every American should have, and also justice should be the goal for every American."
"Ultimately," he said, "it means fair treatment."
You can watch the entire press statement below.
Browns' Andrew Hawkins explains why he wore a 'Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford' T-shirt atCleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins gives a statement on why wore a “Justice for Tamir Rice and John Crawford” ...
Hawkins' statement has followed similar actions from a number of professional athletes, who have also voiced solidarity with the growing outrage over police violence against black people and what is seen as a broken system of justice in the United States.
Following the police backlash, the Browns released a statement saying the team "respect[s] our players' rights to project their support and bring awareness to issues that are important to them if done so in a responsible manner."
On Tuesday, Crawford's family filed suit against Walmart arguing that the retail giant was at fault for Crawford's killing because the store had left the BB gun, which resembles a rifle, unlocked and easily accessible.
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#WhiteCoatsforBlackLives: Medical Students Stage Nationwide Die-Ins
Coordinated protests at more than 70 medical schools are only latest sign of staying-power of growing movement for racial justice
Dec 11, 2014
Medical students at universities across the United States held dramatic die-in protests on Wednesday to show their solidarity with a growing protest movement against police brutality and other forms of systematic inequality taking place in low-income areas and communities of color nationwide.
Dubbed #whitecoatsforblacklives, the coordinated demonstrations allowed students to add their unique perspective to the broader movement for racial and social justice that has accelerated in recent weeks following the lack of accountability in the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in New York City; and Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio.
At the Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut, as the New Haven Register reports, students and some faculty members wore white lab coats during their campus protest as they called for justice in those and other cases.
"We stand here as part of a movement that has transcended all boundaries of time and place, a movement with a simple and straightforward goal: equitable treatment for all people," said Jessica Minor, a med student who addressed the crowd. "Today, we wear our white coats. These white coats have become a symbol of our privilege; a sign of our claim to medical knowledge, our professional oath to do no harm, and to the trust that comes with that knowledge and oath. ... We admit the exclusion of women and people of color in our profession."
Students at Johns Hopkins Medical School, one of the nation's premiere schools, also took part and said that racial disparities are a not only present in the way communities are policed, but also a large part of health inequities across the country.
"As future physicians being educated at the number one hospital in the country, or perhaps the world, I think it's important to make it clear that equality matters, to make sure that fairness and equality exist in health care," said first-year medical student Tania Haag.
Similar protests were held at an estimated 70 other schools as well.
United Press International reports on protests in California as well as Pennsylvania:
Lucy Ogbu Nwobodo, one of the organizers of the protest at the UC Davis Medical School in Sacramento, said the national discussion of the shooting of Michael Williams in Ferguson, Mo., and the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York "have affected all of us."
"We decided to come together as one voice to speak up about these issues," Nwobodo told Capital Public Radio. "We believe that because it affects our patients outside of the hospital it's just as important as what we see in the medical clinics." [...]
At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, protesters stopped traffic. About 100 students blocked Walnut Street by lying down.
"Protecting the citizens of this country is something that I've been doing since I got out of the military," Michael Spinnato, a first-year student at Penn, told KYW-TV.
The various die-ins and demonstrations were cataloged on Twitter:
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