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Brutalizing black bodies has never been a "local matter." #BLM #JusticeForStephon...

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I commend journalist April Ryan for asking about cops using black people for target practice at a recent White House press briefing. The response to her question is as I’d expect from any representative of the current squatter in the White House.

During the daily press briefing, reporter April Ryan asked Sanders to comment on Tuesday’s news that the police officers who shot and killed Alton Sterling would not face any charges, as well as the ongoing controversy around the police killing of Stephon Clark in California. This is what Sanders said in response:

“Certainly a terrible incident, this is something that is a local matter, and that’s something that we feel should be left up to local authorities at this time.”

A local matter? That response would be laughable if the issue weren’t so deadly serious

Police killed 1,146 people in 2017. Black people were 25% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population.

Decynthia Clements from Illinois ...Update:

On Friday, Elgin police released more than 30 unedited hours of footage showing the March 12 standoff that ended with the death of a 34-year-old black woman with mental health problems. The bodycam and dashcam footage, reviewed by The Root, shows police officers trying to coerce Clements out of her truck on the shoulder of an Illinois interstate. Police officers can be heard discussing tactics as to how they planned to handle her once she exited the vehicle.

Then, seconds after Clements steps out of her car, three shots ring out, killing her at the scene.

I have known about the release of the videos from last Friday. I tried but couldn’t watch any of it. Last night I finally forced myself to watch and what I saw had me sick to my stomach. 

For those of you who cannot watch, the video shows that Ms. Clements was clearly having a psychotic episode. She needed help, not bullets. The cops put on a strategizing show for the cameras. They were going to taze her, they weren’t going to use deadly force...looking all official and prepared. Ridiculous. Most of the hour they claimed they spent trying to get her out of the vehicle was actually spent talking among themselves on the other side of the barrier and not talking to Decynthia at all. One guy had his semi-automatic weapon in his hands clearly visible to the distraught woman in the vehicle. He was prepared for war, it seemed. They knew that she had a knife and yet they approached the SUV with nothing to protect themselves from a knife wound. Something as simple as a shield — impact-resistant shield — would have made a world of a difference. They saw her vehicle on fire and yet they waited for an ungodly long time before they made any attempt to help her. It was painful to see the tiny figure trying to launch herself from her vehicle, after, mind you, she had sat for minutes in the SUV with windows up inhaling all that smoke. Despite the performance for their body cameras, as soon as they saw the woman get out of her vehicle, they shot her. After the killing, this was the murderer's response:

“OK, I shot. After this is done, we’re going to have to talk here.” As a female officer approaches, Jensen explains: “Yeah, I shot her. … She had a couple knives in her hands, approached us with the knives, yelling and screaming.

Alton Sterling from Louisiana… Update:

You remember the case of Alton Sterling, don’t you? The case that was so similar to that of Eric Garner? Here you had a man trying to eke out a living on the crumbs falling off America’s sumptuous table selling his CDs and whatnots on a local street corner. He ain’t robbing and or begging; he’s just trying to do for himself and his family as best he can. A sophisticated police department would have known him or about him since he’d been plying his trade at that spot for quite a while. 

Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot and killed by one of two white police officers who confronted him outside a convenience store in July 2016. Cell phone video showed Sterling pinned to the ground by the officers before he was shot; police said Sterling was shot because he was reaching for a gun.

Despite the fact that we all saw that two cops had Alton pinned to the ground, and we all saw them take the gun out of his pocket after he was murdered, investigators charged with reviewing the case concluded that there was nothing to see there. 

 "We have concluded that the officers in question acted as reasonable officers under existing law and were justified in their use of force," Landry's written report on the investigation reads.

Shorter white power structure, “You have a gun on you, black man? You done for. No questions asked.”

Stephon Clark from California

aastephon_clark.jpg
Stephon with his babies

Residents reported a six-foot-one man smashing vehicles in the neighborhood. Police responded by sending a helicopter and patrol cars. Helicopter arrived on the scene, did not, in fact, see any incidents of vandalism; instead, the cops aboard the helicopter saw people moving about, zeroed in on Stephon, directed the foot patrol to him, who then dutifully unloaded a barrage of bullets into him. Stephon was buried yesterday where the Rev. Al Sharpton spoke.

"They have been killing black men all across the country -- we are going to start standing up .... it's time to stop this madness," Sharpton said.

This just in: Stephon’s autopsy showed that of the 20 shots fired at him, eight found their mark — six in his back and two in his side. Translation: Stephon was never facing them. Chances are he didn’t even hear them and their commands. Remember his grandmother pointing out his iPhone and the earplug? Lies:

Police said Clark instead fled from the officers toward the back of the property, where police said he turned and advanced toward the officers with an object in his hands.

"Fearing for their safety," the officers fired multiple rounds at Clark at 9:26 p.m., hitting him several times, the department said.

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So, unless they have changed the definition of “local” since last I checked, police violence against minority communities is not now nor was it ever a “local matter.” The forerunner of the modern police force is the slave patrols, and there hasn’t been a lot of evolution in the core mission of law-enforcement since the days of slavery: Protect the white power structure at all costs and control black bodies….destroying them as it suits their fancy. That’s the tradition, and it lives on.

Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body – it is heritage. 


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