Thursday, April 9, 2015

Déjà vu: White Policeman Shoots Unarmed Black Man

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There is a bitter irony in the North Charleston shooting of Walter Scott. And there is a parallel to the Ferguson shooting, although it is not necessarily the superficial ones the perpetually offended and chattering classes are talking about.

Walter Scott was an unarmed black man, shot running away from a white policeman who shot him in the back, without any justifiable reason. Sound familiar? Déjà vu, right? That did not happen in Ferguson, but that was the way the shooting was described by dishonest witnesses, racial hucksters, and repeated relentlessly by media outlets.

Then there was the rage and outrage. Why? The officer involved in the shooting was not immediately arrested and charged. Suspicions of racism, of conspiracies to murder young black men, who statistically commit more crime than any other group, bringing them into contact with law enforcement more frequently, sprang up and the flames were fanned by those who had an agenda that extended beyond justice for Michael Brown.

Which brings us to Officer Michael Slager, who was immediately fired, arrested and charged with the murder of Walter Scott. Again, everything that the protesters said did not happen in Ferguson and thus the unrest, protests and riots.

So, to recap, a shooting occurs under outrageous circumstances, apparently unprovoked and unjustified, where the officer involved in the shooting is treated exactly the way that we are told should have happened in Ferguson, therefore, there is no reason to protest. Right?

So why are we seeing all the usual suspects, chanting "Hands up, don't shoot" and "All lives matter"? I saw an elderly black man on MSNBC ("We report, you decide...not to watch", so I may have been the only one to see him), spouting some nonsense about how so called "stand your ground" legislation (which is purely defensive) was somehow creating vigilantes who would then go out and shoot defenseless young black men.

The system worked exactly as it should...in both cases! Aside from the ease with which the Ferguson protestors abandoned the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" in the case of Officer Darren Wilson, there was insufficient evidence to arrest him and the forensic evidence bore out his version of what happened. In the case of Officer Slager, the evidence was pretty clear cut and justice was served, frankly, at warp speed.

Officer Wilson was exonerated, although his life and career was destroyed in the aftermath of a justifiable shooting, Officer Slager will likely be incarcerated for the rest of his natural life. If he receives the death penalty (which he probably should) he'll spend that time on death row. No one I know has any problem with this at all. Justice is being served. So, why are there still protests?

One could just as easily ask why the false narrative about Michael Brown, the so called "gentle giant", persisted up to and beyond the time when forensic evidence proved it was a lie. People were still chanting "Hands up, don't shoot" and "Black lives matter", at rallies around the country, as if they had anything to do with the hulking thug who robbed a store, roughed up the clerk, and with stolen property in his pocket, charged a police officer,  for reasons known only to him.

I understand that Al Sharpton has been asked to keep his distance from the family of Walter Scott. He should. Scott's poor family has suffered enough.

4 comments:

  1. I was just in Ferguson a few months ago, and I still maintain that it's not the battle zone the press paints it to be. It's still a fairly wholesome place. The only reason it became ground zero for #blahblahblah was because outsiders chose to make it so. And that's why it remains a site of demonstrations, and irrationally so. Great analysis, Proof!

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  2. Glad to hear things aren't as bleak as the press paints it.
    Still, I can't imagine anyone with two nickels to rub together wanting to invest in that community.

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  3. Not anymore! You'd think all the locals would figure out pretty soon that they've been screwed over by their activist "friends."

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  4. What's the saying? With friends like these, who needs enemies?

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