Posted on 11/29/2014 4:14:40 AM PST by Kaslin
Even if you agree with the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, it’s easy to feel some sympathy for Trayvon Martin. Here was a 17 year old kid who wasn’t doing anything wrong, who was being followed. It’s easy to see how that could freak him out. Unfortunately, that led to his making a bad decision. He attacked an armed man, fought well enough that he put Zimmerman in fear of his life and then got shot for it. It was a tragic case not only for Martin, who died, but for Zimmerman whose life seems to have been ruined by that day.
Although it’s sad to see anyone lose his life, Michael Brown isn’t nearly as sympathetic of a victim. He robbed a convenience store, assaulted a police officer, ignored his order to stop and then ran at the cop when he had a gun on him. What do you say about someone who gets shot under those circumstances other than he brought it on himself?
There are lessons we can learn from how these cases panned out and they’re not the ones liberals always seem to be pushing in these situations (If someone who isn’t Christian or conservative is offended, he must be right! We need another government program! Even though we have a black President, racism is everywhere in America!)
1) The initial story you hear is probably a lie: If Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton show up somewhere claiming that a wonderful black kid who was going to college was shot for no reason and nobody is doing anything about it because of racism, you can safely assume you’re being taken for a ride. The police do make mistakes. The Akai Gurley case is a great example of that. There are also bad cops out there. The cops who tortured Abner Louima in New York City fit that description. But, it's better to let a court sort through the details under oath to get the facts rather than relying on rumors and people who see dollar signs in their eyes every time someone yells "racism."
2) The Left has zero interest in discussing why black Americans are really more likely to be shot by police officers: The numbers can vary depending on whose statistics you’re looking at, but using the best estimate available, black Americans seem to be 3 times more likely to die at the hands of the police than white Americans. Could there be a possible explanation for this that goes beyond racism? Actually, yes.
Today blacks are about 13 percent of the population and continue to be responsible for an inordinate amount of crime. Between 1976 and 2005 blacks committed more than half of all murders in the United States. The black arrest rate for most offenses — including robbery, aggravated assault and property crimes — is still typically two to three times their representation in the population. Blacks as a group are also overrepresented among persons arrested for so-called white-collar crimes such as counterfeiting, fraud and embezzlement.
Percentage-wise, black Americans are much more likely to commit crimes and so, it’s not a surprise that they’re more likely to end up in potentially dangerous conflicts with police officers. Encouraging black Americans to be hostile to police officers, which is sadly all too common, only exacerbates the problem by making cops more suspicious and by making black Americans more likely to do potentially dangerous things around the police. The vast majority of black Americans are decent, law-abiding people and it’s sad that some of them are afraid of the police. That’s an issue that police departments should do much more to address, but unless they’re met halfway by community leaders who are willing to work with the cops, any effort is doomed to fail.
3) It’s time for cops to start wearing body cameras: If Darren Wilson had been wearing a body camera, the bogus “hands up, don’t shoot” meme would have never gotten any traction. Not only would body cameras help eradicate fears of abuse from officers, it would protect cops from the sort of false charges we saw in the Michael Brown case. Body cameras wouldn’t be a panacea, but they would probably make life better for both the cops and the people they’re policing.
4) You better arm yourself because you can’t count on the police to protect you: It was widely speculated that there would be riots in Ferguson if the Grand Jury didn’t indict Darren Wilson. Yet, the governor of Missouri refused to deploy the National Guard in Ferguson on the first night. Without the help of the National Guard, the police weren’t able to contain the mayhem and there was rioting, looting, assaults and arson. Even though the state of Missouri officials knew it was coming, even though they could have prevented it – they didn’t. Take that lesson to heart, get your own gun and learn how to use it so if trouble comes knocking on your doorstep, you won’t be waiting for help from the state that never comes.
5) The mainstream media is more interested in promoting the idea that America is a racist country than the truth: The mainstream media helped create the angst over Trayvon Martin and the riots in Ferguson. NBC falsely claimed George Zimmerman used a racial slur and edited his call to the police to make him sound bad while the whole media used an old picture of Trayvon Martin that made people think he was 12. On the eve of the Grand Jury verdict in the Michael Brown case, the New York Times published THE STREET Darren Wilson lives on with his new wife. Beyond those egregious offenses, the mainstream media helped create many of the initial myths about both cases, was slow to correct the facts and habitually slanted its news coverage to portray Zimmerman and Wilson as guilty, even when it didn’t fit the facts. Everyone knows the mainstream media is biased, but when its coverage plays a role in getting people’s businesses burned to the ground, it has gone too far.
6) Most people on the “Left” care more about the narrative than the truth: One of the most amazing things about both the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown caseswas how many people didn’t change their minds one bit about what happened even after the initial stories in both cases proved to be false. Instead, many people cared more about the narrative, “White people in general and white cops in particular are shooting black people for no reason,” than what really happened. It was as if Zimmerman and Wilson had to go to jail not because they did anything wrong, but because to proclaim them innocent was a slam against black Americans.
7) “Black Leaders” are looking to ratchet up the tension, not ease it: It’s extremely ironic that most of the businesses that burned in Ferguson were minority-owned because black leaders like Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, the New Black Panthers and, yes, Eric Holder and Barack Obama helped make it happen. Yes, they gave bloodless, CYA condemnations of violence, and then went back to hyping people up instead of calming them down. See, when people get mad, they give donations. Peace doesn’t make money. Peace doesn’t get your name in the newspaper. Peace doesn’t get anyone on TV.
Whats the difference between travon and micheal, nothing thier both dead
Actually, this has been affirmed by the Supreme Court.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0
Police DO NOT have a duty to protect you.
The NYT article had nothing to do with Trayvon I could see. It was mainly about the SC deciding police did not have a duty to “protect you.” Don’t understand your reply to that.
thier?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/24/142983/martin-familys-lawyers-no-strangers.html
Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2012
EXCERPTS
In Trayvon’s case, (Parks & Crump) alerted the news media more quickly. They phoned the Rev. Al Sharpton almost instantly, and organized marches with local civil rights activists. They also started pressing for federal involvement and alleging a cover-up from the get-go.
(snip)
“In court, you have the jury,” Crump says. “Our job is to get the case to a jury. We need to fight first in the court of public opinion. The jury is the American people.
Someone Must Be Punished for Killing Trayvon Martin, Says Mom Sybrina Fulton
by Allison Samuels Mar 22, 2012 2:04 AM EDT
EXCERPT
The now controversial killing of Trayvon garnered virtually no mainstream media attention in the days immediately after he was fatally shot, but that all changed when the teenager’s parents decided to hire civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and his law firm to get more answers on exactly how and why their son died.
“They called me the same day they were notified that their son was dead,’’ Crump told The Daily Beast. “When I heard their unarmed teenage son was shot to death, I just knew there’d be an arrest shortly. There wasn’t an arrest 48 hours later, and then I knew we’d have to take this outside of Sanford if we wanted justice.’’
Trayvon’s parents were told by the Sanford police that Zimmerman wasn’t arrested in their son’s death because the facts of the case did not dispute his claim of self-defense.
For Crump, taking the Trayvon Martin story outside of Sanford simply entailed dialing up a few well-placed friends such as the Rev. Al Sharpton. Crump worked closely with the civil rights leader in 2006 on another racially charged case—the controversial death of a 14-year-old, African-American inmate of a Florida boot camp.
“I had to call people like Sharpton and a few other black civil rights leaders and the black media to tell them about this story,’’ said Crump. “I had to get them to understand what happened to this young man and what hadn’t happened in his case so they could spread the word.’’
Historically, cases of murder and violence against blacks in the United States rarely have been given the same amount of attention as cases in which the victims of crime are white—and often go unnoticed and unprosecuted.
Just days after hearing the details of Trayvon’s death, Sharpton arranged to have Crump and the teenager’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, on his syndicated radio show and his popular MSNBC show, Politics Nation, to tell their story.
(snip)
In the wake of non-stop media attention from the likes of Sharpton and CNN’s Don Lemon concerning the Trayvon Martin case, black media blogs such as MediaTakeOut.com and Huffington Post Black Voices also began publishing accounts and editorials about the Florida case—daily. Almost instantly, readers of all races, ages, and backgrounds began tweeting and posting on Facebook their outrage over how the police have handled the case, and the lack of an arrest in the shooting. To date, almost 1 million people have signed a Change.Org petition to have Zimmerman arrested. In response to the widespread outrage, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the shooting.
.
wtf?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3045560/posts
excerpt: //Zimmerman: And, I was leaving my neighborhood when I saw this guy, walking slowly in front of a house, looking towards the house. And I knew he didn’t live there, so that made me a little suspicious. And then he kept staring around him, at me, and behind. And it arose my suspicion. And then he was, it was raining. And, he didn’t look like he was in a rush to get out the rain..... //
8) The Great Society programs have failed.
“He attacked an armed man, fought well enough”...”
Fought well enough? No St Skittles launched a gratuitous murderous assault which he even spoke aloud. Almost every ‘well intentioned’ article you read on Treyvon Brown contains some BULLSHIT somewhere.
Nope
What in the heck are you talking about? Look at my post 4 and tell me what you excerpted in italics is what I wrote.
The NYT article I referenced wasn’t about Trayvon or Zimmerman.....
St. Skittles was expelled from school, had history of crimes, bought questionable items related to concocting drugs and was wandering about in the rain at night in his hoodie...ok. Nothing of concern there. /s
“Here was a 17 year old kid who wasn’t doing anything wrong,”
That statement is wrong, because it is contrary to the evidence in the case.
Trayvon Martin was present in the community because he had already been caught engaging in some other misconduct which caused him to be expelled from school and was sent away from home to stay with his father instead of his mother.
Trayvon Martin did something wrong when he went out to the convenience store to purchase the beverage he needed to make an illegal, very dangerous, and psychotic inducing street drug he had been learning to make, according to his social media messages.
Trayvon Martin did something wrong when he trespassed and loitered off of the sidewalk and on the grass of the lawn or properties of one or more homes of the development. One of these homes was the home of another member of the neighborhood watch where a young black male youth was the suspect in a burglary of that home. Trayvon Martin’s loitering on the property of that home in the rain was reasonable cause to suspect he may have been the previous burglary suspect. This reasonable suspicion was later confirmed when it was learned Trayvon Martin’s misconduct at school was related to his possession of women’s jewelry and a burglary tool in his school locker.
The list of things which Trayvon Martin did wrong continue into a much longer list, including his association with the Crips criminal gang.
True on both side. While there is no doubt that Brown became a martyr solely because of the initial, false claim that he had is hands raised when he was shot there was no shortage of false information concerning Wilson as well. For example, the claim he'd been badly beaten and had suffered facial fractures before Brown had run.
The Left has zero interest in discussing why black Americans are really more likely to be shot by police officers:
It isn't the fact that a black man was shot by a white cop that got the left's shorts in a twist. It was the fact that, again based on initial incorrect reports, an unarmed black man was shot by the police. Since then you've had a black guy shot down in a Walmart for carrying a BB gun, a 12 year old kid shot down for the same reason, an unarmed guy shot down in a New York stairwell. And yes, an unarmed white guy shot by a black cop in Utah. And no doubt there are more. So I think the real concern is cops being quick on the trigger to begin with. Wilson had sufficient cause to use deadly force on Brown. It is hard to believe that that is the case in these other instances yet none of the cops have been or will be charged with any crime.
It’s time for cops to start wearing body cameras
No argument on that at all. Who's going to pay for it?
You better arm yourself because you can’t count on the police to protect you
Anyone who honestly thinks that had Nixon sent the Guard into Ferguson then the riots and the looting would have magically failed to materialize is an idiot. Nothing was going to prevent it. And the Guard had been called up back in August when the rioting and looting were even worse and nobody was asking why they weren't in Ferguson then.
The mainstream media is more interested in promoting the idea that America is a racist country than the truth
Everybody is somebody else's racist. It's just a fact of life.
Most people on the “Left” care more about the narrative than the truth
True on both sides.
“Black Leaders” are looking to ratchet up the tension, not ease it
Likely the most accurate statement of the 7. People like Sharpton are there for the headlines and the publicity more than anything else.
And that’s not the only drivel he wrote.....”got into a fight AND WAS DOING WELL ENOUGH TO MAKE THE COP FEAR FOR HIS LIFE...” (Paraphrase)
Small technicality; This wasn’t a boxing match following Marquis of Queensbury Rules. It was a street fight initiated by the thug, who’d been seen skulking around a neighborhood that had recently been repeatedly burglarized.
These young thugs desperately need to view the video, “How to Not Get Your Ass Kicked by the Police.”
Even if you agree with the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, it’s easy to feel some sympathy for Trayvon Martin. Here was a 17 year old kid who wasn’t doing anything wrong,
Hmmm...
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