Posted on 08/28/2014 7:37:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
Why has there been no media interest in the police shooting of an apparently unarmed suspect in Salt Lake City?
Just two days after the shooting death of Michael Brown, an officer with the Salt Lake City Police Department shot and killed an unarmed 20-year-old. The Salt Lake City Police Department equips some of its officers with cameras. The department confirmed the officer who shot had a camera and that footage of the confrontation and shooting was captured, but they would not elaborate further, and the video of the encounter has yet to be released publicly. As with the Michael Brown case, this "lack of transparency" has caused some family members of the deceased to raise questions.
But what of the race of the decedent and of the cop?
The local newspaper, the Salt Lake City Tribune, reported the story this way:
"A wanted fugitive fatally shot by Salt Lake City police, who were looking for a man reportedly brandishing a handgun outside a convenience store, was unarmed and trying to comply with police orders when he was killed, his brother claims.
"Investigators, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation and need to protect evidence, remained mum on whether a gun was found at the scene of the Monday night shooting at a 7-Eleven store. ... Police also would not discuss conflicting witness reports that Dillon Delbert Taylor, 20, appeared to have reached toward his waistband during the confrontation.
"Taylor was facing a felony arrest warrant when police challenged him outside the store, court records confirm. But Taylor's brother, 22-year-old Jerrail Pete Taylor -- who court records show served time on a 2009 second-degree felony robbery count himself -- insists that police did not mention the warrant when they approached him, his brother and a third man outside the store.
"'We're walking out of the 7-Eleven with a drink, when the cops show up and start harassing us with guns,' Jerrail Taylor told The Salt Lake Tribune. ... South Salt Lake police, who are investigating the shooting, said Salt Lake City police were answering a 911 call reporting a man there was waving a handgun; Dillon Taylor purportedly matched the description of the armed man.
"Dillon Taylor was wearing headphones and didn't respond to the three officers until they surrounded him, Jerrail Taylor said.
"'He couldn't hear them, so he just kept walking. Then ... they had guns pointed at his face. That's when he turned off the music,' he said. 'I saw them point guns at my brother's face, and I knew what was going to happen.'
"One officer told Dillon Taylor to get on the ground, while another told him to put his hands on his head.
"'He got confused, he went to pull up his pants to get on the ground, and they shot him,' Jerrail Taylor said.
"Witnesses said they heard two shots. Taylor died at the scene; his brother and cousin were detained for questioning."
Notice anything missing? No mention of the race of the police officer or the man killed?
Local newspapers, when they describe the officer's race at all, ID him as "not white." The police chief would only say the firing officer "is not a white officer." As for the decedent, most newspapers' accounts say nothing, but local bloggers say he is "white" or "white and Hispanic." Some family members say he is "Hispanic."
As with Ferguson, some family members have taking to the streets in protest. But, unlike Ferguson, they protest without the glare of CNN or Al Sharpton yelling, "No justice, no peace" or President Barack Obama offering his "deepest condolences" as he did to the Michael Brown family.
The officer, whose name has not been released, has been removed from active duty during the investigation. The Salt Lake City police chief, Chris Burbank, said, "You will see on camera ... the actions of everyone involved, including up to the point where our officer utilizes deadly force and his response thereafter." The Tribune reported: "Burbank indicated that if Taylor's shooting is found to have been unjustified, the officer involved would be held accountable. In the past five years, the chief noted, two officers have been dismissed for using excessive force with a firearm."
There has also been little national media attention about the shooting death of a 9-year-old in Chicago, shot twice in an apparent targeted shooting. Repeat: 9 years old. The crime remains unsolved, and one local writer called it an "assassination." Other locals, including at least one clergyman, call it an "execution."
How about a little perspective?
Being a cop is a difficult job, which requires making decisions in a split second with life and death hanging in the balance. And bad guys don't care about your race or your gender. What happened in Ferguson, an unarmed black killed by police, is rare. What happened in Chicago to the 9-year-old boy, an urban black person shot and killed, is all too common.
“That little detail about an outstanding warrant is an interesting addition to the story; I had not previously heard about it.”
The cop-hating propagandists like to leave out that. He was a convicted thug, who had a warrant for parole violations.
It’s the same as the race baiters trying to ignore or hide Mike Brown in Ferguson had just committed a strong arm robbery.
These anti-cop propagandists are the kith and kin of the race baiters, cut from the same cloth, using the same dishonest tactics.
Correct. The cop had his gun on the guy. The perp moving his hand to his waist is not a "threatening gesture" unless and until the cop could see him withdraw a weapon. It's a movement, not necessarily a threatening movement. Making such a hair-trigger interpretation of what might be a threat is way beyond the limits of logic or justice, especially when policing is not nearly as dangerous as being a farmer, fisherman, or woodsman.
People make mistakes. People get stoned. Some are simply retarded or disoriented. Some just freak when confronted by a gun (whoda thunk it?). They don't deserve to die for that.
Is simple failure to comply deserving of death?
Nope.But the motives behind a failure to comply just might require a vigorous response.I'm sure that you have a fertile enough imagination to come up with very disturbing motives an individual might have in refusing to comply.
Or, being wanted on felony fugitive warrants, maybe he pretended not to hear. He had no reason to want the police to get their hands on him.
I didn't know that there should be a death sentence for thought crime. Those officers must be mighty prescient. Sheesh.
I'm sure that you have a fertile enough imagination to come up with very disturbing motives an individual might have in refusing to comply.
There's a difference between FAILURE and refusal, moron. People get stupid when their lives are threatened.
I guess I was wrong regarding the fertility of your imagination.
This is heavily MORMON country.
That may have some revelance...
"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.
The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings.
This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the 'servant of servants', and they will be, until that curse is removed."
Brigham Young-President and second 'Prophet' of the Mormon Church, 1844-1877- Extract from Journal of Discourses.
Here are two examples from their 'other testament', the Book of Mormon.
2 Nephi 5: 21 'And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.'
Alma 3: 6 'And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.'
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August 27, 1954 in an address at Brigham Young University (BYU), Mormon Elder, Mark E Peterson, in speaking to a convention of teachers of religion at the college level, said:
(Rosa Parks would have probably told Petersen under which wheel of the bus he should go sit.)
1967, (then) Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson "The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. First of all, we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder."
We are told that on June 8, 1978, it was 'revealed' to the then president, Spencer Kimball, that people of color could now gain entry into the priesthood. According to the church, Kimball spent many long hours petitioning God, begging him to give worthy black people the priesthood. God finally relented. |
Sometime before the 'revelation' came to chief 'Prophet' Spencer Kimball in June 1978, General Authority, Bruce R McConkie had said:
"The Blacks are denied the Priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty.
The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow there from, but this inequality is not of man's origin, it is the Lord's doings."
(Mormon Doctrine, pp. 526-527).
When Mormon 'Apostle' Mark E Petersen spoke on 'Race Problems- As they affect the Church' at the BYU campus in 1954, the following was also said:
"...if the negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."
When Mormon 'Prophet' and second President of the Church, Brigham Young, spoke in 1863 the following was also said:
"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God is death on the spot. This will always be so."
(Journal of Discourses, Vo. 10, p. 110)
Yeah; Native Americans are althroughout the Book of MORMON; too.
“I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today ... they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.... For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised.... The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.
At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl-sixteen-sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents—on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather.... These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness.
One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.
(Improvement Era, December 1960, pp.922-23). (p. 209)
Hush; or the idiots will go back to BOOMBOXES!!!
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"The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent.I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after."
said,