Posted on 05/12/2020 4:21:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
The tragic back road shooting of an unarmed black man by a former white police officer and his shotgun-wielding son in Brunswick, Georgia, has given the left a narrative they’re all too happy to run with, especially since blatant examples have been few and far between of late. Indeed, comparisons to Trayvon Martin abounded on Twitter by people ironically ignoring the fact that their “proof” that America is some sort of Klan-infested racist hotbed full of bigots just waiting to gun down hapless runners for the “crime” of “jogging while black” happened over eight years ago, in 2012, and was “justified,” according to one juror.
This story, however, seems on the surface to be an entirely different thing. I’m not going to speculate too much this early in the process, but I will say that it’s hard to imagine any reasonable person taking weapons and following anyone of any color down the street, much less blocking a road and trying to initiate a “citizens arrest.” It was dumb, it was unjustified, and Greg and Travis McMichael should feel the full weight of the law.
But there’s a difference between stupidly gunning-up and taking matters into your own hands because you believe a person may be a criminal, thus ending up in a deadly scuffle of your own making, and gunning-up to hunt down and murder a black man simply for being black. Both will land you in prison, of course, but with different sentences—sentences a jury will decide.
Meanwhile, however, the ‘jury’ of American public opinion seems to be leaning heavily in favor of the version that puts America firmly in an era where lynchings were the norm and these men as no different from those evil vigilantes of old or even the racist scumbags who drug James Byrd to his grisly death in 1998.
While plenty of people on both sides rightly called for justice for Ahmaud Arbery for weeks, especially in light of the fact that the shooting happened in February and there were odd conflicts of interest at play in the local district attorney’s office, a good percentage of comments bordered on inflammatory, if not patently absurd.
“We’re literally hunted EVERYDAY/EVERYTIME we step foot outside the comfort of our homes!” NBA legend LeBron James tweeted from the comfortable quarantine of his luxurious mansion while being adored by literally every man, woman, and child in America. “Can’t even go for a damn jog man! Like WTF man are you kidding me?!?!?!?!?!?”
“This young man was jogging, and was hunted down and killed for absolutely no reason other than the color of his skin,” wrote a smugly certain Ellen DeGeneres.
Kentucky State Rep. Charles Booker demanded “hate crime legislation,” while attorney and former Obama-era official Walter Scaub called the shooting a “lynching.” CNN host Don Lemon said that “communities of color feel like we are under siege.” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms even tried to tie the shooting to President Trump.
The irresponsible comparisons weren’t limited to the left. Conservative writer David French wrote, “While we don’t yet know the full details about the McMichaels’ motives, their actions speak loudly enough. When white men grab guns and mount up to pursue and seize an unarmed black man in the street, they stand in the shoes of lynch mobs past.” And Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is now virtue-signaling his willingness to sign hate crimes legislation in the state.
Meanwhile, as conservative activist Candace Owens noted over the weekend, the narrative around Arbery’s actions has quietly gone from “just a jogger” to “just a trespasser.” That’s because Daily Mail published a previously unreleased surveillance video of a khaki-short-clad Arbery spending almost five minutes “appearing to loiter” inside an under-construction home. Obviously, loitering at a construction zone isn’t worthy of being shot or even confronted by weapon-wielding citizens, but it’s also hardly racist to be suspicious of a stranger in one’s neighborhood poking around where they aren’t supposed to be. Add Arbery’s own 2013 indictment for allegedly bringing a weapon to a high school basketball game and a 2018 arrest for shoplifting to the mix, and the caricature of ‘just a jogger’ is called into question.
Are black people being routinely gunned down in America for the “crime” of being black? Hardly. Such a dire pattern would doubtless dominate the news cycle daily, as this solitary case has and will continue to do for the foreseeable future. In fact, far more whites are actually killed and violently victimized by blacks than the other way around, and in higher percentages related to the overall population groups. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics for 2018, of the 563,940 violent incidents against blacks committed that year, only 10.6% (or ~60,000) were committed by whites. On the other hand, 15.3% (or ~548,000) of the 3,581,360 crimes committed against whites were perpetrated by black offenders. Further, according to BLS, “The offender-to-victim ratio shows that the percentage of violent incidents involving black offenders (22%) was twice the percentage of incidents committed against black victims (11%).” Blacks even comprise 24% of hate crime offenders, almost twice their representation among the population.
None of this should justify any sort of racism, nor should it imply that most blacks are criminals. In fact, the vast majority of people of all races are law-abiding. However, these facts definitely do a lot of damage to a certain preferred leftist narrative, which is one reason why you might not have ever heard them.
Back to the Arbery shooting, Candace Owens nailed what the topic of discussion should be centered around right now in an America less hyper-focused on racial politics: “The national debate SHOULD have been about the legitimacy of citizen’s arrests in light of a tragic outcome,” she wrote. “Instead, we went with BLACKS ARE LITERALLY BEING HUNTED WHEN THEY STEP OUT OF THEIR HOMES FOR NO REASON. Race-baiting ALWAYS leaves us looking emotional & foolish.”
No matter how you slice it, a man is dead who should be alive right now. But ironically, decades-removed from an era when alleged black offenders would rarely get a fair trial, the McMichaels’ chances, no matter what the facts turn out to be, of any outcome short of life without parole or even the death penalty in this highly politicized and racially charged case is next to nil.
I seem to see that word used here as often as I do on DU.
You think this will go to trial by November? I've heard of cases dragging out for years. I knew a guy with a DUI, and it was something like 3 years before the case was finally decided.
Yeah how's that justice working out for the two vigilante wannabe's? No bail, eating jail food for the foreseeable future until their trial. Then facing long terms in jail if convicted. Think they're having second thoughts about their decision right about now?
I do not know if this is true, but I have read from other freepers that in some of those photos from October, there are visible tattoos that match tattoos Arbery is known to have, according to them.
It appears you want one. Why else bring up a killing totally unrelated to this crime? Unless you're trying to say that people are targeted and killed because of their race and then I might agree that there may be similarities between the two.
If I am jogging down the street and two fat rednecks in a pickup truck chase me down and confront me with a shotgun. I am thinking, “If I run they will shoot me in the back and kill me; if I put my hands up and surrender, they will shoot me in the chest and kill me; but if I fight back, then I might survive the situation.”
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Sure, and if I were a Girl Scout selling cookies and two guys with guns confronted me....He was NOT a JOGGER for Pete’s Sake. At this point, after all the evidence that has come out, if you still think this guy was out for a daily jog, you are either working for the Abery family’s lawyers or you exclusively read VOX. Black guys in the rural Deep South do NOT jog (neither do white guys, except the transplants from the Atlanta suburbs). He was wearing CARGO PANTS which would saw your nuts off if you ran miles in them. He had a belt on. He wore his pants 8 inches down his ass. He was NOT a JOGGER!!!
“Had the dead guy ever been arrested?”
Yes. The deceased was an erstwhile gunman himself.
I’m curious where the hammer came from?
Was he carrying it before he trespassed and possibly committed burglary? Did he leave the house with it (Felony Burglary)? Was the hammer dropped at the scene of the shooting? Was the hammer used as a weapon? That hammer may be a major player in this story. I personally don’t appreciate people running at me with a hammer, that’s an excellent way to get shot.
He was wearing shorts and sneakers and he appeared to be jogging. There is a short video and a long video.
When you grab a shotgun and pull it forward, you shoot yourself.
What about two skinny rednecks? Would that make a difference?
If not, why make a reference to weight at all?
You may have meant no offense. You probably have just been programmed by the media to host stereotypical prejudices.
Well I guess we were wrong. He WAS an avid runner after all.
How about that.
bookmark
Look, I am not going to judge because I was not in that situation. He's dead now and 20/20 hindsight is irrelevant.
That still doesn't mitigate the fat bastard's (your words, not mine) liability for grabbing a shotgun and chasing him down the road to make a citizen's arrest. That sounds like Barney Fife on LSD
Political prisoners often have to go through hardships. It’s unfortunate, but that is the nature of this type of game.
Where was the guy’s car? Did he live close by?
Yes. And GUESS who the INVESTIGATING DETECTIVE on the case was .
As all we are. I remember watching the video the first time. I thought to myself, "Why is this moron taking the camera off the action to point it over to the right?"
It didn't occur to me until later that the driver who was videoing the incident was pointing the camera at the hammer in the road. I'm willing to bet that the driver of the car can testify that Arbery dropped that hammer.
Alternatively that could have just been lying in the road and Arbery happened to walk by it, but that would be an interesting coincidence, wouldn't it?
I personally don’t appreciate people running at me with a hammer, that’s an excellent way to get shot.
I think perhaps he may have dropped the hammer when he saw they had a shotgun. Of course that was stupid if he planned to attack them at that point. The hammer might have actually made him successful. Throwing it at the guy with the shotgun might have disabled him long enough to get the gun away from him.
But we don't know for sure how that hammer got there... yet.
True. Do you want to ?
The older McMichael is a former cop and a retired investigator for the prosecutor’s office ...
True. And guess whose 'case' he had investigated before he was retired. Guess what person he had met face to face, and knew all about that person's criminal activities.
I don't think they have any liability. What they did was legal. It may have been foolish, but the law allows for it.
I think most of the outrage over this incident is the consequence of people thinking nobody should have the right to attempt to detain a suspected burglar with guns, and especially if he's black.
Had this been a white guy, nobody would give the slightest crap that he got shot trying to get away from people trying to arrest him.
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