Meanwhile in Nashville, a 29-year-old white man walked into a Waffle House with an AR-15 and murdered four people, all black. A 29-year-old patron, also black, disarmed him when he stopped to reload. The shooter ran off, and a police manhunt ensued. The next day the mass shooter was caught in the woods with a loaded weapon and a backpack full of ammo. He was apprehended alive and unhurt.
Meanwhile in Sacramento, an unarmed black 23-year-old father talking on his cellphone in his grandparents' back yard was shot to death in a hail of police bullets with no warning. It was a case of mistaken identity. Someone reported a man breaking car windows and police went into this man’s back yard and shot him dead. No attempt to verify who he was or take him alive. His name was Stephon Clark. And he was only one of a mind-bending number of such stories. There seems to be a new one every single day.
Meanwhile, the mass shooter in Nashville revealed himself to be a member of a white supremacist extremist group targeting people of color in an act of domestic terrorism. He is being held on $2-million dollars bail, which means a benefactor only has the come up with $200K and he walks free tomorrow. Never mind that you’ve never heard of a mass shooting suspect being offered bail. Never mind that he is a known flight risk. Never mind that he was previously arrested by the Secret Service for infiltrating White House grounds and his guns were ordered taken away. They did take his guns but they merely turned them over to his father, who promptly gave them back to his son when the authorities drove away.
The Nashville shooter was in a Publix grocery store last week shouting racial slurs and threatening to murder black people, to wipe them from the face of America. No one called the police like they did for those two black men minding their own business in a Philly Starbucks right around the same time. Two days ago, the shooter made good on his promise in a Nashville Waffle House. And now a judge is allowing him to walk free.
The Nashville shooter must be well connected to some powerful people behind the scenes.
Or is it that he only shot black people?
When does it become too much?
#BlackLivesMatter
#NeverAgain
#Resist
UPDATE: Due to generalized outrage, the bond set for mass shooting suspect Travis Reinking has been revoked. I guess enough people expressed themselves. Meanwhile, James Shaw, Jr., the man who disarmed the shooter and prevented more bloodshed and loss of life, has raised through crowdfunding $184,000 for the families of the four people who died. He is an American hero.
UPDATE: Due to generalized outrage, the bond set for mass shooting suspect Travis Reinking has been revoked. I guess enough people expressed themselves. Meanwhile, James Shaw, Jr., the man who disarmed the shooter and prevented more bloodshed and loss of life, has raised through crowdfunding $184,000 for the families of the four people who died. He is an American hero.
I don't have any words.
ReplyDeleteI am literally too sickened to have any words.
"I am sorry" doesn't mean a damn thing. But oh god, I am so sorry.
Mary, I could hardly get out of bed this morning. I feel so worn down by the news. I swear I couldn't move until I tapped out that post on my phone. It was a way I suppose to put what I was feeling outside of myself, so I can function. Could people's lives really matter this little? How can there be so much hate? Feels like a whole lot of insanity going on. I'm so very tired today.
DeleteI look at the damn pile of pills I take for depression and anxiety and I think, "Yeah, I wonder why."
DeleteI can NOT believe that this is where we are in 2018. I thought that by now we'd all be traveling around via jet packs and channeling our energies into amazing things and instead, we are still wallowing in the slime of hatred and racism and ignorance. And violence. I can't even stop weeping this morning.
Would you allow me to share this on Facebook?
ReplyDeleteSure. ❤️
DeleteIt went way beyond too much long ago. It is now a nightmare horror show.
ReplyDeleteIt is all too damn much...Hugs to you, Rosemarie.
ReplyDeleteI live in a state of despair about our country. How can this still be happening? I am a brown-skinned Jewish woman and I am afraid that the white supremacists are claiming power. My only hope is 2018 midterm elections. If things don't change I utterly fear the future.
ReplyDeletePoints well taken about how so many white terrorist are taken into custody unharmed. Comparisons studies on the consequences of fleeing police and refusing to cooperate among racial lines need to be examined and addressed in order to make the conclusions valid. I have no doubt that there will be extreme bias due to racism.
ReplyDeleteTo say Stephon Clark was just standing in his back yard on a cell phone when shot died not tell the entire story. He fled police who told him to stop as they were in pursuit. Cooperating with police commands greatly increases ones chances of survival and decreases injuries. Corpses cannot vote and these days, all should be told this and how to respond when approached by armed authorities. Movements are underway to change the justice system stating with the elections of District Attorneyd on up. Without the votes it’s not going to happen, and getting shot, killed or “just” beat up I’d not helping the problems. Numbers are way up and the current courts way up to the Supreme Court are backing the police. Votes, not physical resistance resulting in felony convictions or death, are most needed. No more martyrs to this cause needed st all
Rebecca, thanks for your comment. There’s some question as to whether the man the police pursued and told to stop was actually Stephon Clark. Even so, there are cases too numerous to count of fully compliant and innocent black men who ended up dead. Philando Castile for one. And yes, we must vote. Absolutely. I could go on making this case, but you’re catching me on a day when I have very little heart for it. The realities, clinically assessed, speak volumes.
DeleteThe disparities are shocking, and Reinking's father has a lot to answer for. I would not want to be that guy right now.
ReplyDeleteLegally, the father should have returned those guns to his son once he was released if those were his son’s Property. It’s easy to blame a weak individual than the whole system. Those guns should have been confiscated by the authorities but they legally could not keep them. They should not have been released to an adult’s parent if there was a question of whether the owner was a danger with them. They just shifted the task of illegally pitching the guns from the owner to an individual instead of going through the legal process of keeping him from them.
DeleteAccording to the Chicago Tribune, "Illinois state records show that Reinking signed his four guns over to his father on Aug. 24, 2017." They were no longer Travis's guns. So why the father gave them back is a huge mystery to me.
DeleteIt makes me feel sick to know I am part of a species that knows such hatred and acts upon it. What the hell is wrong with human beings? And what the hell is wrong with the justice system and the police system?
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing this so clearly. I'm linking to it on my own blog post. I wonder each morning how to keep my own heart out of darkness, how to stop my blood from boiling.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, maybe that is why we write. Maybe that is why many of us here write. To try and make sense of the insensible. I appreciate you, friend, and your boiling blood and your heart that flirts but is not seduced by darkness.
DeleteMay the voices of sanity be strong and thrive, no matter what happens.
ReplyDelete#BlackLivesMatter
#NeverAgain
#Resist
It's always been too much, in my country and yours. Xenophobia, racism, hate.
ReplyDeleteI hardly know what to say either. I'm glad you write of these individual cases because a lot of them don't even make the Canadian news. It has to be terrifying for those of colour. I can't imagine, although I try and that's scary enough. As for white supremacy, I am disgusted. It is being passed from generation to generation like a disease. For what good it does, I too am sorry.
ReplyDeleteI want the police murders of people of color, modern day Lynching to end. The publicity and outcry is not working. It has emboldened some into thinking that perhaps the police will hesitate with the adverse publicity. They are so mistaken, and more lives have been extinguished instead. The rights, the privileges and protection that the police have are upheld strongly in SCOTUS decisions. Not going to win. The way to win is through the vote. Over 2000 district attorney positions are determined by vote and the turnout for these elections is abysmal. The ignorance of who is tuning for DA even more pathetic in that these elections have such a heavy impact on communities. As I said above, corpses can’t vote. The word must get out to those most highly at risk to do what will give them the optimal chances to survive a police encounter so that they can vote the bad DAs out. As well as others subject to the vote.
ReplyDeleteI am reading this post and crying . I am standing beside you and I am proud to call you sister.
ReplyDeleteI don't have words strong enough to express the outrage and the sorrow. I am so sorry, for all of it. I'm sorry you have been struggling to get out of bed. I don't understand why they don't dig into the darkness of their own corrupt hearts and try to do better. I don't know what these people are doing here on earth with us. I really don't.
ReplyDeleteHatred is always sickening and lacking in humanity towards other Human Beings... what disturbs me most about the Hatred being displayed now is how proudly those involved seem to be about boldly Hating so openly. I believe the climate of this current administration has only added to that disgusting mindset... it is all revolting to me.
ReplyDelete