During the first week of December 2017, a jury decided not to convict a nerdy white police officer with something to prove, Philip "Mitch" Brailsford, after he killed a white man/ ultra-light-skinned man who was unarmed, crawling toward the Brailsford as instructed while begging for his life.
The murder victim's name was Daniel Shaver.
Let me say this just one more time:
I've been telling folks for a few years, that cops are going to start coming for white people too. And I think Daniel Shaver's death is just the latest example or white supremacy killing a white man.
I heard "hands up" and "cross your legs" and "crawl." I never heard "uncross your legs" and "you're allowed to put your hands down now." So was Shaver supposed to be crawling with his legs crossed?
I have no idea what the objective of all those orders were other than to create an excuse to kill Daniel Shaver, especially since rumor has it that Shaver was drunk or had recently been drunk.
If the cop wasn't creating an excuse to get his Toxic Masulilnity jollies and kill Shaver --and that's probably only a sliver of what's happening in that video-- then maybe we need to look at the obvious: This cop is a coward in a long line of cowardly cops who have shot unarmed people, too many of them black and brown (and poor?) up to this point.
If a cop is so scared he can't give clear instructions that DO NOT SOUND LIKE Shaver was supposed to be crawling forward with his hands up and legs crossed --impossible-- then he should NOT be a cop, right?
Cowards should not be police officers.
For all we know Shaver had an itch, or lost his balance a little, or was doing something as nonsensical as to cross his legs while crawling. I'm pretty sure that's what I'd have been doing after all the screaming and threats of murder for the slightest error Cowards should not be police officers.
I can definitely imagine a situation where I AS A COP wouldn't go into a dark room without spraying everybody in the room with bullets...in order to make myself feel safe. It is obvious to me that this means that I don't have nerve enough to be cop.
The other likely way that Daniel Shaver's death can be put at the feet of folks who do not care about unarmed black people being abused by police officers so much more often than other demographics, is in the way the evidence was likely presented.
Clearly, I wasn't there with the jury. And I haven't read any details about the jury deliberations. But this whole situation reminds me of how one jury dismissed the content
of the Rodney King beating video. I have to wonder if the Shaver jury wasn't manipulated in the same ways that the King jury was manipulated.
The jury's ordinary human reaction may have been manipulated and deadened. That must be it, right? Or did the prosecutor allow the jury to get entirely packed with a bunch authoritarian Trumpthuglican-type #BlueLivesMatter people because the prosecutor didn't want to prosecut a cop.
If this entire country had been as outraged about the handling of the evidence by the prosecutor in the Rodney King case and Mike Brown case, instead of half the country being outraged that that the cops were questioned at all, maybe prosecutors would be held to a higher standard all these years later and Shaver's killer would be in prison now.
Maybe we'd have found a way to stop legal experts, like defense attorneys and sympathetic prosecutors, from protecting cop murderers in the court room via jury manipulation. Maybe...
But whatever.
So where is the ALL LIVES MATTER PROTEST gonna be at? Or maybe there won't be a protest because certain white folks have a dilemma.
How are the very white ALL LIVES MATTER folks and the very white BLUE LIVES MATTER folks going to come to an agreement about who is REALLY to blame for Shaver's senseless death now that the cop's murder victim is white instead of black or brown? I find it hard to believe that ALL LIVES MATTER and BLUE LIVES MATTER ONLY are going to agree that the white Shaver murdered himself same as they agreed the black Miriam Carey, Mike Brown, Yvette Smith, Eric Garner, and Philando Castile....all brought their own murders on themselves. If they do, I guess we'll have to see more white people die like Daniel Shaver did before they get it.
In the meantime, I hope Shaver's family is able to sue the police department responsible for that toxic masculinity suffering jackass Officer Brailsford out of existence...same as all the black families that came before them.
The murder victim's name was Daniel Shaver.
Let me say this just one more time:
Each and every time a cop has simply walked away from killing an unarmed black person, there were 10 cops (most of them white) who were getting the tacit message that they can kill ANYBODY that is not as obedient as a slave.
I've been telling folks for a few years, that cops are going to start coming for white people too. And I think Daniel Shaver's death is just the latest example or white supremacy killing a white man.
Warning: police bodycam video, violent images, death
...and I didn't have a gun pointed in my face to make understanding the cop's instructions even harder.
I heard "hands up" and "cross your legs" and "crawl." I never heard "uncross your legs" and "you're allowed to put your hands down now." So was Shaver supposed to be crawling with his legs crossed?
The thing that is clear is that asking the cop questions about his instructions was an act of disobedience, as was begging for his life apparently.
I have no idea what the objective of all those orders were other than to create an excuse to kill Daniel Shaver, especially since rumor has it that Shaver was drunk or had recently been drunk.
If the cop wasn't creating an excuse to get his Toxic Masulilnity jollies and kill Shaver --and that's probably only a sliver of what's happening in that video-- then maybe we need to look at the obvious: This cop is a coward in a long line of cowardly cops who have shot unarmed people, too many of them black and brown (and poor?) up to this point.
If a cop is so scared he can't give clear instructions that DO NOT SOUND LIKE Shaver was supposed to be crawling forward with his hands up and legs crossed --impossible-- then he should NOT be a cop, right?
Cowards should not be police officers.
For all we know Shaver had an itch, or lost his balance a little, or was doing something as nonsensical as to cross his legs while crawling. I'm pretty sure that's what I'd have been doing after all the screaming and threats of murder for the slightest error Cowards should not be police officers.
I can definitely imagine a situation where I AS A COP wouldn't go into a dark room without spraying everybody in the room with bullets...in order to make myself feel safe. It is obvious to me that this means that I don't have nerve enough to be cop.
Cowards should not be police officers, not even if that coward is me. I don't understand how a bunch of people who are cops right now don't understand this about themselves.
Clearly, I wasn't there with the jury. And I haven't read any details about the jury deliberations. But this whole situation reminds me of how one jury dismissed the content
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| Rodney King |
Of course, race and racism made it easier to convince a white jury that King orchestrated his own beating (One white female juror actually said this, "Mr. King was in full control of the whole situation at all times. He was not writhing in pain...He wasmoving to get away from the officers....on PCP." She said the 25 year old King orchestrated his entire beating from the ground....and experienced no pain from being hit.
Rodney King
But the big thing that defense did (and the prosecutors allowed) was to play that Rodney King video over and over and over again, numbing the jury out as far as the horror of what they were seeing.
As I understand it, the defense for four cops that nearly beat Rodney King to death or a drunk driving beef played the video over and over, stopping every few seconds so as to redefine what the jurors were seeing with their own eyes. And it worked. The officers were able to walk away from the first verdict.And now I'm wondering if the jury let Daniel Shaver's cop murderer go for some of the same reasons. Almost all of the people commenting on the video on social media are outraged at how Shaver was murdered on that video. They are all wondering how the jury let the cop murderer go. I think the Rodney King case tells us how the jury let the cop murderer go.
The jury's ordinary human reaction may have been manipulated and deadened. That must be it, right? Or did the prosecutor allow the jury to get entirely packed with a bunch authoritarian Trumpthuglican-type #BlueLivesMatter people because the prosecutor didn't want to prosecut a cop.
Prosecutors and cops are allies on a day to day basis. We have to allow for the possibility that prosecutors are helping defense attorneys when it comes to getting cops off. In the Mike Brown case, a juror sued the prosecutor for "erroneously" telling his grand jury that Darren Wilson was allowed to shoot at Brown JUST FOR running away, when the Supreme Court had decided this was NOT a legal basis for shooting someone in 1985.
If this entire country had been as outraged about the handling of the evidence by the prosecutor in the Rodney King case and Mike Brown case, instead of half the country being outraged that that the cops were questioned at all, maybe prosecutors would be held to a higher standard all these years later and Shaver's killer would be in prison now.
Maybe we'd have found a way to stop legal experts, like defense attorneys and sympathetic prosecutors, from protecting cop murderers in the court room via jury manipulation. Maybe...
But whatever.
So where is the ALL LIVES MATTER PROTEST gonna be at? Or maybe there won't be a protest because certain white folks have a dilemma.
How are the very white ALL LIVES MATTER folks and the very white BLUE LIVES MATTER folks going to come to an agreement about who is REALLY to blame for Shaver's senseless death now that the cop's murder victim is white instead of black or brown? I find it hard to believe that ALL LIVES MATTER and BLUE LIVES MATTER ONLY are going to agree that the white Shaver murdered himself same as they agreed the black Miriam Carey, Mike Brown, Yvette Smith, Eric Garner, and Philando Castile....all brought their own murders on themselves. If they do, I guess we'll have to see more white people die like Daniel Shaver did before they get it.
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"Arizona police officer Philip “Mitch” Brailsford, a bespectacled Ramboesque nerd of a cop, was one of six Mesa police officers who had their guns drawn on Daniel Shaver after they ordered him out of his hotel room last January." (from Photography is not A Crime)
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