US police brutality item

[Rev. Rye]

Your great desire to use Tony Timpa’s death to deflect from the death of George Floyd and the concerns of the larger black community is concerning to say the least. And frankly, your decision to try and shift the blame doesn’t make much sense. So maybe the data from the autopsies lays a lot more blame at the other cops than Chauvin himself. That still means he died a long and lingering death at the hands of the cops.

And, Hell, I can find cases of white people suffering at the hands of cops, too. On the Jim Can’t Swim Patreon page, I recently watched a video (Police Interrogations Part 14) that involved the interrogation of Ryan Waller. On 23 December 2006, he and his girlfriend were shot in their home. She died instantly; he was not so lucky. Ryan was shot once behind the ear and once through the nose. The second bullet also went through his eye, sinus, and brain. He was found conscious, but barely, and when the cops came, they interrogated him as a suspect for several hours, even though he was really out of it and the most coherent thoughts to come out of his mouth were “I want to go back to sleep.” They even dismissed what little he could get out of his account of getting shot EVEN AS THE WOUND WAS PLAINLY VISIBLE ON HIS FACE. By the time they actually got him medical attention, the damage was irreversible, he lost both eyes and his parents had to care for him for the rest of his short-ass life. 

But, guess what? I know that in terms of the big picture, Police violence is still a problem that disproportionately affects black people. In per capita terms, Black people are three times more likely to be killed by cops than white people and 1.3 times More likely to be unarmed. As it turns out, violent crime rates of the given jurisdiction are irrelevant to how often it happens, and 99% of the time, the cops who do it get away with it. And that’s just the cases that end in the guy’s death.

 As emotional as these stories may be, they still don’t change the fact that black people are at particular risk, and that’s why their struggles is being emphasized.