Jun162020

Episode 180 Show Notes – Not the Same Thing

Here we go again.
But far from George Floyd’s killing.
Black Lives Matters grows!

 

Not Again

Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old African American man, was fatally shot by Atlanta police Friday evening after officers were called on-scene due to reports that a man had fallen asleep while parked in the Wendy’s drive-thru, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations.

Brooks was transported to the hospital and died after surgery, said the GBI. One of the two officers experienced an injury of unknown severity during the altercation, but was subsequently released from the hospital.

 

Atlanta City Council Member Antonio Brown said

“This is why people are outraged in this city,. It’s incredibly important that our police, especially now, don’t resort to firing a gun – not unless someone is firing a gun right at you.”

Stacy Abrams Tweeted:

The Atlanta mayor fired the officer who shot Brooks and put the other officer on Administrative Leave.

But this started the firestorm. Protesters started crowding the streets in Atlanta. Of course, protesters turned to rioters. Oh, and they had great reason for their violence.

Here are a couple of protesters in Atlanta. Listen carefully because the audio has a lot of interference:

So, what these guys are saying is that there will be violence if these cops are not arrested immediately. That Brooks was a peaceful guy who was being harassed. He was a father and husband. A loving human being. Another example of an “unarmed” African American whose life was snuffed out by those Nazi white storm troopers of the Georgia police force.

There’s just one problem: The evidence does not show any of this. This just looks like more political grandstanding!

Oops! I smell lawsuits.

 

The Evidence

There were several views of the incident released. Two by police body cams, one by the Wendy’s security camera and one by a pedestrian’s cell phone.

The police footage was released to today and one can see that the images are consistent with the civilian images. The Wendy’s footage, which was the first video I saw, gave me all the information I needed to see. The body cam footage from the police just confirmed what I saw.

The body cam footage was about forty-five minutes. The shooting was covered in the last minutes and a half. I’ve watched all the footage for you. All hour and a half. Unlike what the Left is pushing, Brooks was not an innocent who the cops decided to pick on because he was  lack.

The police were called to a local Wendy’s restaurant because a man (Brooks) had fallen asleep in the drive thru lane. The police officer showed off and woke him up, telling Brooks to finding a parking space. Brooks, before moving his car, fell back asleep. The police officer woke him up again and had Brooks park his car, which he did. Immediately, he fell asleep.

The police officer went back into his car and could be heard saying, “What do I do now?” He knew what he had to do when he found out the car was a rental car and not his own.

After a few minutes, the officer got out of the car and started questioning Brooks. Brooks admitted that he had a drink or two but could not name when or what he had. The officer told him to stay in his car and he called it in, calling for a DUI specialist. Brooks kept apologizing and wanted to talk. The officer just told him to stay in his car and everything would be OK.

This confrontation lasted for twenty minutes. Brooks was never put against the squad car, never handcuffed and never searched. His keys were not taken and, from what I saw, the officer never even looked in the car.

The officer certified in evaluating DUIs arrived and started the field sobriety test. All the time, there were no threats and both officers were very polite. They even tried to make him feel at ease with his situation.

When the test was complete, the officer told Brooks he was under arrest for DUI and tried to cuff him. That’s when the struggle ensued. You could not see the fight from the body cam but you could see it from a bystander’s cell phone footage and the Wendy’s security cam footage.

Brooks had both officers on the ground and got the best of the. Both officers were on their backs and Brooks was swinging his fist.

One officer tried to taze him but missed. Brooks took the taser and started running. One officer was running after him while the other was trying to get oriented. Brooks turned around and shot the taser at the officer. The officer had his taser and dropped his taser and shot three times. He hit Brooks twice in the back.

Brooks went to the hospital and died after surgery.

 

What I Think, and It Ain’t Going to be Popular

Dan Bongino said on Fox News:

“The worse option is to let this subject continue to engage in use of force against them [the officers], without stopping the episode.

“Sadly, it resulted in his death, but make no mistake, the use of force was controlled by one person, the individual who resisted arrest, stole the weapon, ran away and then pointed it at the officers, which is clear on the video.”

“Obviously a man died. That’s tragic. Nobody wants to see that, whether it’s on the police side, on the community side, anywhere, we get that. Having said that, I always ask the question when it comes to law enforcement issues for the people who are sadly ignorant of them, many of whom haven’t lived in the shoes of a law enforcement officer themselves: ‘Well, what would you do?’”

He went on to explain the situation.

“You have an individual suspected of being intoxicated… what do you do? You want to just let him go? Get him back in the car and mow down a family on the streets because he’s potentially drunk? So, let’s eliminate that as a really bad idea.”

“Now you’re going to arrest him and the subject clearly does not want to be arrested. OK, so let’s walk through, what do you do?”

“Well again, we can’t let him get back in the car, so we have to arrest him using force. Keep in mind, not force the police officers wanted, they don’t initiate it, the subject did.”

“The bad choice was to have to engage in a use-of-force episode with this individual who pointed a Taser back at a law-enforcement officer he had just punched in the face. It wasn’t a good option to have to engage with your firearm. There were no good options. He’s dead.”

I use the interview of Dan Bongino because Bongino used to be an NYPD officer and a Secret Service officer. He knows better than anybody.

The problem here is that the media is trying to compare the George Floyd killing with Rayshard Brooks. They are not even close. The police were being attacked, one was injured. Brooks took a police weapon and pointed it at an officer. There’s just not a lot of things the officer could have done.

Ericka Shield, the Atlanta Police Chief, resigned saying:

“For more than two decades, I have served alongside some of the finest men and women in the Atlanta Police Department. Out of a deep and abiding love for this City and this department, I offered to step aside as police chief,” said Shields in a statement.

“APD has my full support, and Mayor Bottoms has my support on the future direction of this department. I have faith in the Mayor, and it is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve,” she said.

She has no chance in this whole thing and just said screw it. And she probably has it right.

This is what’s scary: cops are given no chance to enforce the law. Listen to what the Brooks attorney said on MSNBC:

They weren’t taking him in because he fell asleep. They were arresting him because he was drunk while driving. That is against the law. And what would have happened if he woke up and started driving home and he ran into a family and killed them? Would the cops have gotten into trouble for letting him go? Of course they would have.

The other question I have is why should they treat him differently? He broke the law. He’s go to jail for a couple of hours and be released. If he was white, should he have been let go?

And this lawyer totally ignores the violence of the situation!

A while back, a police officer, while I was watching a police situation, pulled me over and, at gun point, told me to get my hands up. I didn’t run or attack the cop (I didn’t do anything). I followed his orders. Guess what happened: I didn’t get shot! I’m pretty sure, if I took a swing at the officer, he would have shot me.

Just like Brooks.

What is scary is this is a call to end law. This is bad. It will bring us to the brink of anarchy if we say it is not criminal to commit crime.

The protesters also don’t seem to use reason when they go out and destroy things. That Wendy’s restaurant: It’s gone. Burned to the ground. Why?

Listen to the demands of the protesters:

Yeah, that’s a lie. We saw that in Minneapolis when all the officers were arrested and people continued to protest and loot.

But, what’s worse here, is that this officer, totally justified in his reaction, could and will be arrested and charged. His life ruined. All because he’s a cop and had to do his job. He didn’t look for a black guy to shoot. He was called in. The guy was not an innocent civilian. He was drunk driving, resisted arrest and threatened a cop with a weapon.

And he got shot. Being shot by a white cop does not make him innocent.

 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/atlanta-police-wendys-fire-suspect-rayshard-brooks
https://www.foxnews.com/us/atlanta-police-release-bodycam-video-leading-up-to-death-of-rayshard-brooks
https://www.foxnews.com/media/dan-bongino-atlanta-rayshard-brooks-shooting
https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-atlanta-man-fatally-shot-by-police-after-struggle-outside-drive-thru
https://www.dailywire.com/news/atlanta-police-chief-resigns-after-police-fatally-shoot-man-outside-drive-thru