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Fear and Loathing in the Queen City
This is a preview from Thursday morning’s The Daily Shot newsletter. Subscribe here free of charge.
Violent protests in Charlotte, NC, turned deadly in their second night, when a civilian was shot by another civilian. That wasn’t all. Rioters were seen trying to throw a news photographer into a fire. A CNN reporter was attacked on the air. (Basically somebody came up and body checked him to the ground.)
So what’s all this about? Tuesday afternoon, there was a police shooting in Charlotte. Around 4 pm, police were at an apartment complex in the University City section, in the northeast part of the city, near UNC Charlotte, serving an outstanding warrant.
What happened next is still being investigated. But a man named Keith Lamont Scott was in a van, and then he was out of the van. Police claim he had a gun, and he was a threat. Family members claim Scott had a book and was waiting for his son. (Police who looked at the video dispute the book claim.) Either way, he was shot, and died at the hospital. The officer in question, Brentley Vinson, has been placed on administrative leave. No, he was not wearing a body camera at the time.
Within hours, there were protests, which quickly turned violent. Cops were in riot gear and using tear gas. At one point, a section of I-85 was blocked. Rioters were burning vehicles and looting nearby stores. Some 12 officers were reported injured. However, the whole thing was cleared up by Wednesday morning, and I-85 was reopened before rush hour.
So what about last night? According to our Daily Shot Charlotte correspondent (That’s you, Dad), Wednesday night’s trouble started as a small vigil and protest, then after dark troublemakers showed up.
This is a preview from Thursday morning’s The Daily Shot newsletter. Subscribe here free of charge.
Published in General
When our “leaders”, including but not limited to, President Obama send messages of support to lawbreakers over legitimate authority this kind of thing is inevitable. The next President has a huge mess to clean up. I’m not confident either candidate is up to the job though so we are in for an extended period of unrest.
This is not to say there are no problems but that the problems are being addressed in ways that do nothing to resolve them appropriately but rather exacerbate the situation.
This is not an indictment of all leadership. There are many in places of both authority and influence that do exhibit sound leadership but their voices are being overshadowed by those of poor judgement, bad motives or inability.
Wait until tonight now that George Soros has had time to mobilize busloads of “activists” with battlefield experience in Ferguson and Baltimore.
The ‘reading a book’ claim appears to be about as substantive as ‘hands up don’t shoot’, not that the facts matter.
Yet another case of a black cop working under a black police chief somehow being an honorary white racist…
It is almost as if we have a large part of the American population incapable of any independent, relevant thoughts about race, poverty and crime and instead tries to hammer large square pegs into a small round holes labelled Birmingham ’63/-Selma ’65 as if nothing had changed in 50 years. Looters, thugs and race-baiting hustlers who think they are entitled to claim the moral mantle of the Civil Rights movement on the basis of skin color alone….
MSNBC analysts will be working overtime trying to figure out if intense absurdly biased riot coverage will help mobilize Democratic black voter turnout more than it will stir and enrage middle-class ‘law and order’ resentment-driven (increasingly) Trump voters.
I knew nothing about this riot until about 9pm (I had been watching the Orioles self-destruct to the RedSox), and I clicked onto FoxNews and heard the first reports on Megyn Kelly’s show.
Kelly had a mini-debate with two black partisans, one liberal and one conservative. The liberal (I think he’s a radio talk show host) argued something, and then Kelly interrupted to say that this most recent incident appears to have been a correct application of police policy. At that point, the liberal countered that “maybe, just maybe…” that proves that the policy has to change. Black men have died from police policies in all these different cities, like Ferguson, and now Charlotte. So doesn’t that show that the policies need to change?
The policy in question in Charlotte was that a black cop told a black citizen to drop his gun, and the citizen didn’t.
No, that policy doesn’t need to change. When a cop tells you to drop a gun, you drop the gun. Michael Brown died in Ferguson, not because the police policy was wrong, but because Michael Brown refused to obey the law.
I actually agree that when cops exceed their authority, people will (and should) react. But that doesn’t mean that every time a cop shoots a black kid, it’s the fault of “department policy.” In fact, usually, it’s the fault of the person who refused to obey the law.
I vote “bad motives”.
At the local level, it’s prejudice, followed by opportunism.
I live in Charlotte, north of the city, pretty far from the original incident (well, if 10-15 miles is far).
My company advised us all to stay home today, work from home if possible. The riots last night were typically predictive, stupid, and people got hurt, for no reason.
The guy who got shot (Keith Lamont Scott) had a gun, and although the police didn’t know it at the time, he had a record of some kind (still trying to find the article on it I saw last night).
So: Coming out of a car with a gun and then getting shot by police is a pretty hard racism sell. That’s what’s going to happen if you show a gun, and ignore commands by the police, no matter who you are.
But, instead, a lie gets told, and the city devolves into chaos.
Here’s a bit of background that’s not getting a lot of air time.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/keith-lamont-scott-shooting-charlotte-police-say-he-was-holding-a-gun-when-shot/
Court records indicate that Scott had a criminal record including an assault conviction.
Mecklenburg County records matching Keith Lamont Scott’s name and birth date show Scott was charged in April 2004 with multiple counts, including felony assault with a deadly weapon. Records show that most of the charges were dismissed, and he pleaded guilty to a single charge of misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon.
Records from nearby Gaston County show that Scott pleaded guilty to driving while impaired in 2015.
A woman who identified herself as an advocate for Scott’s family, Annette Albright, said at a news conference that he shouldn’t be “re-victimized” because of things he did in the past.
She told reporters: “What he was doing at the time of the shooting is what’s relevant.”
Agreed. Like waving a gun and ignoring the commands of the police. With his background, he knows what’s up, but he did it anyway.
Stay safe. Is your employers’ workplace near the riot area?
Working from home. Office is closed, and yes, it’s near the riot area. Charlotte’s uptown area is really small. The rioting last night is a five-minute walk from my office.
The entire BLM movement is based on a lie. Period.
That large numbers of black men are being shot by cops for no good reason, or out of racism.
That is a lie.
Only 4% of black males killed every year are killed by police.
Almost all of those shootings are justified.
Black males are a greater threat to the police then
almost(fixed it) any other group.2015
Police killing of Blacks 4% of Black homicides.
Police killing of UNARMED Blacks 0.4 % of all killings
93% of Blacks killed by another Black
Police 18X more likely to be killed by a black assailant then an unarmed black by an officer
32 unarmed blacks killed out of 19 million black males 0.0000018
21 police killed out of 628000
.000033
We cannot allow the current Pravda to go unchallenged.
The rioters are worthless thugs and savages. For them I have no sympathy, whatsoever.
Shot,
First, Obama’s whole mentality and choice of AG fomented these riots entirely. They have nothing to do with reality they are completely synthetic creations of race-baiting left wing evil. Second, the news media is a willing accomplice to this whole crime. They continue to refer to the rioters and looters as “protesters”. This is utter nonsense. These people are at best petty criminals and many are paid agitators bussed in for the express purpose of causing as much mayhem as they can.
The whole left wing narrative is absurd. First, the number of blacks killed by white police officers is microscopic. Second, police departments have been massively integrated for the last 25 years. In most of these cases, it is not a white police officer but a black or a woman or a Hispanic (sorry to use identity politics labels, I despise this but what can you do when all of United States government policy is being run by these labels).
The people committing crimes should be arrested and jailed. It’s too bad the President of the United States, his Attorney General, and most of his cabinet can’t be arrested for incitement of violence. That would be real Justice.
Regards,
Jim
Well, I’ll tell you what I did. The last time I got a long form census, which by the way, mostly contains questions about which the answer is none of the Federal Govt’s business but that’s another issue, I checked the box ‘Other’ under ‘Race’ and wrote in “Human”. Because that’s what I am. Skin color doesn’t determine Race, that is a made up lie used to divide us. Skin color is determined by the amount of melanin in the sub-dermis which is controlled by 4 genes.
So when the poor, overworked, Govt. lady called me for clarification it went like this:
POGL, “I just need to clarify something on your Census Form.”Me, “OK, fine.”
POGL, “You’ve checked Other on the form. Are you mostly White, Hispanic, Black or what?”
Me, “No I’m all Human.”
POGL, “What Race is your wife?”Me, “She’s Human too.”
POGL, “What Race are your kids?”
Me, “Well, their Mom is Human and I’m Human so that makes them Human too.”
I’m sure the POGL cussed me out pretty good after that call and I don’t blame her one bit. I blame the race dividers that made her go through all that.
There is only one Human Race, folks.
I’ve been saying this for years. When Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis died out, or was subsumed into Homo Sapiens Sapiens, there was only one human race left on this planet.
In other exciting news, my half-marathon race tomorrow got cancelled due to safety concerns and potential lack of police availability on the route.
So, to summarize:
A lie about a book shuts the city down, losing hundreds of thousands of productive hours by workers, and an event (one of hundreds I’m sure) is shut down, an event that people have spent months training for.
Tomorrow, someone would have been running their first marathon. Instead, because some chowderhead gets shot, that all goes down the tubes.