Nine unarmed black men were killed by law enforcement in 2019. This is established fact. That’s not to say innocent men — reviewing the stories on a case by case basis, these were mostly violent criminals resisting arrest and in at least several cases attempting to take control of an officer’s weapon — but they were unarmed, and now they are dead, and their death came at the hands of law enforcement.
There is no account, anywhere, of any law enforcement officer anywhere in the United States simply executing an innocent black man because he was black.
However, through the 11th of September of this year, eight law enforcement officers had been murdered in ambushes involving entrapment or premeditation, or both.
That doesn’t count last night’s horror, in which two officers sitting in a police cruiser were shot repeatedly at point-blank range by an unknown assailant. The officers are still alive, but both of them–a thirty-one year old female and a twenty-four year old male–remain in critical condition.
Note this detail:
A small crowd, including some apparent demonstrators, gathered near the hospital in Lynwood where the deputies were transported. Witnesses say members in the group were chanting anti-law enforcement slogans and at one point tried to get inside the hospital.
And watch how it went down (the video cuts out before the one officer comes staggering out of the cruiser):
Note also this friendly reminder from the L.A. Sheriff’s Office:
That’s apparently what “some of the protesters were chanting:” they were chanting, “We hope they die.”
Let’s review.
Two police officers–new recruits, apparently (the 31-year-old is the mother of a six-year-old)–were sitting in their patrol car. A stranger comes running up out of the blue and fires repeatedly at them in an obvious attempt to kill them. And “protesters” gather in front of the hospital to chant “we hope they die.”
Can someone point me to cases where an innocent American of any ethnicity was shot at from a few feet away by a law enforcement officer for no apparent reason? Where, say, a cop walked up to a couple of people sitting in a car and simply shot them? I’ll even give you a pass on meeting the added detail of a crowd gathering at the hospital to chant their hopes that the victims would die.
Should these two officers die, which remains a possibility, then more cops will have been killed by deliberate ambush in 2020 than the number of unarmed black men killed in police action in 2019.
Those are all facts. Make of them what you will.
The story is still breaking. Is there a context that could change the dynamics of the story? There’s always a context that could change the dynamics of a story. There will also be competition for “control of the narrative.” (Isn’t that Twitter’s business model?)
Maybe these were dirty cops guilty of some disgusting crimes, and the would-be assassin was avenging those foul deeds.
Maybe the perp had been personally violated by one or both of the officers in private life and was acting on personal motives directed at these specific individuals rather than any larger grievance against law enforcement.
Or maybe they were just a couple of cops doing their job and the would-be assassin just wanted to kill them because, somehow, he’d come under the impression that All Cops Are Bastards–that they were pigs in a blanket to be fried up like bacon.
Time will tell.