Via Rawstory: http://www.rawstory.com/...
This really shouldn't come as a surprise, but now that we know that the Grand Jury has refused to issue an indictment against the Officers responsible for John Crawford's death, we now have access to the in-store video of events leading up to the shooting as well as the in-sync audio of the 911 call.
Video Link since it won't embed.
What we now can see is that the caller, who claimed John was "waving the gun around at people" and "he's like loading it right now" was flatout, totally wrong. He didn't have any ammo. It's extremely obvious that this is not the case. John had picked up the BB gun, which is normally housed in a box - but a previous store client had taken it out - and was walking through the store while on the phone. At some points he has it dangling straight down from his hand, at other times it's resting on his shoulder - muzzle pointed behind him. [I don't see it pointed at anyone else, but if it was - it was at an angle where he couldn't see them at all]. At the time police come in and begin shooting it's danging downward, mildly swinging forward and back.
What i still want to know is, are there going to be charges filed (manslaughter, filing a false report) against the caller for his lies? And why'd he call in the first place because Ohio is an Open Carry State?
On the call they do describe John as "a black man, with an afro". Point of fact John doesn't have an "Afro". It's not even close to that. He's got his hair in
twists, they're something like a cross between dreads and braids. People with naturally straight hair don't know that those with kinky hair have to use methods like this or else they literally have no control of their hair. This is neither here nor there in the large scale of things, it's another example of how fracking clueless this guy is. I know he's 100 ft away and all, but he gets does get the little things as totally wrong as she gets the big things.
It's just more of his pattern of having a complete and total disdain for basic facts, as opposed to what he (correction: She) imagines and assumes.
We'd been told by this 911 caller, and police representatives that John was shot because he "refused to drop the gun". But as it turns out, after the first few shots are fired he DID drop the gun and tried run away but succumbed to his injuries.
The first video doesn't include the actual shooting as it was edited about by the News Station, but this video does have it.
Lastly, here's a Video of Ronald Ritchie, the 911 Caller, talking to reporters apparently after he himself had been shown the tape by investigators.
What gets me is really the nonchalance of it all. Even after he's seen the tape, and he now has a view that's less than 100 feet away, he still claims Crawford was "waving the gun at little children". When reporters ask what he was "saying", he says "he was waving it at children (again), people, items... I couldn't hear anything he was saying."
'What are you thinking" they ask him and he say's "I'm thinking he's there to rob the place of shoot somebody else..."
Seriously?
If he was there to commit a robbery, he's like the laziest, slowest, most insouciant, uncaring robber on earth. He's no where near the cashiers, whom you would expect - have. the. money. He's not talking to any one. Here's the thing about robbing a person - trust me on this - you need to tell them stuff like "Get your hands up, Give me your wallet..." Or something. Because if you don't, if you don't talk to anyone - or even hand them a note - you're NOT Robbing them.
And then he really starts to lie.
"He looked kinda serious, like he didn't want to be looked at - and when people looked at him he pointed the gun at them. Just..really, off putting."
Really? Uh huh. Guy in bad mood. Toy Gun. Must call cops. That'll end well.
"One the police came around the corner they said 'Put it down', they said it two times. He continued to swing the rifle, pointing it at the officer [No, he really didn't - he wasn't even facing them] After he was shot, "He went down, threw his weapon, tried to get back up and either tried to go for the officer or get his gun again."
Every connotation, every assumption about John's actions or movement this guy makes is negative. Everything he does is a threat. To him, John's a walking, talking, Red-Flashing "Warning" sign. A bomb ready to go off. A thermal-nuclear detonation with seconds left on the timer.
He's so confident he's right. He's so casual about it. Putz.
Sigh.
I haven't been posting in the last few days because I reached a temporary burn-out point after three days straight of twitter fights and needed to recharge and relax. Not that I was upset or disturbed, just a little tired. And bit saddened by how deeply naively deluded some people in this country truly are. Gee-zus. And also how quickly they turn into pricks when you challenge them on it. Mostly we we're talking about the Danielle Watts case, but what I see in this case, with this witness, is exactly the same thing I see in people who refuse to accept that they don't really know what they think they know.
Without rehashing that case, in the course of our back and forth they actually confirmed part of Danielle's complaint that she and Brian had been repeatedly "accosted by police" [Brian's Words] by sending me an instagram link, but then everything else about it they got wrong.
I was working off the audio tapes over the issue where Brian confirms Danielles "multiple police calls/stops", he claimed that one of the police stops was revealed to be in Texas via an interview. But it wasn't any interview, it was an instagram post by Brian where he says the two of them were racially profiled "as an inter-racial bi-sexual couple" by a Texas State Trooper.
In nitpicking minor details - which she gets wrong - she misses the larger point. Multiple unjustified police stops [as far as she's concerned] were why she was upset. And also the news of her step-mother dying.
Anyway...
This situation is the same thing. Ritche said the gun was an AR-15. It wasn't. He said he was "pointing it at children", he wasn't. He said he was "trying to load it", he wasn't. He said he tried to "swing it at the officers", he didn't. He said he refused a command to "Put the weapon down", when it's wasn't a weapon, it was a toy. And on and on...
I imagine that this dude has no remorse. In fact, it seems to me he thinks he's some kind of hero, like he just helped avert Columbine II, or Sandy Hook the Return or something. He can't tell the difference between the guy who stormed into the Batman: Dark Knight Rises premiere with a real rifle, flak jacket and mask and John Crawford with a BB gun.
Just like some people can't tell between Daniele Watts and a prostitute. Or a "Race Baiter". A cop can't tell when a guy is reaching back into his car, that it's for his License and Registration not a gun.
He was unarmed, now he's dead. [Correction: He survived and is recovering. Lucky Man.]
Cops can't tell a dull unsharpened decorative bokken from a deadly Samarai Sword. So Darren Hunt is dead, but he was unarmed.
Michael Brown was unarmed.
John Crawford was unarmed.
Trayvon Martin was unarmed.
Kendrec McDade was unarmed.
Renisha McBride was unarmed.
Jonathon Ferrell was unarmed.
And so was Sean Bell.
And Oscar Grant.
And Amadour Diallo.
And Patrick Dorismond.
All of them, unarmed and somehow still deadly dangerous. All of them, except Daniele and Brian [and Levar] - so far, dead. [And it's not like Daniele or Brian's situation didn't have the potential to escalate into something violent and deadly, it was pretty volatile at times.] And although we don't know the final totals (which may be a high as 700 people per year for both police and civilian "justified homicides"), we certainly know this list isn't complete.
And that a lot more people than just Daniele Watts have the police called on them for minor, trivial issues - or non-issues - time and time, and time again.
Why is it ever possible assumption about John, Michael and Daniele is always how they did something to create the situation they were in with police? And the police are always as innocent and pure as the driven snow on Christmas morning.
Yet again, Ohio is an Open Carry State. The NRA says that what stops a Bad Guy with a Gun is a "Good Guy with a Gun". The part they never bother to explain is: how is anyone supposed to know which is which? Why exactly couldn't John Crawford have been engaging in an Open Carry demonstration? Why is it he's "Trying to commit a Robbery" - by not actually trying to steal anything from anyone?
A lot of people are really convinced they know shit that they don't know. People are ending up pulled over time and time again for bogus reasons. Written up with weak charges, having to pay out of pocket for repeated minor nuisance tickets, take time off work to go to court, and as all that piles up they get a warrant, they go to jail, they get a record -- and now Sargent Jim Parker has just got to Get Your ID because you have to have a record don't you? Don't all Black people have records?
And those are the lucky ones, because so many people get beaten by police. White people too so don't think you're special, it's just that Black people get beaten about three time as often.
John Crawford has to be some kind of "Robber." And Michael Brown just had to be "Bum-rushing" Officer Wilson in order for him to fire at him, while he was falling onto the ground.
What. ever. else. could. it. possibly. be?
But we're not going to call it what it really is. As a result we're not going to really address it. We're not going to even try to fix it. It's been 20 years since Rodney King was beaten to a bloody pulp for speeding. We all saw it, we all know what it was. If only they still had the choke-hold, it would've been so much better for King Sgt Stacy Koon used to say. Yes, just like it was for Ron Settles. And Eric Garner. It's been 20 years since the deep seated mistrust resulting from decades of police abuse made so many black people jump up and scream in victory when O.J. Simpson temporarily avoided jail.
Tell me something... what's changed since then? Never mind Barack Obama and all that -- what else is different in our national perspective NOW than it was in 1991 or 1992 when Los Angeles erupted into flames? It doesn't matter if this bias, the presumption of guilt and potential violence, is based on hate, or fear, or paranoia, or a total failure to grasp basic math and the law of averages. It exists. And it doesn't require any White people going around saying they Hate black people, or for Cops to say they're going to go out and Get some Blacks. [Even though some of them have said exactly that!]
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And...
All this requires is for people to act on a false or flawed assumption. It doesn't require hate. It doesn't require the N-word to be tossed around. All they have to do, in small ways, subtle nearly undetectable and unverifiable ways, is to not go the extra inch that giving someone the benefit of the doubt requires. That's all. Fixing it requires just a little bit of patience. A little bit of courage in the face of uncertainty, with that so many people will discover their worsts fears - either about "black criminals" or even, yes, the overhyped fear of "racist cops" - will begin to finally subside.
We can't just wish this away. We have to admit there is still a problem here, and then work to correctly identify it, before we begin to fix it.
But unfortunately we can't get a significant portion of the country to be willing to admit, even to themselves, that situations like these are "Highly, Severely Fucked Up". They think everything is "just fine", we just need to have people stop whining so much about all this so-called "Racism". Never mind all that the police disparity stats, or all times that Civil Rights Testers go into banks, and rental properties, and apply for jobs where two people who have identical credit ratings, but are of different races and time and time again, more of the black and latino people get the shaft. But that's not a problem - that's just fine - complaining about it is. That's the Problem - to them - so as a result I'm not expecting that fix, or any fix, to be happening any time soon. Nope. I don't see that particularly shiny sunny future on the horizon at all.
Because I have people on twitter telling me there's "No Racism" (or for that matter bias, bigotry and flat out laziness) in the Police or in Los Angeles?
Two words: Donald Sterling.
We haven't moved an inch forward since then. It used to be that a racist person was pretty obvious. In fact, they were pretty proud to feel that way and completely open about it. Now they lie about it. Now you can't tell who is racist and who isn't, even when they're walking around with signs showing Watermelon on the White House Lawn, they still - with a straight face - can proclaim that doesn't have any Racist connotation. Shirley Sherrod is called a "Racist' by these people because she didn't want to help a White guy who'd just finished telling her how he was so much better and more important than she was, [but then she helped him anyway]. A "Redskin" was literally the skin peeled off the body of a freshly murdered Native American, used as proof to receive payment for killing them from the King of England, yet we're still "debating" whether this is an appropriate name for the Washington Football Team? Hey, how about we just call them the Washington Small Pox Blankets instead? That'd be just about as tasteful. James O'Keefe can pretend to walk into A.C.O.R.N. offices dressed like Antonio Vargas from "I'm gonna git you sucka" where he had gold fishbowls in his platform shoes, and That's Not Racist, either.
Yeah, right.
if anything we've gone backwards, those who want to make excuses, and pretend that we all live in a Fairy Tale La La Land of happy flowers and sunshine aren't gonna see the truth. They can't even smell the truth.
They're the people who are going to trust no-name witnesses about Michael Brown who can't go on the record or reveal themselves, and are going to ignore almost of dozen of both black and white people who were there at the scene and said the exactly opposite cuz of ridiculous beliefs like this....
If the tape hadn't come out in the shooting of John Crawford, and even though it has come out, there are still many people who want to believe he was some kind of threat..to someone, somewhere.
Mark my words on this. They'll continue to find a way to blame him for "standing in a threatening manner with a toy in his hands". Certainly if John had simply decided to talk about Overthrowing the Government in a coming "Revolution" while pushing a shopping cart full of ammunition down the street to Walmart - nothing. could've. gone. wrong. with. that. plan. right?
But the last thing they're going to admit is that they just might feel that way because John Crawford, and Michael Brown, and Renisha McBride, and Daniele Watts - are Black.
Nope, that can't possibly be the reason.
Vyan
7:56 AM PT: The S.C. Trooper who shot the unarmed man reaching or his wallet, has been charged. The victim, Levar Jones, survived.
Just as an aside the CHP Officer who was caught on camera beating a homeless woman walking in the middle of the I-10 Freeways has been fired.
Small steps, baby steps.
8:19 AM PT: Oh, and I forgot to mention Federal Authorities are looking into this - but I'm not sure what they can do about it under Civil Rights Laws.
10:46 AM PT: Here's another Video, this one is shows the full shooting and is synced with 911 audio.
1:27 PM PT: Here's a longer version of the video starting from the beginning of the 911 call.