COP SHOOTS BLACK MAN & VIGILANTE KILLS TWO BLM PROTESTERS & INJURES A THIRD

Another white police officer shoots another unarmed Black man –  this is a story that happens all the time.

This time it is Jacob Blake, 29, who was shot seven times in the back by officer Rusten Sheskey setting off days of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 

 Police were responding to a domestic incident and tried to arrest Blake who witnesses said was trying to de-escalate the situation.  Blake tried to get in his car and leave when officer Sheskey shot him in the back in front of his three small children.

He is accused of assaulting his ex-girlfriend who is the mother of his three children but this alleged incident should not be a death sentence.   Sheskey acted as the judge, jury, and executioner of Blake.

Blake is in Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee with damage to his kidney and liver, holes in his stomach, an injured arm,  bullets severed his spinal cord, shattered some of his vertebrae, most of his colon and small intestine had to be removed and he is paralyzed from the waist down.  

The Kenosha Sheriff’s Department said Blake is being “secured with restraints” to his hospital bed.  His father complained that Blake was being treated like an animal shackled to the bed and not treated like a human.  Blake can’t walk and may never walk again, so why is he shackled to the hospital bed?

 Richard  Pellegrino has first-hand experience regarding the disparate treatment between white folk and people of color when encountering the police because he is white and his children are bi-racial.  “I witness the disparate treatment almost daily whether in law enforcement or doctor’s offices or job search.”

“For example, I got stopped for a broken tail-light and received a polite warning.   A week later my 30-year-old daughter of color, got stopped for an alleged broken tail-light in her driveway.  She ended up in handcuffs being dragged through the mud by three cops, just because she tried to assert her rights by not consenting to a search,” Pellegrino, Field Director for Cobb SCLC and Atlanta Street Groomers tells Streets of Atlanta.

Over one thousand people have been shot and killed by police in the past year.  The rate of black Americans killed by police is more than twice as high as the rate of white Americans,  according to “Fatal Force” by the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/

SLAVE PATROLS FORERUNNER OF MODERN POLICE

Brutality and murder of Black people by police has been happening since slave days when slave patrols would chase down, terrorize and beat runaway slaves.  Extreme violence against people of color became even worse with the rise of vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan that was notorious for lynching Black men.

“A legally sanctioned law enforcement system existed in America before the Civil War for the express purpose of controlling the slave population and protecting the interests of slave owners.  The similarities between slave patrols and modern American policing are too salient to dismiss or ignore.  Hence, the slave patrol should be considered a forerunner of modern American law enforcement,” according to A History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing by Victor Kappeler, Ph.D. 

https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-and-origins-american-policing

Protesters chant to the police, “who do you serve, who do you protect?”  The answer seems to be the property of white rich people.  Slave patrols have evolved into police departments and the plantations have become prisons.  The names have changed but the racist agenda is the same.

TRUMP INSPIRED VIGILANTE KILLS TWO BLACK LIVES MATTER (BLM) PROTESTERS & INJURES A THIRD.

Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old, AR-15  gun-toting, Trump-inspired vigilante, and want-to-be-cop, came from Illinois to Wisconsin to “guard buildings and property,” he tells reporters at the scene. 

Rittenhouse is viewed on several videos, palling around with police and one officer gives him water and says, “We appreciate you being here.” Rittenhouse struts around playing police and pointing his gun at people. 

Rittenhouse clashed with people gathered near the car dealership when Joseph Rosenbaum threw a plastic bag at Rittenhouse but missed him.  Rittenhouse shoots Joseph Rosenbaum who does not have a gun.  He calls a friend to say, “I just killed somebody” and runs down the street followed by people yelling, “Get him, he shot him.”  Rittenhouse tripped and fell and Anthony Huber approaches to try to get his gun but  Rittenhouse fires at Huber and kills him. He then points his gun at a Gaige Grosskreutz and shoots him in the arm, according to a CNN report. 

After shooting three people, he walks with his hand up through several police-military vehicles while people yell at the police he just killed two people.  He was not arrested and went home. 

Later he was arrested, 30 miles away in Antioch, Illinois, for killing Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36,  and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, 26.  He has been charged with six counts including two homicide charges.   

Republicans are trying to make Rittenhouse a hero by calling the young men he killed dangerous far-left Antifa members and a so-called Christian site has raised over $97K for his defense.  Antifa stands for anti-fascist and anyone who does not worship Trump is considered ANTIFA.

Trump fans the flames of racism and promotes violence between peaceful anti-racist protesters and Trump-supporting white supremacists with guns.  He calls BLM thugs and peaceful protesters violent anarchists who are coming to the suburbs to destroy your lifestyle. 

He believes making people afraid of BLM and blaming them for the violence will help him win the November election.  As usual, it’s all about him and what he wants by any LIES necessary.

ATHLETES STAND UP FOR BLACK LIVES MATTER

A strike started with the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Milwaukee Bucks who refused to play stemming from the police shooting of Jacob Blake and quickly spread across the sports world.  

These Black athletes understand that the issue is bigger than any one person.  The sports strike and the protests are a response to systemic racism in America, police violence, mass incarcerations, and the plunder of generational wealth.

“I think the most difficult part is to see people still don’t care.  And for this to continuously happen it just shows the hate in people’s hearts…..being a Black man in American is not easy,” Dominic Smith, a Mets player said on CNN.

Some of the cancellations of sporting events include the Women’s National Basketball Association, several National Football League teams canceled practice, five Major League Soccer games postponed,  the National Hockey League postpone two games, and the Tennis Open decided to pause after Naomi Osaka said she would not play in the semifinals on Thursday.

“Watching the continued genocide of Black people at the hand of the police is honestly making me sick to my stomach,” Osaka wrote on twitter. 

“They keep spewing fear,Trump and all of them (GOP) keep talking about fear but we are the ones getting shot and killed.  We keep loving the U.S. but it does not love us back,”  Doc Rivers, L.A. Clippers Coach said on CNN.

by Gloria Tatum