I want to thank the Chattanooga Police Department for setting back the progress of what I've been doing ever since I moved from Tennessee to Seattle seventeen years ago: trying to convince Northwesterners that Southerners aren't stupid, delusional, racist jerks. I'm a 57-year-old white guy with a measured IQ of 197 and a pronounced Southern accent. I routinely get called stupid because of nothing more than that ignorant stereotype and I fight like heck to reverse people's opinions but then something like the statement from your Chief of Police, saying that the Alonzo Heyward incident proves that "...our people did what we trained them to do." Oh, really? You train them to shoot a man in THREE fusillades? You train your officers to shoot a man and then shoot his corpse for...what, practice? The videotape tells the whole story: a bunch of arrogant, irritated cops enjoying their big moment of Extreme Justice. And, of course, I get to hear all about how this will never be resolved in any way that resembles justice because, hey, it happened in the South, with white people shooting a black man. What am I supposed to tell the people who say that? That they're wrong? They're not wrong. "Chattanooga police spokeswoman Jerri Weary described the case as "suicide by cop." Sure. Why not? Just like WW2 Poland was "suicide by neighboring government". Alonzo Heyward made one grave error: he put himself in the path of police officers living and working in a sleepy little city in which they don't get much of a chance to do that thing which many, many police officers join the force to do in the first place: shoot somebody. Well, they're all back on the job, now, eh? Making Chattanooga a safer place...unless your skin happens to be black, brown, or some shade of yellow. And making the rest of the country even more certain that every bad thing they ever hear about the South is absolutely true.
"When we are trained to shoot, we are trained to shoot until we subdue the threat," said Lt. Kim Noorbergen, police spokeswoman. "We are not trained to shoot to kill, as many people think." Stupid doctrine, right there. WHO is it that evaluates, in the heat of the moment, when the threat is "subdued"? If his body twitches, just keep shooting? I'd say that first barrage was quite enough to incapacitate the person. What were the other two? Just fiddlin' around?
Congratulations, officers Bacha, Dennison, Moody, Romero, Salyers and Wood. You got your John Wayne moment. See how many showers it takes to get all the blood off. I bet it never really goes away.
Anger, accusations fly at NAACP meeting
I want to thank the Chattanooga Police Department for setting back the progress of what I've been doing ever since I moved from Tennessee to Seattle seventeen years ago: trying to convince Northwesterners that Southerners aren't stupid, delusional, racist jerks. I'm a 57-year-old white guy with a measured IQ of 197 and a pronounced Southern accent. I routinely get called stupid because of nothing more than that ignorant stereotype and I fight like heck to reverse people's opinions but then something like the statement from your Chief of Police, saying that the Alonzo Heyward incident proves that "...our people did what we trained them to do." Oh, really? You train them to shoot a man in THREE fusillades? You train your officers to shoot a man and then shoot his corpse for...what, practice? The videotape tells the whole story: a bunch of arrogant, irritated cops enjoying their big moment of Extreme Justice. And, of course, I get to hear all about how this will never be resolved in any way that resembles justice because, hey, it happened in the South, with white people shooting a black man. What am I supposed to tell the people who say that? That they're wrong? They're not wrong. "Chattanooga police spokeswoman Jerri Weary described the case as "suicide by cop." Sure. Why not? Just like WW2 Poland was "suicide by neighboring government". Alonzo Heyward made one grave error: he put himself in the path of police officers living and working in a sleepy little city in which they don't get much of a chance to do that thing which many, many police officers join the force to do in the first place: shoot somebody. Well, they're all back on the job, now, eh? Making Chattanooga a safer place...unless your skin happens to be black, brown, or some shade of yellow. And making the rest of the country even more certain that every bad thing they ever hear about the South is absolutely true.
"When we are trained to shoot, we are trained to shoot until we subdue the threat," said Lt. Kim Noorbergen, police spokeswoman. "We are not trained to shoot to kill, as many people think." Stupid doctrine, right there. WHO is it that evaluates, in the heat of the moment, when the threat is "subdued"? If his body twitches, just keep shooting? I'd say that first barrage was quite enough to incapacitate the person. What were the other two? Just fiddlin' around?
Congratulations, officers Bacha, Dennison, Moody, Romero, Salyers and Wood. You got your John Wayne moment. See how many showers it takes to get all the blood off. I bet it never really goes away.