Black man’s killing by police shakes Louisiana town

[marmar]

via the Detroit Free Press:




Black man’s killing by police shakes La. town
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER • Associated Press • April 11, 2009


HOMER, La. — For 73 years before his killing by a white police officer, Bernard Monroe led a life in this northern Louisiana town as peaceful as they come — five kids with his wife of five decades, all raised in the same house, supported by the same job.

The black man’s shooting death is attracting far more attention than he ever did, raising racial tensions between the black community and Homer’s police department.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize a massive 2007 civil rights demonstration in Jena after six black teenagers were charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate, led a peaceful march Friday afternoon in Homer to protest the killing.

“No justice, no peace!” demonstrators chanted. “We shall overcome!”

About 150 demonstrators marched near the neighborhood where Monroe, a 73-year-old retired power company lineman, was gunned down by police last February outside his home during a family cookout. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20090411/NEWS07/90411003

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. This is just sad

They had better do a thorough and balanced investigation.

[Raineyb]

2. Are these disgusting cops even going to bother to come up with an excuse

or are they planning to just sweep this under the table.

Regards

[Skip Intro]

6. I'm for an investigation and a hearing of both sides before passing judgement.

As uncool and outdated as that may be.

[Raineyb]

34. Really? You think an unarmed 73 year old man was a threat to

racist cops with a racist chief who said his job is to make people afraid of his officers?

I already heard enough of the cops side to know that they are wrong. But then it was only yet another black man killed so let's reserve judgment.

We can save the outrage for when a white person is shot. :sarcasm:

What a surprise, your life isn't on the line so you can reserve judgment.

Spare me the bullshit platitudes about reserving judgment. It seems to only be the way to go when black people have a beef.

[Djinn]

3. and yet this wont spark a flood of posts

claiming we need to disarm the "peace officers"

[Raineyb]

5. Why do you have to bring race into it?

That will be the asinine question that's asked if anyone were to call people out on their lack of giving a damn.

Yet another black man is cut down by asshole cops and hardly anyone sees fit to comment. Just another negro shot down by the police, but let one white man get taken hostage off the coast of Africa and suddenly it's an emergency on the high seas and we need to start bombing places.

:grr:

Regards

[EFerrari]

7. Sometimes these stories just leave me speechless.

Which isn't the right response, but there it is.

[Raineyb]

16. These stories infuritate me.

To be honest I don't know what pisses me off more. These stories or the lack of empathy that's shown when they're posted.

These stories seem to sink like a ball of lead when they're posted. "Just another black man shot down by police." it's like these stories don't even register. But when I imply that the reason so many don't give a damn is because it is not their asses on the line I get the "why do you have to bring race into it" or "Calling people racist, that's classy" type of responses.

People on this board bent over backwards to make excuses as to the reasons why that backwards b bitch didn't even have to cop a plea for her bullshit but they can't muster up a bit of outrage for a man being shot down by the police who seem to think it's part of their job to instill fear in the black parts of the populace. It is this kind of disparate treatment that we put up with on a daily basis yet we get people who doth declare that racism is over. It annoys the shit out of me every day because it tells me in a not so subtle fashion that I do not matter. Then people wonder why I'm pissed. I'm tired of being considered second rate, second class and being given short shrift. And I'm tired of being told that I shall not call out so called progressives on their bullshit as though it is only the right wing and Republicans who display racist attitudes in this country.

Regards

[EFerrari]

17. Americans don't know how to talk about racism.

It's all around them and they just don't know how to do it.

If I knew you better and we were friends, I'd say, don't let all that impotence inside of you. Put something there between you and that or, you're just taking in someone else's powerlessness.

People, any people, can be really stupid. And Americans dealing with racism have to be just about out front in the stupid parade. For my kids and for yours, I hope we learn to do better.

[Djinn]

8. excuse me?

how on earth did I bring race into it? where do you get that from my post AT ALL?? My point was in relation to the flood of threads claiming that when people kill coppers we need gun control but when the cops murder people there's no clamor for THEM to be disarmed.

Nothing whatsoever about race at all, not even remotely, not even vaguely.

If you think I'm defending cops you've SO got the wrong person sunshine

[Raineyb]

14. That was a quote of what others would say.

Not my response to you. I was being facetious. Perhaps the rest of the response would make that clearer.

Regards

[Djinn]

25. not really

I can't see anyone else (even the chronically stupid) taking what I said as having to do with race.

I expected a barrage on my not entirely complimentary views on cops, or a rant about how I'm clearly a "gun nut" (despite never having owned or even fired one and spending my childhood railing against my old man's collection) but I still can't see the connection there. Possibly time for more vodka on my part it tends to (counter intuitively) make me think clearer :shrug:

[Uzybone]

43. I remember having to multiple kick the posts

about the murder of Oscar Grant. Even on DU the lives of blacks seem to be worth less.


Of course if I mined the internets for some dumb screen about how Obama is owned by the banks there would have been multiple rec's.

[csziggy]

4. The police chief is an asshole - judging him by his own words

<SNIP>
"People here are afraid of the police," said Terry Willis, vice president of the Homer NAACP branch. "They harass black people, they stop people for no reason and rough them up without charging them with anything."

That is how it should be, responded Russell Mills, Homer's police chief, who noted the high rates of gun and drug arrests in the neighborhood.

"If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names," said Mills, who is white. "I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested. We're not out there trying to abuse and harass people—we're trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-race-shootings-webmar13,0,7686526.story

It sounds to me as if Homer, Louisiana needs to be brought into the twenty-first century!

[Selatius]

10. The guy sounds like a goose-stepping moron.

Whatever happened to the right to peacefully assemble? Do we need a permit for four people to congregate in the street without fear of police harassment now?

[reggie the dog]

11. this is not race specific

the police did this to me and my friends while we were teenagers in a middle class and upper middle class 90% white town called Elk Grove Village in the suburbs of Chicago back in the mid 90's. ""People here are afraid of the police," said Terry Willis, vice president of the Homer NAACP branch. "They harass black people, they stop people for no reason and rough them up without charging them with anything."

Most of my friends were afraid of the cops, they would rough us up when they stopped us and got angry because WE DID NOT HAVE DRUGS! so they could not bust us so they beat us because we looked like "dopers". They would see us riding our bikes and just stop and search us. After dozens and dozens of stops we got smart, started cutting across the woods and outrunning the fuckers on foot and bike. This is just standard police practice. This guy says black men but from what I have seen any group of boys or men gets the same treatment and the cops wanted us to fear them, they even told us so when they taught us DARE at high school. Did I mention I am white? This cop may just single out blacks but I venture to think Elk Grove is not an exception and that the constant harrasing of teenagers of all races plays a big part in the reason we do not see teenagers out on their bikes or at the parks as much as before because who wants to go play basketball when the cops troll at the parks, stop your games to search you, then berate you for "hiding your drugs well" and then grab your balls and cock to see if "there is anything in there" and then say to everyone that "no there really aint much of anything down there" and then when you tell the to fuck off they beat you. Well after a while you just hang out inside, play video games, and start drinking and using drugs to combat the boredom. We actually started using drugs after being searched for drugs dozens of times, we figured that if the cops would constantaly stop us, empty our pockets and throw anything we had in them on the dirt, and then grap our cocks and balls because we looked like druggies we may as well actually enjoy the high from the drugs too, not just get the negative searches because teenagers look like drug users. Perhaps in the south this behavior is reserved for blacks but where I grew up in the north it was for everyone.

[EFerrari]

13. 60 Minutes did an investigation that showed black men are stopped

8X as often as white men in their cars. Yes, it is about race. That white kids also get harassed is another matter.

[reggie the dog]

37. ending the police state mentality would end the 8X

for black men. Why do they stop people? DRUGS! if you look like you would have drugs. In their eyes all blacks look like they have drugs, and young whites. Take away the root cause of the police state and it should take away the main reason the cops are rousting people to begin with.

[EFerrari]

39. Black people in this country have been harrassed by law enforcement

ever since they were emancipated. There is a through line. At first, it was to steal their labor on prison gangs, aka, slavery by other means. Today, it's to enrich the prison industry mainly.

[reggie the dog]

46. ture, and I would argue that the desire to enrich the prison industry

means overbearing cops are for anyone these days. Sadly instead of seeing less harassment of blacks the numbers may begin to equal out due to more harassment of whites. In my lifetime I have only seen the police state get worse and worse.

[EFerrari]

47. Mark Crispin Miller said of our stolen election in 2004, "we're all black now".

And he meant, white votes were being suppressed and stolen in all the very same ways that black votes have ALWAYS been suppressed and stolen. So, yeah, I agree with you.

[marmar]

27. Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes, it really is about race?

No, not always, but the hard-wired denial that I see sometimes is really quite sad. You can't root out a problem by pretending that it doesn't exist.

[reggie the dog]

36. it goes much deeper than race

granted I know that non whites are stopped more than whites but in many areas non racist cops stop people of all races. The root problem is a police state, in some areas the police state exists more for blacks than whites, but in other areas it is an equal opprotunity police state.

[Taitertots]

9. Conveniently missing from your account is...

The police showed up after chasing his ex-con son from a drug deal. After catching him, the father confronts officers and gets shot. The police say he had a gun, the family says it was planted.

[reggie the dog]

12. you also forget that

the son was never charged with anything, and the ex con is a con for a bare knuckles brawl.

[EFerrari]

15. Wrong. The cops had no warrant to enter. And the FAMILY

didn't say the father had no gun, NEIGHBORHOOD witnesses say he didn't.

This was an elderly man cooking out in his own yard. In what sense is that a confrontation?

[Taitertots]

19. They didn't need a warrant

They were chasing the son after a suspected drug deal. They didn't need a warrant to follow a fleeing suspect into the house.

The article in the OP says he confronted the officers. In what way is interfering with an officer trying to detain a fleeing suspect not a confrontation.

The article in the OP says friends and family are the ones disputing the claims of the officers.

[EFerrari]

20. The nature of the "flight" is disputed. The nature of the "confrontation"

is disputed and witnesses say the older man did not have a gun.

The head LEO in town is a known racist. Do the math.

[Taitertots]

21. The guy who ran

says he didn't run and the guy's friends and family say he didn't have a gun. Do the math.


Son ran from the cops, when they caught him daddy tried to intervene, and got shot.

[EFerrari]

22. The cops who shot this gentleman fucked up because they did it

in front of too many witnesses. I hope they all go to jail. They are a digrace to their uniforms.

[Taitertots]

23. Good thing they probably won't

The guy is dead with his own gun next to him. He got shot while trying to interfere with officers trying to detain his fleeing son.


The moral of the story. Don't run from the police and if your son runs from the police don't try to confront them with a gun.

[EFerrari]

24. And the tooth fairy puts quarters under your pillow.

[Taitertots]

32. Must be the tooth fairy

Man is dead with his own gun in his hands. The police must have found HIS gun and planted it on him to frame him.

[marmar]

26. I was wondering when the "Defend Cops Under All Circumstances" crowd would appear.....

..... Voila.

[Taitertots]

28. Sorry to interrupt your vitriol and hatred against them

[Bluebear]

29. Oooh "vitriol"

[marmar]

30. Whatever......Have a nice, if denial-filled, life.....

:eyes:

[Taitertots]

33. Have a nice paranoid, hatred filled life

[Raineyb]

35. Gee another racist troll

Did we hit a sewer line or something?

[Taitertots]

38. I didn't mention race in any of my posts

Everything I said was in the article from the OP.

[BlooInBloo]

18. It's ok. It's not about race. White folks tell me so.

[SeattleGirl]

31. As a white person, am I relieved!

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[ccvirgo911]

40. This is just so sad

Police brutality is rampant in my town. This link shows how they treat dying children:



INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - The City of Independence, its police department, and a major ambulance provider in the metro face a lawsuit. They're accused of allowing a teenager, hit by a suspect fleeing police, to bleed to death.

Maybe most disturbing is the comment an officer made on tape.

"They're like roaches, man," said the unidentified Independence police officer. "They don't die."

snippet


http://www.nbcactionnews.com/news/local/story/EXCLUSIVE-Suit-Accuses-Police-of-Negligence/4YdEX1FjBUurZu75TFiKDg.cspx

There were three deaths in 8 days from police pursuits in my town in 2007. There were 13 statewide. It shows how out of control the police here are. Sometimes I want to ask them who's going to protect me from them.

[ccvirgo911]

44. Bump n/t

[CBR]

41. This deserves DU's attention. nt

[Raineyb]

48. There are no pirates in it or a heroic captain so it'll be overlooked.

It's not like the lives of black people mean all that much around here anyway.

:shrug:

Regards

[Peace_Sells]

42. how

My god how did people who make comments like that ever become officers? Its scary and gives a bad name to the good cops who care about the law.

[DS1]

45. Did everyone forget they lived in Louisiana?