Woman live-streams aftermath of fatal officer-involved shooting

[smilesammich 10,727]

Not sure why the other thread got locked, unless it's due to Val's hysterics?

so cliche.

My betting is on someone's pride;)

i got 5 on it.

[Jacque67 7,328]

so cliche.

i got 5 on it.

I've got 10 on it....

(Run out of plus ones....go figure)

[smilesammich 10,727]

I've got 10 on it....

(Run out of plus ones....go figure)

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

I wanted to come in the other thread and respond to the foolish things being said before the lock, but then this happened. Less than 24 hours later. Sometimes there just aren't words...

[smilesammich 10,727]

I wanted to come in the other thread and respond to the foolish things being said before the lock, but then this happened. Less than 24 hours later. Sometimes there just aren't words...

roxane gay put it into words quite well, her closing paragraph is all i've been able to think about since seeing the video of that poor young man wailing for his dad..

OVER the past several years, we have borne witness to grainy videos of what “protect and serve” looks like for black lives — Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Kajieme Powell, to name a few. I don’t think any of us could have imagined how tiny cameras would allow us to see, time and again, injustices perpetrated, mostly against black people, by police officers. I don’t think we could have imagined that video of police brutality would not translate into justice, and I don’t think we could have imagined how easy it is to see too much, to become numb. And now, here we are.

There is a new name to add to this list — Alton B. Sterling, 37, killed by police officers in Baton Rouge, La. It is a bitter reality that there will always be a new name to that list. Black lives matter, and then in an instant, they don’t.

Mr. Sterling was selling CDs in front of a convenience store early Tuesday morning. He was tasered and pinned down by two police officers, who the police say were responding to a call. He was shot, multiple times, in the chest and back. He died, and his death looks and feels as though he were executed.

Mr. Sterling leaves behind family and children who will forever know that their father was executed, that the image of their father’s execution is now a permanent part of the American memory, that the image of their father’s execution may not bring them justice. Justice, in fact, already feels tenuous. The body cameras the police officers were wearing “dangled,” according to the police department’s spokesman, L’Jean McKneely, so we don’t know how much of the events leading to Mr. Sterling’s death were captured. The Baton Rouge police department also has the convenience store surveillance video, which it is not, as of yet, releasing. Mr. McKneely said the officers were not questioned last night because “we give officers normally a day or so to go home and think about it.”

Photo

Protesters outside the Triple S Food Mart where Alton Sterling was killed.CreditHilary Scheinuk/The Advocate, via Associated Press

It has been nearly two years since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. It has been nearly two years of activists putting themselves on the front lines as police officers continue to act against black lives with impunity. At the same time,according to The Guardian, there have been 560 people killed by police in the United States in 2016.

Tuesday night I heard about Mr. Sterling’s death, and I felt so very tired. I had no words because I don’t know what more can be said about this kind of senseless death.

I watched the cellphone video, shot by a bystander and widely available online, of the final moments of a black man’s life. I watched Alton Sterling’s killing, despite my better judgment. I watched even though it was voyeuristic, and in doing so I made myself complicit in the spectacle of black death. The video is a mere 48 seconds long, and it is interminable. To watch another human being shot to death is grotesque. It is horrifying, and even though I feel so resigned, so hopeless, so out of words in the face of such brutal injustice, I take some small comfort in still being able to be horrified and brought to tears.

We know what happens now because this brand of tragedy has become routine. The video of Mr. Sterling’s death allows us to bear witness, but it will not necessarily bring justice. There will be protest as his family and community try to find something productive to do with sorrow and rage. Mr. Sterling’s past will be laid bare, every misdeed brought to light and used as justification for police officers choosing to act as judge, jury and executioner — due process in a parking lot.

It’s overwhelming to see what we are up against, to live in a world where too many people have their fingers on the triggers of guns aimed directly at black people. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know how to allow myself to feel grief and outrage while also thinking about change. I don’t know how to believe change is possible when there is so much evidence to the contrary. I don’t know how to feel that my life matters when there is so much evidence to the contrary.

COMMENTS

The video that truly haunts me is from a news conference with Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of Alton Sterling’s oldest child, a 15-year-old boy, who sobbed and cried out for his father as his mother read her statement. The grief and the magnitude of loss I heard in that boy’s crying reminds me that we cannot indulge in the luxuries of apathy and resignation.

If the video of his father’s death feels too familiar, the video of this child’s raw and enormous grief must not. We have to bear witness and resist numbness and help the children of the black people who lose their lives to police brutality shoulder their unnatural burden.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/opinion/alton-sterling-and-when-black-lives-stop-mattering.html?emc=eta1

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

What say ye now? What was said that was so foolish in your estimation?

I wanted to come in the other thread and respond to the foolish things being said before the lock, but then this happened. Less than 24 hours later. Sometimes there just aren't words...

[smilesammich 10,727]

What say ye now? What was said that was so foolish in your estimation?

tsk tsk, do not bait lest ye wish to be hooked thine self.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

You were already in before the lock, ya goofball.

Not sure why the other thread got locked, unless it's due to Val's hysterics?

Not sure but that works for me

[Ban Hammer 14,382]

You were already in before the lock, ya goofball.

Not sure why the other thread got locked, unless it's due to Val's hysterics?

her posting was getting in the way of sammich making.

[gpiper 77]

If this is Americas finest.. "Heroes" as Trump says constantly as they get such a bad rap then God help this country

[gpiper 77]

Can I please request that if moderators decide that posts or threads need locking that they don't also use language or comments that to some may seem as baiting. I would think most people in here are clearly adults and don't need to be talked down to or treated as if they are in there first year at school. It's uncalled for.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Can I please request that if moderators decide that posts or threads need locking that they don't also use language or comments that to some may seem as baiting. I would think most people in here are clearly adults and don't need to be talked down to or treated as if they are in there first year at school. It's uncalled for.

New here?

[gpiper 77]

New here?

Haha... No I just implore that fairness is equally distributed when upholding the rules..

I'm off to feed my unicorn now ?

On the shootings at least the first one on first appearance seems to be out and out murder. He's pinned down by two officers.. How was that deemed a clear and direct threat to life?

[Jacque67 7,328]

Its interestingly how neatly the second amendment supports white supremacy. It allows anyone, even a civilian, to murder a black man and get away with it via the excuse of self defense. And if black people try to participate in self-defense themselves it only serves as greater pretext to assassinate them

(FC)

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

Can I please request that if moderators decide that posts or threads need locking that they don't also use language or comments that to some may seem as baiting. I would think most people in here are clearly adults and don't need to be talked down to or treated as if they are in there first year at school. It's uncalled for.

You will get use to it.

Haha... No I just implore that fairness is equally distributed when upholding the rules..

I'm off to feed my unicorn now ?

On the shootings at least the first one on first appearance seems to be out and out murder. He's pinned down by two officers.. How was that deemed a clear and direct threat to life?

OK I think you been here for a while