The killing of Dexter Reed: the police as Israel
In Chicago, a black man named Dexter Reed was killed by police after he shot one of them during a traffic stop. The media covered it in the usual manner:
Three weeks ago, Dexter Reed out of Chicago shot by police during a traffic stop. He is Black, a hundred shots were fired. Here’s the family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why does the police keep doing this to young Black African men? If he was supposed to be pulled over for a traffic stop, why did they have four guns pointed at him? He was scared.
BANKS: He had just bought his new car three days before that and he was just riding around in his car.
He said “Mom, I’m going for a ride.” And they killed him. They killed him. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: Reed’s family is upset and we’re so sorry. There’s nothing like losing a child. But they’re not telling you the truth.
Dexter Reed opened fire on police. After he was pulled over, he shot at police first and they returned fire. His gun was recovered and he’d emptied his clip.
We’ll show you the video in a second. But look at these headlines. Seatbelt violation ends with Black man dead on Chicago street after cops fired nearly 100 bullets.
Police fired 96 shots in 41 seconds killing Black man during traffic stop.
Deadly Chicago traffic stop where police fired 96 shots raises serious questions about use of force.
Not one of those headlines tells you that Reed is the one who started the shootout.
Watters also points out that some of the officers were black.
At this point, The Chicago Tribune is calling for some cool:
The first and most obvious lesson: If you’re stopped by police and asked to roll down your window or get out of your car, do so. And if you shoot at police, they will — and should — shoot back. Lost by too many in the anger over Reed’s death was the fact that he shot a police officer who, as Mayor Brandon Johnson properly noted on Tuesday following release of the multiple videos offering views of what happened, was lucky to escape with the injuries he did.
But according to the left and much of the MSM, police are not allowed to protect their own lives, much less the lives of the public. The paramount concern of the left much of the media is protecting the lives of people – often criminals – who don’t cooperate with traffic stops and who attack police during them.
Why do I liken the attitude of the left and the MSM towards the police as akin to their attitude about Israel? Because even self-defense is not allowed, if it ends up causing the death of someone labeled as “oppressed,” no matter how violent, threatening, and guilty that person (or group) is. There’s also similar language from those doing the criticizing [emphasis mine]:
… COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten felt free to share her opinions far and wide, including during a conveniently timed appearance at the City Club. Among the most questionable of those was her view (injudiciously expressed in advance of a completed investigation) that the cops’ response to Reed’s multiple shots at them wasn’t “proportional.” Police shot 96 times while Reed fired considerably fewer shots, although there have been conflicting reports of how many.
So, are we now going to criticize — or, as some want, prosecute — police who fail to count how many bullets are flying their way before shooting back and ensuring the number of shots is “proportional?” Even after a fellow officer has been shot? We are asking officers to risk their lives every day on the streets of a city awash in guns, many of them illegal. (Reed was facing past charges for illegal gun use.) Requiring cops to respond “proportionately” when someone is shooting at them not only is unreasonable; it will make recruiting new officers even harder.
A Chicago police officer’s job only has gotten more dangerous. Cops were shot or shot at 68 times in 2023 versus 55 times in 2022, WGN-TV reported. The number of people shot by police dropped over that same time frame to 11 from 18.
The care taken by police doesn’t matter to the forces determined to demonize them. And the people who suffer most from this are the black residents of Chicago. But the critics don’t care when there are lies to be told, facts to be omitted, and propaganda points to be made.
Three choir members of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ were murdered between Nov & Dec 2007 — Donald Young, Larry Bland, and Nate Spencer — murder execution style within “40 days of each other” and that barely made the news.
The narrative will not be shut up no matter what the facts are by the Democrat ( now Marxist) Propaganda Ministry
@Karmi, I looked that up, it seems they were all gay, and some people think it was a coverup of Obama’s gay rumors.
If you refuse police instructions and pull a gun and shoot them you cannot expect good results.
Second City Cop blog has some posts on this, for obvious reasons (since he’s in Chicago). One of the posts lists the number of shots fired by each of the participants.
First and foremost, the cops didn’t fire 96 shots. 96 shots was the total number of shots fired, including the 17 fired by the now dead criminal (which his defenders conveniently assign to the cops instead). And as SSC notes, 17 rounds is the number carried in the magazine of a Glock pistol, meaning this former “fine, upstanding youth” had enough time to completely empty his pistol before he was killed.
If I had to guess (if bodycam footage has been released, I haven’t seen it), I suspect he was still pulling the trigger when he died, caught up in the adrenaline rush and not realizing that his gun was empty.
as a prosecutor once said re Kyle Rittenhouse.
Yeah, so you figure you have an absolute right to be free of molestation and assault and battery from malevolent actors?
Nah, that’s so old fashioned, so white heterosexist individualism thinking; so lacking in feelings of self-sacrifice, mutual identification, and empathy for those who might need to satisfy an impulse to physically damage you.
Go directly to 6:59. This guy gets it. It’s a “We” problem as I have been saying now for years based on philosophical anthropology and worldview issues. There aint no “we”. At least not anymore, if indeed there ever was.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KENEtw5PmLg
Junior– When the last shot is fired, the Glock slide locks open to facilitate replacing the empty MAGAZINE [not clip] with a full one and chambering the next round. It will not click-click-click when no more bullets to launch. But yes, he was probably squeezing that trigger, looking like he could still shoot, thus the ultimate end of story.
This is all bogus info because it is against the law for people to possess a gun with a MAGAZINE capable holding more than 10 rounds in Chicago. No upstanding, etc, Chi-town resident would peacefully ride around with an illegal firearm…
Resist arrest, you might get hurt/killed. Shoot at four cops, you will get killed. The motto: Don’t resist arrest.
In a melee of five shooters, the shooting continues until the perp obviously isn’t returning fire. That’s not an overreaction, that’s survival training.
Proportionality?? Give me a break.
The objection among black chauvinists is that people of low status (police officers) are permitted to use deadly force against people of high status (blacks). The objection of professional-managerial class types is that people of low status (police officers) have used force contra one of our pets. The actual circumstances do not matter to either segment.
I watched the bodycam videos.
“Roll down your window!”
Reed rolls the tinted window halfway down, then rolls it back up. He’s wearing a mask (balaclava, not medical). “Roll down your window!” He doesn’t.
“Unlock your door!” He doesn’t.
Then a black cop next to the passenger door tells him to cooperate.
He shoots the black cop.
The cops were right to shoot Reed until they were sure the threat was neutralized.
The “community” should thank the cops for taking this thug off the streets.
@Karmi, I looked that up, it seems they were all gay, and some people think it was a coverup of Obama’s gay rumors.
==
Some people are boobs.