Well said! I think you addressed most of the issues. Like many, I am waiting for additional info on exactly what happened. DCI is still investigating and hasn’t released any additional info, although the Attorney General has promised a transparent proceeding.

I am concerned that the Chief of Police seems to be throwing the officer involved in the shooting, under the bus. This started early on. Who is going to advocate for the police officer? And, I’m sure that if someone like me (a private citizen) can see and sense this, what are the rank and file officers of MPD thinking?

Here are my thoughts on this. And I won’t hold back

They always say “he was a good kid who was turning his life around”…Bullshit. He was arrested for an ARMED home invasion and burglery. ARMED! And he plead guilty. He was sentenced to 6 months in prison and was given a suspended sentence. Gee, if the law is so hard on black people and “whitey” always gets breaks, it sure does seem like this kid got a break.

Now the reports I have read..He was running between cars on Williamson St and tried to choke two of his friends, which is why the police were called. He then went into an apartment where (from what I have read) he was trying to strangle his girlfriend when the police arrived. The officer kicked in the door when he heard a struggle inside. Once inside the boy punched the cop in the head and knocked him to the ground. Then the officer fired his weapon striking the young man 5 times.

Now that does not sound like a “good kid who was turning his life around” that sounds like a punk headed for trouble.

The initial radio calls said the “no weapon has been spotted”….now this DOES NOT MEAN UNARMED!! This simply means that when the police were called, they asked if he had a weapon and were told “didn’t see one”.

This young man has a record for using a weapon in his class C felony and the call reported violent and erratic behavior (running between cars and choking his friends). As for the whole unarmed thing..Once he was inside he was “armed” in my book. There are any number of weapons inside every single residence on this planet. Do you have knives? Yep weapon. A lamp can be used as a blunt object to hit someone with, or a book, or a shoe, or any number of objects. Just because the initial call said a weapon was not seen, does not mean he didn’t have one.

Now for the 5 shots fired. Look this isn’t TV land. Police DO NOT shoot once and wait for you to stop. They are not crack marksmen who shoot the gun out of your hand. They are trained that when they are threatened they use deadly force and do not stop using that force until the threat is stopped.

I went thru some of training that police go thru when I was trained as a bouncer years ago. The reasoning that is taught is, that anyone who is willing to strike at a police person is a threat to everyone. If they do not respect the badge, they do not respect anyone. If they are a threat to you, they are willing to hurt anyone without pause. Your duty is to stop them before they hurt someone else….and this kid had already tried hurting other people that night.

Notice how I haven’t mentioned race? Because race is not a factor here. The color of this young man’s skin DID NOT make him do these things, and the color of this police officer DID NOT make him react the way he was trained.

In 10 years of bouncing at nghtclubs in LA, Dallas, Minneapolis, and here, I have asked countless people to leave when they were acting in a manner that was unacceptable. Never once did the skin color make them act that way. And every single time that the person was black, they accused me of being racist and said it was because of color.

And for “white privilege” that these clowns spout off. All successful people have one thing in common, and it isn’t race. They all worked hard and did not accept excuses. Racism and “white privilege” are excuses. Whatever happens to you is from your choices, actions, and attitude, nothing more. If you are failing at life, you are choosing to. Nobody is holding you back.