Those words were uttered by a white cop at a black man, Stephon Clark, as he lay on the ground motionless in his grandmother's back yard in Sacramento, CA on Sunday evening. He was motionless because two cops had just shot him 20 times.
Notice the shot-counter at 1:10 in the above video, like in a videogame, which might be funny if this weren't footage of an actual murder. After unloading their magazines, the cops then engage in buddy talk for several minutes, unconcerned about the dying man on the ground.
"You alright? You hit?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
"You alright, dude?"
"Yeah, I'm alright. I don't think I'm hit or anything."
Of course the cops weren't hit--Clark only had a cell phone, and a white one at that. Maybe if your IQ is just 75, a white iPhone can look like a gun. For five minutes, the cops continue to hide just around the corner of the house from where they shot Clark, playing out the videogame scenario.
"I got him at gunpoint, dude. You do a tactical reload okay?" as if the dead Clark were going to pop up and attack like video game creatures do. One of the cops makes it clear (over the radio) that no one important has been injured: "I want everybody to know--we are fine, no officers are hit." Why is that even relevant to the situation?
Other cops arrive, and all four continue to stand there, shouting periodically at the bullet-riddled Clark. "Hey can you hear us?" and "Let's see your hands!" If there was any chance of saving his life, it evaporated in those five minutes.
The four heavily armed, sissy cops then call for a body bunker--a riot shield--before approaching the dead Clark.
Maybe police are rightfully cautious. Maybe there are people out there gunning for them, and who could blame anyone after all the recent murders by police? But this incident, like hundreds of other recent killings by police, highlights a serious and growing problem in this country: the lives of cops (and state employees in general) are valued more highly than the lives of everyone else. In 2017, cops in Amerika shot and killed 987 people, but only 46 cops were killed.
What does all this have to do with Hoofers? To some of us, the parade of cops who are getting away with murder is eerily similar to the lack of charges in the death by motorboat of Yu Chen almost a year ago now. At least in Sacramento, authorities released the video after a few days; the Dane County Sheriff and DA are still refusing to release the video of Yu Chen's death 10 months later.
Kinda makes ya wonder what it shows.
Friday, March 23, 2018
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