If the race-mongering politicos and their handmaidens in the leftist media don't pull in their horns, the brewing racial strife could boil over in to a 21st century cold war between whites and blacks.
The situation reached a critical mass after the deaths of two black men, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, killed by two white police officers. Then it exploded.
Brown, you remember, was the “gentle giant” videoed manhandling a convenience store clerk during a robbery. Minutes later a police officer reprimanded him for walking in the street. Brown protested. The officer drew his pistol. Brown started to run. The officer pumped several bullets into his back. Brown turned, his hands held high saying, “Hands up. Don't shoot,” shortly thereafter he died.
That's the presses' narrative that followed just days after Brown's death. Later, documents revealed that this account was pure Dogpatch Hokum. And no, not one publication had the integrity to print a retraction.
Here's something else they decided not to print, Brown's criminal record: Burglary, 1st degree; Armed criminal action; Assault 1st degree causing serious physical injury; and Armed criminal action, a total of four felonies. Brown also had a second degree murder charge on his juvenile arrest record.
Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that Brown was the victim and the officer who shot in defense of his life was the guilty party. To this day the protestors mindless rallying cry is, “Hands up. Don' t shoot.” They are neither ashamed of presenting a fabrication as truth nor embarrassed by their lawless conduct.
And that's a perfect segue to the death of Eric Garner.
Here's the media's version.
Garner, 46, father of six, was strangled in a choke-hold, his head slammed to the pavement. Then cops piled-on while Garner pleaded, “I can't breathe.” Garner was murdered by police officers for selling untaxed cigarettes.
The Economist wrote, “Eric Garner, a harmless middle-aged black man guilty only of selling single cigarettes was choked to death by a policeman while five cops watched.”
Wel-l-l-l, not quite.
It was not a choke-hold. You can't breathe, much say talk, if you're being chocked. Further, the coroner's report showed there was no evidence to support that Garner was choked. His head was not slammed on to the pavement. There was no police pile-on, but several officers were necessary to subdue the 6' 3”, 350-pound man. Later, he died of a heart attack in an ambulance. Garner had a history of morbid obesity, asthma, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
This was Garner's ninth arrest for selling loose cigarettes, add that to 22 other arrests on charges including assault and grand larceny. Garner knew the drill; you cannot resist arrest. Yet videos showed him swatting away the arms of an officer telling him, “Don't touch me.”
Former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerid said, “If Garner did not resist arrest, the outcome would have been very different.”
And what, pray tell, did our President and Commander of Excuses have to say about this: “If you look at what happened after Michael Brown and Eric Garner, I'm being pretty explicit about my concern and pretty explicit that this is a systemic problem [in the police force].”
And what about U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder? “The national outcry we have seen speaks to a sense of mistrust between law enforcement and certain communities, “ said Holder.
Holder gave credence to this “mistrust” by having the DOJ investigate the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. It failed to find racism but did succeed in undermining the police and in revealing Holder's distrust in the police departments of St. Louis and NYC, and in the grand juries' findings as well.
And lastly, that paramount political panderer, the Mayor of NYC Bill de Blasio: “I have had to talk to Dante [his half-black son]. We've had to literally train him in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police . . . .”
Then, should we be surprised when Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a member of the FTP (F---- The Police) movement, inflamed by biased officeholders and anti-police reporting, vowed to put “wings on pigs” and gunned-down two policemen in retaliation for the deaths of two black men?
Sincerely,
Bob Scroggins
New Milford, PA