Jamycheal Mitchell, a 24-year old mentally ill black man, was found dead in his jail cell. That is bad enough but what makes it even worse is that he had been held in jail for four months without bail after being “accused of stealing a bottle of Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a Zebra Cake worth a total of $5.” Four months in jail without bail for stealing $5 worth of merchandise? How can that be even possible?
Then we have the case of John Felton who was pulled over by the police and when he asked why, he was told that while he had signaled a turn, he had not done so 100 feet before the turn as required by the law, a technicality to beat all technicalities. Felton was incredulous and challenged the police officer as to the real reason for the stop and the latter said that the real reason he stopped him was “You made direct eye contact with me and held onto it when I was passing you”.
Yes, we can add ‘looking while black’ to the list of offenses for which black people can be pulled over.
Oh, did I forget to tell you that Felton was black? Did I need to? You can see the video that Felton took of the incident.
Here is a TV news report that followed.
Is it any wonder at the level of rage against the police that now exists?
I’m surprised they didn’t say he killed himself because maybe he’d smoked some pot some day.
Is it any wonder at the level of rage against the police that now exists?
I agree. I was talking to some stupid fuck hunter the other day and he was bragging about how hard hunting is, etc. And I said (without really thinking about it) “If you want to hunt something challenging, hunt some cops.” It’s getting to that point. Not quite there. Not quite yet.
Don’t feel like giving specific details but when chalking up privileges I can check off more boxes than the gentleman who was stopped. The officer thankfully didn’t get unreasonably angry when his BS was called but nothing about that stop makes any sense. The only positive thing I can say about it is at least he didn’t decide to commit murder or assault and kidnapping as some others in his situation have done (logically he stops having the authority of the state behind him when he stops acting according to it’s laws -- he becomes another armed thug and these are the correct words to use for those actions and outcomes).
I’m not really sure it would have ended well if things had gotten more heated and he’d tried to walk to his mother’s house as he planned. Moving away from a cop apparently gets you shot and killed and a taser tossed near you as you’re dying. I’m starting to wonder if the only way out is to let them start to get unreasonable and then call 911 and ask for another officer to stop by and help because this one is acting in an alarming manner while you’re trying to cooperate. At least there would be an audio recording the officer wouldn’t have physical access to.
Unfortunately in my personal experience once you get a ticket you never get out of it for free. There always seems to be a fee of some sort even if they decide you’re innocent. Protesting ones innocence in these sorts of things is merely symbolic as far as I can tell. Don’t have recent experience though, haven’t gotten pulled over once since I bought a new car a few years ago. It’s a semi-sporty 2 seater, but see the first line about privilege. Would probably work in reverse for the guys in the video.
Making a point to read all the links you post after having missed some info before. On the first story, Mitchell was rules mentally ill enough to be sent to a hospital, but owing to lack of space was simply kept in jail. Apparently if you are ill enough to warrant hospital treatment, if there isn’t a room they just leave you in jail?
Also looking further into the Guardian’s resource on people killed by cops.
@smrnda(#3):
It gets better if what i read about this is correct. No one bothered to try and get a place reserved for him. Everyone is pointing to the other parties as the ones responsible for having to do so.
Just make reeeeeal sure that you carefully explain to the armed police officer that you are slowly reaching for your phone, not reaching for the gun that they are trained to expect and to
shoot youkill you for.