This latest Texas police shooting of an unarmed black man sounds particularly awful. Via the Fair Punishment Project's daily email:
In Mesquite, Texas, 31-year-old Lyndo Jones was shot by police last week. He was unarmed. His car alarm had gone off and he was sitting in his own car trying to figure out how to turn it off when police claim they thought he was an armed and dangerous criminal trying to steal a car. Turns out the alarm was broken. [Breanna Edwards / The Root]
According to a written statement from Jones’ lawyers, officers asked him to exit the vehicle. He did, and seconds later, officers shot him in the stomach. They then tried to perform an anal cavity search, an altercation ensued, and they shot Jones in the back. The police department denies these allegations, but hasn’t explained how an unarmed man in his own vehicle ended up in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds. [Claire Cardona / Dallas Morning News]
Jones survived the gunshots, but police chained him to the hospital bed and kept him from his loved ones for a week until his family secured attorneys for him. [Melanie Schmitz / ThinkProgress] The Mesquite Police Department charged Lyndo with “evading arrest,” but the charges have since been dropped. [Tanya Eiserer / WFAA]
MORE:
From The Texas Observer.
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11 comments:
Nazi Germany began persecuting Jews just like this.
The jury is still out on whether the blacks will allow a similar holocaust to occur here in the US...
If only there was body-cam footage that everyone could view...
If there was the officers would be allowed to review the recordings before being interviewed... You know... To not mess up any details about department SOP on administering anal cavity searches on gunshot victims... In the street I presume?
To Lyndo's credit, it wasn't the 9 millimeters that caused the altercation, but the two knuckles after that.
Anon No. 2 — That's to make sure nobody but the PD edits that video!
I know, lets engage in pure speculation because everyone knows that is better than facts for reformists.
When officers give orders, you have to comply...BECAUSE THEY ARE ARMED. You only get to sort out the possible civil violations after the incident. Never mind if you don't speak English, are deaf or having mental illness (not covered by most police policy or procedures--just results in louder yelling in English).
In this case, police officials claim the video evidence will contradict the suspect's narrative. We shall see.
The standard for justified use of lethal force is that the suspect has possibly committed a felony, poses an immediate danger to officers or others, must be fleeing or resisting and officers can't perform actions that create the need for lethal force. If this suspect was shot with his hands up as he claims, game over. If the suspect was shot after failure to comply with orders, it will result in a civil rights case to sort out the details.
In the meantime, if the video settles the controversy, the police department should release it immediately. (if it does exonerate officers, they will. If it doesn't exonerate officers, they will withhold it until compelled by civil discovery, ie, in a couple years).
Despite how interesting all of this is, the larger curiosity seems to be focused on the perceived apparent urgency to inspect the suspect's anal region after having shot him. Can we get a press conference together to address that peculiar judgement? That seems like something we could settle without a grand jury inquiry. The People want to know. Oh, I know, exemption from release due to open investigation. Uh huh, riiiigghhht.
Carry on.
As I recall LEO have been disciplined (fired) and the state paid out $$$$ for illegal roadside cavity searches.
One would think the system would learn from past mistakes.
Now that they have dropped the charges they can keep the video confidential, since he wasn’t charged with a crime. They are just protecting his privacy. That worked for them before, right?
Scott, At what point are the insurance companies that cover these police departments going to say enough is enough and either raise their rates or drop coverage entirely? When I drove and had insurance, the slightest incidental transgression was all that my insurer needed to have my rates go sky high. I would think that at some point the adjusters are going to look at the numbers and a the police will be in for a very cruel wakeup call. If fact I suspect that their behavior may change not when they are hit in the heart (by stacking up the bodies of civilians) but rather when their insurers hit them in the right rear cheek. Has there been any response from the insurance industry about this?
Okay let's not engage in pure speculation sure. The fact of the matter is that the victims in the great bulk of these cases are black men. Another fact of the matter is in the great bulk of these cases the offence occurs in States south of the Mason-Dixon line where education is not valued properly, thus you get a lot of stupid police officers out there making stupid decisions like shooting a guy for failing to stop. That's just an example from my experience, but is actually drawn from The History of the United States. I don't know why it is it's so many of these incidents happen in Texas as opposed to some other Southern state that hires retards to work on their police force. For example, I am working in case web Montgomery County Sheriff's officers attempted to stop a vehicle, the vehicle evaded arrest by not stopping and leading the deputies on them on a merry Chase through Montgomery County, which ended in a dead-end street and our white victim driving around in two circles at the dead end scratching his head how to continue evading the deputies, while one Japanese got out of his car whipped out his 45 and fired three rounds at our driver. One went in his chest, and they affected their arrest by use of deadly force against the guy driving a 20 year old car. Then they piled on him in the prosecution and gave him three life sentences and a 20 year sentence for evading arrest, threatening a public servant with his 20 year old car, tampering with evidence and possession of an NC weensy amount of cocaine found in the vehicle. They did this by committing perjury, making false statements in trial, misrepresenting the facts and evidence to the jury, and all just a cover-up that one dumbass deputies firing three shots to effect an arrest and having a good aim. Our boy the victim, interesting Lee enough a white man from Spring Texas, had that bullet in his chest for quite a long time. He's now got a big slab of metal in his chest where I used to have rib cage. and constantly going back and forth between his TDCJ Unit in the hospital here it is five or six years later. And the trial court doesn't give a damn no matter how tough I prove the perjury false statements and misrepresentations effect did occur. So the moral of the story I guess is don't fuc with the law in Texas, eh? They may be stupid, and you may be able to get over on them for a long time, but don't let him get ahold of you once cuz you'll be sorry. It's all about f*** the United States Constitution and Texas. Oh well I apologize for digressing, other than most of the law being assholes, I love living in Texas and hope to die here as a free man one day.
Anon 12:27, while I get the gist of your comment, it should be noted that black men are treated no better north of the Mason-Dixon line, you may have noticed some of the biggest protests of recent years focusing on events up north or out west. Authorities will then counter your narrative by pointing out how in almost every case, the guy shot was not following lawful orders, was engaged in a felony, and/or was armed; typically a combination of those things, when he was shot. You're not going to gain ground by arguing against those facts, in fact, I advise clients to treat those cases with kid gloves and focus on the smaller number of times when the person shot was not engaged in a felony, was obeying instructions, and wasn't armed. That cuts the legs out from underneath opponents who so often rely on the "Top three reasons people are shot by cops" to the exclusion of all else.
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