The hundreds of Kossacks that tipped and recommended a diary yesterday calling Detroit police officers "executioners" should be ashamed. I love this site because it's full of highly-intelligent, thoughtful liberals but yesterday many of you showed a side that I find verging on offensive.
In Detroit, a 7-year old girl was shot by police during a raid in search of a murder suspect, a man thought to have shot a 17-year old boy the day before. The diary in question suggests that these cops "executed" the little girl.
Her death is tragic. It needs to be investigated. The policeman who shot her should be put on trial if negligence is shown.
But he is decidedly NOT an executioner. And calling these cops murderers and insinuating everything from machismo in front of cameras to racism based simply on the accusations of attorney Geoffrey Feiger, circumstantial evidence and without having all the facts in had is something I would not expect from the intelligent, thoughtful people on this site.
In my comments on that diary, I repeatedly called for patience in getting all the facts before rendering judgment. For that I was called an apologist for kid-killers. Multiple commenters said the cops broke into the wrong apartment because they didn't have a warrant for the right apartment. This is based on Feiger's comments. The police, on the other hand, say they DID have warrants for both apartments because they believed a murder suspect, a 30+ year old man accused of shooting a teenager dead on the streets of Detroit the day before, was inside.
But, hey, let's not wait to get all the facts. Let's just assume these cops are bad, that these cops are murderers. That these cops are executioners.
No, let's take the word of Geoffrey Feiger. Feiger is an attorney well-known in my state for attempting to have his cases tried in the media. His provocative style is legend in Michigan. Sometimes it works in his favor so he continues to use this technique. All of his accusations are based on a video he viewed that does not show the actual shooting of the girl.
The morning after a police officer's bullet fatally pierced the neck of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a mystery man appeared at attorney Geoffrey Fieger's office with a videotape, the lawyer said Tuesday.
...
The video proves that police are covering up a cold-hearted killing, Fieger said at a news conference. But he acknowledged that he couldn't provide the proof.
"I do not have that video," Fieger told reporters as he announced the filing of two lawsuits against the city related to the girl's death. "I'm trying to make sure this videotape does not disappear."
[Source]
Maybe Feiger is right. Maybe this was an egregious, tragic act of gross negligence. But YOU. DO. NOT. KNOW. THIS. None of us knows exactly what happened that night. But many of you have already made up your minds. Score a win for Geoffrey Feiger.
Interestingly none of the comments condemn the murder suspect who chose to hole up in a home with children in it. No, he's never actually mentioned. It's all about the racist cops who "barbequed" a little girl then shot her dead, execution-style.
The officer that shot her must really hate Detroit kids, eh?
Officials said Weekley has helmed several charitable endeavors on behalf of the DPD, including one that raises money for children of domestic violence victims. He also helped organize a recent event, Run With the Cops, Not From Them, that raised funds for kids with cancer.
[Source]
Yup, that's a guy who doesn't value the lives of kids in Detroit alright.
There's another version of the story, by the way:
What happened next is the event most disputed by Aiyana's family and Fieger.
According to police sources, Weekley was first through the door. Carrying a protective shield, he encountered resistance and pushed to get inside. Jones tried to grab his gun, which fired. The girl was hit.
Jones, who was held overnight and released, said she grabbed for her granddaughter when the grenade came through the window, not for police. She said she made no contact with any officer.
Fieger says police fired the shot from outside the home, striking the girl, possibly through the open front door
But, it's so much easier to believe the police were just a bunch of racists showing off for the cameras, right? Not that this was a tragic accident? Those of you who sit behind the comfort of your keyboards have it all figured out. You act as though you know what it's like to have to enter the home of someone you believed is armed and capable of murder in the dark of night in the battlezone of urban Detroit. You don't.
I know of a Detroit fire fighter that has been met at the curb in front a burning house with a gun-wielding guy who forces them to back down while the house is consumed and whatever is in the house destroyed. There are gangs. There is street violence and murder . There are drug-addicted squatters and drug houses and revenge killings on a daily basis in Detroit.
Detroit has upwards of 50% unemployment. Crime and drugs and desperation permeate so many of the neighborhoods that you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. This is a battlezone and the cops there face it down every single day.
Maybe these cops were negligent. Maybe they were showing off in front of the cameras and acting in ways that should put them in prison.
But maybe they just made a mistake in the heat of a tense and potentially dangerous situation. That doesn't justify it. That doesn't excuse it. That doesn't make it "okay". But it doesn't -- DOESN'T -- make them executioners.
So, here's an idea: let's wait until we have all the facts before we write render our judgment. Maybe that instead of taking the word of an attorney well-known for sensationalizing his cases and who stands to make huge sums of money from the case.
If the facts bear out that these cops are the threats to civil society that so many of you claim they are, then you'll have all the time in the world to call them murderers and executioners and racists and child-killers. At least then you'll be making informed statements. Until then, you're nothing more than reactionaries ready to pounce on the people we pay to protect us from criminals - easy targets in a world that's not so easy and quite dangerous. And it's shameful.
I'm just sayin'...