Somebody Needs To March Against Al Sharpton
The vile publicity whore Al Sharpton is promising to "close this city down," meaning New York, over the Sean Bell verdict -- aquitting three police detectives who killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends. Verena Dobnik writes for the AP:
"We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell."...The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!"
Personally, as somebody who lives in an, uh, edgy neighborhood, I find thanking the police (and firemen) is more appropriate.
My pal, Heather MacDonald, an authority on policing, writes for City Journal:
The allegation that (this) shooting was racially motivated is preposterous. A group of undercover officers working in a gun- and drug-plagued strip joint in Queens had good reason to believe that a party leaving the club was armed and about to shoot an adversary. When one of the undercovers identified himself as an officer, the car holding the party twice tried to run him down. The officer started firing while yelling to the car's occupants: "Let me see your hands." His colleagues, believing they were under attack, fired as well, eventually shooting off 50 rounds and killing the driver, Sean Bell. No gun was found in the car, but witnesses and video footage confirm that a fourth man in the party fled the scene once the altercation began. Bell and the other men with him all had been arrested for illegal possession of guns in the past; one of Bell's companions that night, Joseph Guzman, had spent considerable time in prison, including for an armed robbery in which he shot at his victim.Nothing in these facts suggests that racial animus lay behind the incident. (Though this detail should be irrelevant, the undercover team was racially mixed, and the officer who fired the first shot was black.)
And here's a blog item I posted in the past, "Who Marches Against The Cop Killers?" linking to a great piece by Heather about the cops who put their lives on the line every day to protect people -- and lots of them, black people -- from violent crime.
See this post from Reynolds for some thoughts on Sharpton's behavior. It's fun to think that Obama's election could mean "the end of the civil rights era" (in a *good* way).
Crid at April 27, 2008 1:56 AM
I can just hear the Sharptons of the world complaining: "What choice does a black man have, but to be a rap star, a basketball star, a drug dealer, or...President of the United States of America?"
Amy Alkon at April 27, 2008 2:02 AM
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Sharpton gotta march. More than him even, I blame the media outlets who rush to his door whenever something like this happens. Like he's a legitimate spokesman for anything.
Jim Treacher at April 27, 2008 5:34 AM
One nit to pick and one semi-sordid observation:
In the evaluation of a crime, one is not permitted to consider the past record as valid evidence of the act in question. We cannot convict for past crimes, only the one on the bill.
I wonder what kind of future this woman (Mr. Bell's former fianceé) envisioned when her groom-to-be cultivated such "friends", and apparently enjoyed such surroundings. I bet that Sean Bell wasn't at that club to celebrate her part in his life.
Radwaste at April 27, 2008 6:21 AM
Radwaste,
If the people in the car were on trial, those restrictions would be in place. But if the officers on trial knew it, it would be admissible as it would go to their state of mind, in terms of assessing the risk attendent to the stop.
XBradTC at April 27, 2008 8:06 AM
Just a little footnote coming from Sean Bell's Wikipedia entry over the incident:
Two of the five officers involved were black, one was white, one was Middle-Eastern, and one was of biracial black and Hispanic origin (Haitian/Mexican). The first officer to fire was black.
This leads me to think that Mr. Sharpton is not there to defend any cause but to do the hustler as usual.
On a different subject, I ask myself how this will influence Obama for his quest for the Presidency. If there's one riot with the race card pulled high, how many people will link this to Obama's bid on the white house?
Toubrouk at April 27, 2008 10:07 AM
Amy said it. I only have one thing to add: Heather MacDonald is hot.
Jeff at April 27, 2008 11:54 AM
As I just e-mailed Heather (about your comment): "Always nice to be appreciated for more than one's razor intellect"!
Amy Alkon at April 27, 2008 12:28 PM
"But if the officers on trial knew it, it would be admissible as it would go to their state of mind, in terms of assessing the risk attendent to the stop."
I know this. In so doing, you have to show that the officer correctly identified, then maintained contact with the individual he knew to be a threat. My only point is that we cannot haul in just any thug to pay for the crimes of a particular one, no matter how nasty the thug chosen, and I think you know that, too. I'm just covering the bases, because several comments in mass media and elsewhere are phrased without making this distinction.
All please look up the name Massad Ayoob. He's covered disparity-of-force shootings before, and is widely accepted as an expert, as was the fellow called for the trial, Alexander Jason. As with the Diallo incident, once shooting starts, police cannot determine where any shots are coming from, and they can only rely on visual cues, then shooting to remove any visual threat.
Radwaste at April 27, 2008 1:44 PM
A friend of mine sent me a cartoon recently. In the first frame, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are standing under a star, and Al is saying, "Oh wishing star, we wish for an end to racial strife and bigotry." And in the next frame is a little cloud under the wishing star with the word "Poof!" in it. o_O
Flynne at April 28, 2008 5:31 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/04/somebody-needs.html#comment-1542946">comment from FlynneThat's just brilliant, Flynne.
Amy Alkon at April 28, 2008 6:04 AM
So, they want to "shoot the police" but then, when they are victims of crime, they march and shout "where are the police? They don't care about us!"
What excatly is it that they want? Besides lots of money for nothing........
farrar at April 28, 2008 10:29 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/04/somebody-needs.html#comment-1543014">comment from farrarI live next door to a guy who jokingly refers to himself as "the black Doris Kravitz," because when there's trouble in the neighborhood (drug users living in the bushes, etc.), he does something about it. Used to be just me, but now I've got help.
Anyway, as far as I know, when he's called the cops, they have NEVER asked him what color his skin is as a condition of responding to his complaint.
Amy Alkon at April 28, 2008 11:02 AM
Maybe more people would start taking Al Sharpton seriously if he didn't play the Politically Correct game of only protesting against easy targets. Why is it that Al Sharpton is perfectly OK with having famous and successful black men like Chuck Berry and Jack Johnson thrown in jail for violating the Mann Act, when evidence beyond a doubt proving rich white boy like Eliot Spitzer guilty of the same crime is ignored? Is Sharpton not aware that the Spitzer family has a decades long tradition of being members of the racially biased Harmonie Club on Manhattan's Upper West Side? Why is Al Sharpton pulling his punches against Eliot Spitzer, the corrupt New York official who put more young black men in New York State prisons using Rockefeller's drug laws in the last year than have died in Iraq, Afghanistan, and gang shootings over the last decade. Hey Al, why not call for a Special Prosecutor to examine Eliot Spitzer's decades long business with the prostitution wings of a few Organized Crime families? Only a special prosecutor would be able to uncover the links between the $500 Million dollar Spitzer family fortune and the organized crime complaints which Eliot Spitzer suppressed when he was NY Attorney General.
NoJusticeNoPeace at April 28, 2008 8:44 PM
njnp - I suspect your post is rhetorical, but I'll answer it for you very simply.
There's nobody for Al to shake down in the Spitzer case.
brian at April 29, 2008 4:45 AM
While I haven't followed this case closely and am ignorant of many of the facts of this acquittal. But I would like to know what punishments these officers will face. Perhaps their actions weren't criminal, but at what point does riddling a man with 50 bullets not become excessive? One officer fired 31 of the bullets by himself. Perhaps the community's lust for blood could be satisfied if they felt that the punishment phase for these officers didn't end in criminal court.
Deion at April 29, 2008 3:22 PM
Hi Brian, I see your point. But I thought the Rev. Jesse Jackson did more in the way of "settlements" with corporate America, and that Al Sharpton made noise primarily for the camera and air time. Either way, both Jackson and Sharpton seem so hypocritical when they fail to attack the elite power-brokers, such as the Spitzer clan, in the same way they attack Corporations and the Police. If I were in their shoes I couldn't help but realize that the amount of press that would be gained, and the affect on influencing society, would be greatest by being at the front of the parade demanding equal jail time for Eliot Spitzer for the same crime which put Jack Johnson and Chuck Berry behind bars. The issue is not that Spitzer put more young black men behind bars under the Rockefeller drug laws than anyone else. The issue is that the same laws used against people of color like rapper Li'l Kim,baseball player Barry Bonds, and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick should be used against corrupt white people in law enforcement. When corrupt prosecutors are removed and incarcerated, we'll have a fairer and more honest society. If we allow racist corruption to control our Attorney General's office and our Department Of Justice, it is only a matter of time before the rage boils over in the face of all officials and citizens. Some of this is just sooo simple, I don't get how others don't see it. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Protecting corruption by public officials only prolongs and worsens the inevitable. Sorry for the rant, and thanks for reading.
NoJusticeNoPeace at April 30, 2008 11:13 PM
Leave a comment