Philando Castile dashcam video

Note: I did a post on Philando Castile last year shortly after police shot him dead. This post is mainly about the police dashcam video that was just made public. 

Dramatis Personae:

• Philando Castile – a Black man in the US.
• Diamond Reynolds – his girlfriend
• Jeronimo Yanez – a killer cop

Scene: Larpenteur Avenue in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, a suburb of St
Paul. Wednesday July 6th 2016 at 9.04pm.

Yanez pulls over Castile. With Castile in the car are Reynolds and her
four-year-old daughter.

Yanez: (on the police radio) Gonna stop the car. I have reason to pull
it over. It just look like, uh, people that were involved in a robbery.

Yanez: (walks up to the car) Hello sir.

Castile: (inaudible), how are you?

Yanez: Good. Uh, reason I pulled you over do you, your brake lights are out. So you only have one activated, active brake light and that’s gonna be your passenger side one. Your third brake light which is up here on top and then this one back here is gonna be out.

Castile: (inaudible)

Yanez: You have your license and insurance? (puts his hand on his gun!)

(pause/background noise)

Castile: (hands over his insurance but still has to get his licence) Sir, I have to tell you I do have a…

Yanez: Okay.

Castile: …firearm on me.

Yanez: Okay.

Castile: I (inaudible)

Yanez: Don’t reach for it then.

Castile: I’m, I, I was reaching for…

Yanez: Don’t pull it out.

Castile: I’m not pulling it out.

Reynolds: He’s not…

Yanez: Don’t pull it out.

BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG

Reynolds: You just killed my boyfriend.

Castile: I wasn’t reaching … (his last words)

Reynolds: He wasn’t reaching…

Yanez: (screaming) DON’T PULL IT OUT!

Reynolds: He wasn’t.

Yanez: (screaming) DON’T MOVE! FUCK.

Reynolds: Oh man, I can’t believe you just did that.

Yanez: (screaming) FUCK. FUCK!

Reynolds: Oh my God!

Yanez: (screaming) DON’T MOVE!

Reynolds: Oh my God!

Yanez: (screaming) DON’T MOVE!

Reynolds: Oh my God I’m shaking

Yanez: (screaming) DON’T MOVE!

Reynolds: Don’t move baby.

Yanez: (screaming) CODE 3. GET THE BABY GIRL OUTTA HERE. OH FUCK. (an officer takes the girl)

Reynolds: Don’t, don’t (inaudible) sir.

Yanez: (screaming) DON’T MOVE!

Reynolds: Don’t move baby, please

Yanez: (screaming) FUCK.

Reynolds: Whatever you do…

Yanez: (still screaming) 6921 GET A, MEDIC HERE CODE 3. SHOTS FIRED. OH FUCK! (heavy breathing)

At this point Reynolds starts streaming video live to the Internet, what we saw last year.

More police cars arrive. One officer holding a rifle (pictured above) takes away Reynolds.

Reynolds and her daughter in the back of a police car shortly after the shooting.

In a separate video from the back of a police car:

Reynolds’s daughter: Mom, please don’t scream ’cause I don’t want you to get shooted! […] I wish this town was safer.

During the shooting, a bullet had hit the back seat where she was sitting.

Nearly five minutes pass before police try to save Castile’s life.

Yanez was charged with:

• second-degree manslaughter,
• intentional discharge of a dangerous weapon, endangering Reynolds,
• intentional discharge of a dangerous weapon, endangering her daughter.

Last week a jury of ten White people and two young Black men found
Yanez not guilty of all three charges – because he feared for his life.

Yanez never saw the gun.

Yanez’s wrist on the day of the killing: “Police lives matter.”

– Abagond, 2017.

Sources: mainly NPR, gomn.com, Google Images.

See also:

• YouTube:
  • Ramsey County: Squad dashcam video – Yanez case (WARNING: Graphic content) – the dashcam video itself (10 minutes). No blood or anything like that, but still horrific. I generally do not link to videos of police shootings, they have become like lynching postcards, but this one should be seen.
  • The Advise Show: Philando Castile Dashcam Video Released & Sparks Anger – has a good compilation of the available videos. Shows the dashcam and the Reynolds video together in sync.
• Philando Castile
• The police
  • slave patrols – were allowed to kill Black people. US policing and the Klan grew out of slave patrols.
  • killer cops
  • copspeak – “broken tail light”, “feared for his safety”, “fit the description”, etc.
  • Black Brute stereotype – Black men will try to shoot their way out of a traffic ticket and tell you they have a gun first. Because they are bad-ass and deranged like that.
  • Phantom Negro Weapons
• DWB: Driving While Black
  • What to do if you are stopped by the police – like safety belts, it will increase your odds of living, but you could still wind up dead.
• Sandra Bland dashcam video

746

Charleena Lyles

Charleena Lyles (c. 1987-2017), a pregnant mother of four, was shot dead by police on June 18th 2017 after calling them to report a burglary. This was in Seattle, on the liberal Left Coast of the US, in a city with an Obama Era consent decree to reform the police.

Her city councilman, Rob Johnson:

“People should not fear getting shot when they call law enforcement for help.”

The Seattle police made her the suspect:

“Officer involved shooting update: adult female suspect is deceased. Police are not searching for anyone else. More information to follow.”

The Seattle Times dutifully reported her criminal record.

Her family says her criminal record was driven by mental health issues she has been having for the past year.

On June 5th, two weeks before her death, she called the police for a “physical domestic disturbance.” By the time police got there her boyfriend was gone. They found her holding a huge pair of scissors.

According to police she was talking about changing into a wolf, cloning her daughter and telling them they were devils and were part of the Klan. (To be fair, the police of the North Precinct, where she lived, are known for being racist.)

After more police arrived, two sergeants among them, they got her to drop the scissors.

Her family said she was

“worried that authorities would take her children, one of whom has Down syndrome.”

On Facebook she had pictures that said things like:

“Dear Lord,
Bless my children,
take care of them on their
daily walk & keep evil away.
Amen.”

and:

“Always love your Mother because you will never get another.”

In 2011, in the wake of the police shooting of John T. Williams, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) investigated the Seattle police. Among other things, they found that Seattle police more readily point guns at people of colour and were more likely to use excessive force on people with mental health or substance abuse issues.

As part of the consent decree, Seattle agreed to give their officers Crisis Intervention Training. The North Precinct opposed the consent decree, but the two officers who killed Charleena Lyles did receive the training.

On June 18th, when she called about the burglary – it seems someone took an Xbox – the police said (there is no video) that she was holding two knives. They knew she was the same woman with the scissors, yet they did not bring their tasers. Or try to disarm her (she was less than a hundred pounds). Or try to talk her down. Or even order her to drop the knives. Instead it was:

Officer 1: Hey, get back. Get back.
Officer 2: Get back. Tase her.
Officer 1: I don’t have a taser. Get back, get back.
Officer 2: Get back.
Officer 1: Get back.

BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM

Three of her children, ages 11, 4 and 1, were there.

Kris‏ (@thatkblife) on Twitter:

“The expectation of black people having to be perfect and not in distress to not get killed by police is exhausting. #CharleenaLyles”

– Abagond, 2017.

Sources: mainly Heavy.com, KING 5, Seattle Times (2017), Seattle Times (2011), @SeattlePD, @thatkblife.

See also:

• How to be a perfect victim
• the police
  • killer cops
  • consent decree
  • racial profiling – Seattle police as a case study of that.
  • copspeak – “suspect”, “officer involved shooting” and such
• other Black people killed by police in front of children:
  • Philando Castile
  • Korryn Gaines
  • Ramarley Graham
• other Black people with mental health issues killed by police:
  • Alfred Olango
  • Kajieme Powell
  • Killed by the NYPD in 2013
• White men taken alive by police:
  • Dylann Roof
  • James Holmes – Batman shooter, was seeing a psychiatrist
  • Robert Dear – shot at police, killing one
  • William Bruce Ray – shot at police, mentally ill

608

 

Is resw a troll?

resw’s current avatar

Some say that commenter resw is a troll. Others say that I just cannot stand being disagreed with. In either case, the subject is swallowing up other threads. So:

Going forward, the question of whether resw is a troll will be discussed here only and be off topic elsewhere (except for whatever post I might do on it).

Take the poll and/or comment below:

Thanks!

See also:

• Internet trolls
  • Russian trolls
• trolls past:
  • xPraetorius
  • Jacques
  • No Slappz
  • Asplund
• threads with the most resw comments:
  • Open Thread (2017)
  • The Isis Papers (2015)
  • alt-right (2016)
  • Hillary Clinton for president (2016)
  • Programming note #30 (2016)

Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Remarks:

This song is every bit as amazing as the day I first heard it. Unlike with Robin Thicke, my memory was unable to improve on the guitar one bit. The song came out in 1970 but is timeless. I have been told Jimi Hendrix is of the devil. Now I see what they mean.

See also:

• songs, the 1970s
• Jimi Hendrix
  • Jimi Hendrix: All Along the Watchtower
  • Jimi Hendrix: Foxy Lady
  • Jimi Hendrix: Like a Rolling Stone
  • Jimi Hendrix: The Star-Spangled Banner

Lyrics:

Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I stand up next to a mountain
Chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island
Might even raise just a little sand
‘Cause I’m a voodoo child
Lord knows I’m a voodoo child

I didn’t mean to take you up all your sweet time
I’ll give it right back to you one of these days
I said, I didn’t mean to take you up all your sweet time
I’ll give it right back to you one of these days
And if I don’t meet you no more in this world
Then I’ll, I’ll meet you in the next one
And don’t be late, don’t be late
‘Cause I’m a voodoo child
Lord knows I’m a voodoo child
I’m a voodoo child

Source: A-Z Lyrics.

Egypt in 1275 BC

The Book of the Dead, written in hieroglyphics, circa -1275.

Egypt 1,275 years before the Christian era is Egypt at roughly the beginning of the Book of Exodus in the Bible. The Jews will leave in maybe 12 years. Troy will fall in about 90 years. King Tut has been dead for 48 years, and the Sphinx and the great pyramids are now well over a thousand years old.

• When: -1275, during the New Kingdom.
• Where: Egypt. Held sway over Palestine, Nubia and parts of Libya, Phoenicia and Syria.
• Ruler: Ramses II (19th Dynasty).
• Population: 2 to 5 million.
  • Life expectancy: 30 to 36 years.
• Major cities: Memphis, Thebes, Pi-Ramses.
• Language: Late Egyptian, since the -1300s, written in hieroglyphics and, more commonly, hieratic, a simpler, cursive form of hieroglyphics.
• Religion: priests, temples, worship of the gods, especially Amun, Osiris, Min, Mut, Khonsu and Ptah. The pharaoh is the supreme high priest who stands between the gods and man.
• Currency: none. Coins have not yet been invented and will not become common in Egypt till after Alexander the Great (-300s). Most people are paid in beer, wheat and barley. The unit of account is the deben, equal to about 1.5 grams of silver ($1.50 in US dollars in 2012).
• Economy: Most people are farmers living along the Nile, growing wheat and barley. Egypt is the richest country in the world, thanks to its control of the gold mines of Nubia to the south.
  • Exports: linen, furniture, but no papyrus (the alphabet has not yet created an export market).
  • Imports: glass and incense (Palestine), copper (Cyprus, Anatolia), tin (Iran, Syria), gold, ebony and ivory (Nubia).
• Military: professional army. Chariot fighting at its height. Bows and arrows.
• Bathing: daily.
• Slavery: practised.
• Latest inventions: Iron is a new thing, but only kings can afford it. In the last 300 years Egyptians have invented scissors, clocks (sun and water clocks) and the rudder.
• Reading list: Book of the Dead (for the few who can read).

A book about the interpretation of dreams found at Deir el-Medina. Written in hieratic script, circa -1275.

It is a very well-known time and place. Not just because of all the temples Ramses II built which have lasted down to our time, but because of the desert village of Deir el-Medina, across the river from Thebes. In addition to its physical remains, we have its letters, work records, literature, graffiti, and so on. We also have the government records of the Hittite Empire, which add balance to the shameless propaganda written on the temple walls of Egypt.

The Jewish Exodus, by the way, does not appear in Egyptian records. In fact, Jews (Israelites) do not appear in Egyptian records at all till -1208.

The rich, unlike the poor, can read, do not have to work in the fields, sleep in four-post beds (not on mats), have houses with more than three rooms, and commonly lived to see 40. Stuff most people in the West will take for granted some 3,000 years later.

Race: According to both Cheikh Anta Diop and Chancellor Williams, this was after Egypt was ruled by Blacks. Egyptians by this time are heavily mixed with West Asian blood, though still darker skinned than today.

– Abagond, 2017.

Sources: Mainly “Ancient Egypt on 5 Deben a Day” (2010) by Donald P. Ryan; “The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History” (2002) by Colin McEvedy.

See also:

• Ramses II
• King Tut
• Ancient Egypt
  • How Black was Ancient Egypt?
  • according to Chancellor Williams
  • according to Cheikh Anta Diop
• Roman Egypt
• papyrus
• Egyptian language
• Egyptian inventions
• Deir el-Medina
• Nubia
• Jews
• Christian era

583

Loving v Virginia

Mildred and Richard Loving.

Loving v Virginia (1967) is the Supreme Court decision that struck down all laws in the US against mixed-race marriages. At the time nearly every Southern state still had such laws. The 9-0 decision was handed down on June 12th 1967 – 50 years ago this past Monday. June 12th is now known as Loving Day.

Blue states overturned their laws against mixed-race marriages between 1948 and 1967. Grey states had their laws overturned by Loving v Virginia.

 

In May 1958 in Central Point, Virginia, Richard Loving wanted to marry Mildred Jeter. But his birth certificate said he was “white”, hers said she was “coloured”. The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 outlawed such marriages. The law was passed in the name of eugenics, but there had been one law or another in Virginia preventing mixed-race marriages since 1691.

They drove a hundred miles to Washington, DC where they could get married if she put down her race as “Indian”. Although she identified as Black, she was Cherokee on her father’s side and Rappahannock on her mother’s. Like many in Central Point, she was likely triracial (Black, White, Native).

The Lovings’s marriage licence, 1958.

Two months later, back in Virginia, the police caught them in bed together at two in the morning, “cohabiting” “against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth” of Virginia. (The Lovings, who lived in a small town, had left the front door unlocked.) They were arrested and thrown in jail.

The sheriff later said:

“The Lord made sparrows and robins, not to mix with one another.”

The judge said:

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And, but for the interference with his arrangement, there would be no cause for such marriage. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

In 1959 he banished them from Virginia for 25 years.

In 1963 Mildred wrote to Robert Kennedy, asking him if the new civil rights bill then in Congress would let them return to Virginia. He said no, but sent her letter on to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in New York. They took the case.

In 1967 the case had reached all the way to the Supreme Court.

The state of Virginia argued:

“these statutes [against mixed-race marriage] serve a legitimate, legislative objective of preventing a sociological, psychological evils which attend interracial marriages […]

“Intermarried families are subjected to much greater pressures and problems than those of the intra-married and that the state’s prohibition of interracial marriage for this reason stands on the same footing as the prohibition of polygamous marriage, or incestuous marriage or the prescription of minimum ages at which people may marry and the prevention of the marriage of people who are mentally incompetent.”

To support its claim it cited the book “Intermarriage, Interfaith, Interracial, Inter-ethnic” (1964), by sociologist (and rabbi) Dr. Albert I. Gordon.

The ACLU argued that the Virginia law violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, a Reconstruction amendment that promised equal protection and due process of law for all people regardless of race.

Richard Loving argued: 

“Tell the court I love my wife.”

The Lovings being interviewed.

– Abagond, 2017.

Sources: Mainly NPR (2017), The Economist (2008), Black Past, Google Images.

See also:

• interracial relationships
• eugenics
• Walter Plecker – the mastermind behind the Racial Integrity Act
• triracial
• Reconstruction
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Robert Kennedy
• Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Bay Region

571

“Abagond used to be great” but has devolved

This has become a topic on the Latasha Harlins thread, but needs a thread of its own:

Kiwi said on bigWOWO on May 23rd 2017:

I agree that Abagond used to be great. That’s why I used to hang out so often on his blog. He was more balanced several years back but now he’s become little more than a self-interested extremist. He usually does a great job of sticking up for other people of color who are not Black but I’ve started to notice that maybe he’s just using them as his pawns. He supported SCA5 and attacked the protestors who called out the racial bias in Peter Liang’s indictment but he expects Asian support for Black Lives Matter to be a given. I can’t speak for King, but I suspect these kinds of things to be among the reasons he also left the blog.

I think the reason Asians tend not to be as politically vocal or active (insofar as that stereotype holds any truth) is not because Asians have smaller problems than other races (which is false, anyway) but because social justice activism is so heavily dominated by non-Asians that Asians constantly find themselves having to support other races while everyone else either ignores or attacks Asians.

King agreed and added:

Those were indeed the kind of reasons why I left.
But also things like

1. Blacks can’t be racist because racism can only be defined as a huge social institution. If a Black man simply hates people just based on skin color, he is not a racist. I thoroughly reject this idea.
2. A Stasi-like system of self-policing in which everyone’s credibility is constantly questioned if they disagree with the common assumptions of SJW worldview. Anyone can be a “traitor” if they start asking too many questions or have differing opinions.
3. A long but steady reduction of voices with differing views, through scapegoating and broad-brushing and ridicule. One by one, voices of reason kept vanishing until it has become small group of people who all think very much alike, (save one or two polarizing gadflies.)
4. Inconsistency: Like condemning statements like “Black people stink.” Yet defending statements like, “White people stink” by explaining that he didn’t say ALL White people!!!

Jefe on this blog, in answer to King’s comment:

I must admit that I found this blog much more rewarding 3-6 years ago. In the past few years it has devolved into more of the SJW dogpiling that they were referring to, or sometimes just drivel.

King’s point #1 — it became anathema to him and I more or less feel the same way. And I do remember when that surfaced prominently on this blog, he left soon after that. The result is a much higher concentration of audience that shares that opinion (and hence a noticeably poorer quality of posting and commentary).

Mary Burrell observes:

I have decided to just go into lurker mode and not comment sometimes I can’t read the comments on this forum has they have devolved into madness and trolling from certain posters. Especially during and after the elections. I miss the discourse from earlier years past.

If you want to comment on this privately, please email me at abagond at gmail.com. Thanks!

See also:

• SJW
• Black Lives Matter
• All Blacks are racist
  • racism = prejudice + power?
  • The asymmetry of racism
• The “not all White people” argument
• Latasha Harlins
• Aaron Mak – SCA5 and such
• Peter Liang