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:
- 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
Abagond 
So very sad black Americans need to realize that it’s open season on us and anyone of us just going about our everyday lives could die at the hands of police even when we need their help.
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Her children saw their mother killed by these savages. My heart hurts for them I barely got over young Jordan Edwards here in my city, and the verdict last week with Philando Castile, I truly feel black people are being oppressed by law enforcement. Colin Kaepernick was right to compare police officers to slave catchers during slavery times.
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“it’s open season on us ”
im a witness to that fact.
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and not just since trump. cop drew his gun on me in my own backyard in 2013.
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@ Mary Burrell
Lynching by Another Name,
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Legalized lynching designed to scare blacks into silence and compliance. It’s always sunny in 1877, I suppose.
I can’t help but wonder how long we’re gonna keep turning the other cheek on this. A cornered cat will eventually strike back, if only in self-defense.
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@”A cornered cat will eventually strike back, if only in self-defense.”
I think the first step at present is to quit relying on the police. Quit calling them altogether because rarely if ever will anything good come from it. Get legally armed and support organisations like Huey P. Newton Gun Club:
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Even when an armed white man has killed two people and stabbed a third person, he is arrested by the police without firing a shot.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mQ0IY6TGpU)
History repeats itself because the fundamental power relationships in this society, between those who have power and those who don’t, have remained constant. We’ve moved from one cycle of white supremacy to another, interspersed by brief periods of incremental reforms. Until we develop the power to neutralize the capacity of our historical enemies to impose their diabolical will, these crimes against our humanity will continue.
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@ makheruspeaks
Exactly.
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@ makheruspeaks
Short of a vicious Second Civil War, a devastating attack by a powerful outside aggressor (Russia? China?) or a cataclysmic natural disaster (Yellowstone Caldera?) that manages to unbalance the scales of power, black Americans have little hope of neutralizing anything.
Think of the U.S. as a bull that’s been bucking for hundreds of years. The most realistic solutions available would be to either hop off the bull (by emigrating elsewhere) or keep riding the bull until it gets exhausted and crumples out of sheer fatigue. The latter might take awhile – Rome wasn’t built in one day and it didn’t fall in one day, either.
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@ makheruspeaks
“We’ve moved from one cycle of white supremacy to another, interspersed by brief periods of incremental reforms. Until we develop the power to neutralize the capacity of our historical enemies to impose their diabolical will, these crimes against our humanity will continue.”
So true. I wonder if mass emigration to another continent would help?
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“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.”
This “liberal Left Coast” city successfully completed a two decade campaign to utterly destroy an all Black neighborhood in the center of town (the Central Area) and push as many Black people in other predominantly Black neighborhoods in the South End to the southern suburbs and beyond. They have been replaced with White tech hipsters and hospital workers.
Those Black people who remain are “de-concentrated” (scattered) around the city, especially those who qualify for public or subsidized housing. For example, Ms. Lyles apartment in Magnuson Park is former navy base housing re-purposed for low-income families.
The police of the North Precinct are “known to be racist” because of the history of rigid segregation in Seattle. North of the ship canal was once solidly White, South of the ship canal was once a salad bowl of different ethnic and racial groups. The police were part of enforcing that segregation. Magnuson Park is in the North End of Seattle.
Despite the tamping down of coverage about police shootings of Black people and their aftermath, the murder of Ms. Lyles is receiving international coverage and attention on social media.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/fatal-police-shooting-of-charleena-lyles-is-top-trending-topic-on-social-media/
I find it unsurprising that people who constantly harp about “family values” and “rights of the unborn”, etc. are notably silent on the murder of a visibly pregnant Black woman in front of her children.
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@Afrofem: Good points I pray for divine justice to be reaped on a society that perpetrates these atrocities.
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This poor young woman didn’t deserve this evil.
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There will be no protest for Charleena Lyles like they protest for black men? I hate to turn this into a gender issue. #Say Her Name 🙏🏿
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In April the federal monitor of the consent decree gave the Seattle police a glowing review. I hope this is a wake-up call (not that I am holding my breath…)
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There is something deeply wrong with killing a pregnant woman so quickly. If it does not lead to a wake-up call, then the rot extends well beyond the police department. It probably does, but we shall see.
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@ Afrofem
Wow, it is just like how supposed gun-rights diehards, like the NRA and Trump, were silent on Philando Castile. Is that, like, a coincidence?
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@ Afrofem
That certainly seems to be true. Do you have any facts to back it up?
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@ Abagond
No facts other than the word of Dr. Melina Abdullah on a Project Censored radio show (5-1-17):
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/unarmed-black-americans-killed-by-police-in-2016/#comment-370793
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I’ve worked around mentally ill people without access to weaponry of any sort. I had to rely on diffusing the situation verbally. Physical force utilizing weaponry shouldn’t even be in the equation. Surely they could have diffused the situation without shooting this woman. I guess tiny pregnant Black ladies are dangerous and scary, perhaps her kids were her backup? Anyone trying to justify this murder is a piece of shite.
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Those murdering savages killed two people the mother and child and I think about the young children who witnessed these traumatic events how they will be affected in the future. I am thinking of the little girl in the car with her mother with Mr. Castile witnessing his shooting by Jeronimo Yanez . America cares nothing for the little ones in black or brown bodies and it certainly cares nothing for the elderly. What recourse do black Americans have?
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And yet, when there is anger and activation in response to these murders, we’re still somehow to blame and our actions are detrimental to society. Causation doesn’t work with racist mindsets who won’t connect the simple concept of cause and effect. Police are killing us at high rates. Therefore, we’re angry and we’ll do something to prevent it from happening.
America won’t grasp that elementary school reasoning when it comes to the killing of black people, because it goes against protecting white supremacy and they fear us when we’ve had enough.
That’s my two cents.
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@ Abagond
I’m glad you brought up the question of facts to back up my observation about a decrease in media attention regarding Black people killed by police and their aftermath.
It is pretty elementary: trust but verify.
I went back to the “Unarmed Black Americans killed by police in 2017” thread. I took a second look at the site, Killed by Police (KBP) recommended by MJB. The victims of police violence documented by the site run the gamut of ethnicities and races.
I like the facts the site presents:
☆ date of killing (with a running total of people killed in parentheses)
☆ US state
☆ gender/race
☆ name/age (KBP links nearly half of the people killed to a photo)
☆ KBP facebook link for every individual story
☆ corporate media source link
☆ links to media that mention KPB or use data from KBP
Who runs KBP? Someone who has a legitimate need for anonymity. That individual claims on Facebook:
http://www.killedbypolice.net/
There are other sites that use different methodologies and source material.
Mapping Police Violence claims to track Black people exclusively
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
There is also a host of news sites that do detailed stories about police killings like The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Nation Magazine, PBS, Snopes and Time.com.
I should do more reading about the facts of this ongoing situation from a variety of sources and not rely on observation in this time of illusion.
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That’s a very sad story.
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@ Abagond
I saw an article from Pro-Publica.org that discusses how Facebook censors posts by users. The article, “Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech But Not Black Children” went into great detail about Facebook’s global censoring of speech, ideas and images. Among the most censored groups in the USA are Black people who speak candidly about police violence against Black people. According to the article:
https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-censorship-internal-documents-algorithms
Censorship against Black people discussing violence against Black community members is frustrating because many people depend on social media for up to date news. The number is up to 62% for all Americans. The preferred platform is Facebook.
http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/
Focused censorship of Black Americans discussing police violence on social media, particularly heavily used social media like Facebook, is part of a pattern of intentional suppression of news about police violence and other issues that Black people care about. I feel Facebook’s policies add to the tamping down of coverage about police shootings of Black people and their aftermath.
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Afrofem said,
“Then you say something that some anonymous person doesn’t like and then you’re in ‘jail.’”
I’ve been in FB jail before. A few years back when I was pushing anarchsim i would get banned for a few days.
There are pro cop groups that monitor FB looking for people who criticize police using “hateful” language.
If you are an activist then people will follow you on FB to try to shut you down through “complaints”.
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@ michaeljonbarker
I’m not surprised at your experience.
I think there is increasing pressure on social media platforms to silence the voices of people who are critical of the powers that be.
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@Afrofem: But racist non melanated individuals can post all manner of vitriol and hate speech without consequence.
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@ Mary Burrell
So I’ve heard.
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Facebook’s censorship algorithm is further proof that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
Social media platforms offer the easiest way to organize and push awareness, but they’re not the only tools. I daresay that for most black groups, using Facebook and other social media outlets is becoming more of a liability than a benefit.
So what to do? One idea would be to just leave Facebook and the like alone and find other ways outside of mainstream social media to organize and discuss. As long as you’re using mainstream tools you and your people don’t own, you’ll always be subject to mainstream censorship.
On that note, I wonder what would happen if nearly every black Facebook user decided to close their accounts in masse. Facebook relies heavily on user data to turn over to ad partners and big businesses. That’s gotta take a sizable chunk out of their bottom line.
For those who can’t stay away from Facebook, black folks very well may have to resort to the same “code switching” language we tend to use in professional settings. Language that gets the point across but is so bland and innocuous that the censors would end up overlooking it.
Just spitballing some ideas here.
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I read that article at ProPublica and can state that I am not surprised.
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@Mack:
I’m surprised that someone hasn’t come up with a Black Facebook prototype.
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@ Afrofem,
Your lost reminded me of something I came across on FB. As Mack pointed lit FB needs “diversity” so they can sell demographics to advertisers. FB for awhile had a program that allowed advertisers tp choose whatever races to market too. They discontinued that feature after the resulting controversy.
These quotes come from a critque of libertarianism bit they seemed apt.
It’s a product and example of RACIAL CAPITALISM. Racial #capitalism is broadly characterized as a means by which to leverage the racial identity of another person to cultivate economic and social value, particularly in a manner which generates capitol. (Leong, p. 2151, 2013)
“When white people and predominantly white institutions commodify nonwhiteness and exploit its value, even under the auspices of a well-intentioned diversity rationale, racial capitalism evokes one of the darkest eras in American history, during which nonwhiteness — and nonwhite human beings — were assigned value and transferred among white people as commodities.”
(Leong, Harvard Law Review, Volume 126, Number 8, Page 2151, 2013)
Racial #Capitalism is a hindrance to practical civil rights progress, giving rise to identity harms by shifting the focus from antidiscrimination reforms. (Leong, p. 2151, 2013)
Merely seeking #diversity on the basis of numbers alone results in superficial awareness of nonwhiteness as a bare marker of difference and a signal of presence. Consequently, such compels white individuals and predominantly white institutions to posture nonwhiteness as a prized #commodity rather than as a sentimental and personal manifestation of identity. “Affiliation with nonwhite individuals thus becomes merely a useful means for white individuals and predominantly white institutions to acquire social and economic benefits while deflecting potential charges of racism and avoiding more difficult questions of racial equality.” (Leong, ,p. 2155, 2013)
Commodification of this nature causes material harm to the integrity of individual identity, and harbors identity performance demands, and impoverishes our discussion regarding race. It also gives rise to racial resentment, as it impedes essential reparative efforts which aim to aid racial relations, and detracts from more meaningful antidiscrimination milestones by overpromoting a tokenistic racial representation model. (Leong, p. 2157, 2013)
In closing, it’s time to demand more from the Libertarian Party and Libertarian think tanks such as The CATO Institue. Rather than divert from antidiscrimination discourse with intentionally misleading tokenistic racial representation models, or overtly discriminatory political platform language which supports an erroneous “individual right” to discriminatory practices, they should address the underlying cause of the 96% white / 70% male demographic by rejecting the ALt-Right trappings of bigotry which echo pre-1950’s #American social norms, and adopting a #CivilRights posture of modernity.
We should probaly continue this discussion on the open thread.
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My apologies for the typos. I have a new phone and i need to get use to the key board.
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@ michaeljonbarker
My response on the Open Thread is here:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/comment-page-1/#comment-375131
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@ Mack Lyons
“As long as you’re using mainstream tools you and your people don’t own, you’ll always be subject to mainstream censorship.”
Good point.
I heard someone refer to it as digital sharecropping.
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@ Abagond
I want to share some information about Trump’s FCC Chairman’s latest push to end net neutrality. Which thread do you suggest: Open Thread, The Trump Era, or some other?
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@ Afrofem
Trump Era.
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It seems we are following a familiar script following the murder of Ms. Lyles. In Seattle, we are now at the “the Negroes public venting” stage. That is when you know justice will not be done in this case.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/family-of-charleena-lyles-unhappy-seattle-police-wont-participate-in-community-forum/
If the survivors (Ms. Lyles children and parents, etc.) are lucky, the children will not be carted off to foster care and the city will pay the survivors “blood money” with our tax dollars.
The murderers will walk free because there is no downside for them in this situation. Black people take all of the risk and the police have all of the benefits.
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@ Abagond
Thanks.
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While reading up on Ms. Lyles in the Seattle Times I came across an article about the police shooting death of Tommy Le.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/bubbly-kid-was-fatally-shot-by-king-county-deputy-hours-before-high-school-graduation/
Apparently, Mr. Le had a “phantom Asian weapon” similar to the “phantom Negro weapons” we all hear about after police violence.
This reminds me of what Philando Castile’s mother said in a video shared by MJB recently:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/philando-castile/#comment-373887
Paraphrasing Ms. Castile’s words to the crowd: You all are next.
For all of the people who think the State will stop with Black people….
(note: Mr. Le’s murder was posted on the Killed By Police site days before the Seattle Times bothered to do an article about him.)
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@ Afrofem
Thanks for the link.
The police chief would not show up to a public forum about the police shooting a pregnant women? How hideous.
I need to add “perceived” to my list of Whitespeak terms.
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@ Afrofem
I just heard about Tommy Le today. He probably needs a post too.
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@ Abagond
The local media tried to paint Mr. Le as a criminal, but couldn’t find enough dirt on him. They settled for “troubled”.
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@ Herneith
I’m not, because it’d be subject to the same conundrum that affects nearly every black space – any service or venue developed for and used by black folks will inevitably be discovered and eventually overrun, co-opted and ultimately usurped by white audiences. When it comes to maintaining secure black spaces, obscurity seems to be our only security, and even that’s rather iffy.
Sooner or later, your Black Facebook will slowly turn into a homogenized shell of itself if it sees any measurable success.
@ Afrofem
Same as it ever was, then.
It’s not a popular opinion, mainly because there are plenty of decent people here who would rightfully recoil at the thought but also because black Americans have had the obligation of remaining steadfastly non-violent (as per the example set by Dr. MLK) burned into them over countless decades or more. The only reason why these killings seem so blatant is because, as you mentioned, there’s no risk for the police (or any other white who feels it their right) to legally harm or murder black Americans, only reward. The blood money (in the form of settlements) is just the cost of doing business.
Frankly, that cost should be more than just money. We must be willing to extract a severe toll against those, even law enforcement, who would wrongly and wantomly do harm to us. Malcolm X says it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm_g6vuP07U
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TheColi was overrun by CaCs
Compare a search for “top 10 twerkers” in 2014, compared to now. I am not saying that white women can’t twerk. People who have had their legs cut of can definitely run – look at Oscar Pistorious. But we do not put Paralympians over Olympians. I do believe that they should be put along side each other.and that the Paralympians deserve a whole lot more respect. Same for white women. I believe that these white women with no asses that still twerk should be commended. But to completely put their search results over those of black women like TwerkTeam? Google………….. White people……….
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Attorneys for Charleena Lyles estate (Karen Koehler and Edward Moore) reportedly found evidence of perjury by the cop that killed Ms. Lyles in front of her children. They used that evidence to convince a judge to reject the cops request to dismiss the Lyles estate lawsuit against them.
According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer website, the attorneys:
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/crime/article/Attorney-Seattle-cop-who-killed-Charleena-Lyles-13004940.php
(The article includes video footage of Anderson firing his weapon.)
One other discrepancy is the input of the crime scene investigators. The Seattle PI found that, “the crime scene investigators’ diagram of the incident places the locations of Lyles and McNew, but does now show Anderson’s placement in the apartment….”
An interesting unraveling of the falsehoods woven throughout this case. The cops will likely not face any serious consequences for their actions, but at least tiny bits of facts are surfacing in public.
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The city of Seattle has been holding an inquest into the 2017 murder of Charleena Lyles by two cops.
For the past couple of weeks, the local media has been repeating police talking points about Lyles being “mentally ill”. One local Fox outlet went so far as to say Ms. Lyles mental illness led to her death.
Today a local tv station reported on the rampant defamation of Ms. Lyles during the inquest by the attorney representing the cops. This has infuriated her family members and other supporters of Ms. Lyles.
According to the report:
The police are also attempting to intimidate Lyle’s family members with shows of force out of proportion to alleged “threats”. In one instance, members of a SWAT team were dispatched to the courthouse to “escort” one of the cops responsible for Lyles’ murder after the cop reported an (alleged) threat by Lyles’ relatives.
Ms. Lyles cousin, Katrina Johnson commented:
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tensions-between-spd-lyles-family-rise-inquest-continues/2ESLCOB6YNCTTMNKZZUQI3FS6U/?outputType=amp
✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄✄
One thing I’v noticed in coverage of this horrible case is how the weapon Ms. Lyles supposedly had when the cops entered her apartment is different every time her murder is mentioned.
In some media stories, Ms. Lyles had a pair of large scissors, in others a knife whose size changes with the media outlet.
Sort of reminds me of Abagond’s Phantom Negro Weapons. Black people are killed by police while holding cell phones, wallets, tv remotes, sandwiches or nothing at all.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/phantom-negro-weapons/
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ACAB
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@ MJB
…and habitual liars.
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