Patrick Harmon (1967?-2017) was a Black American man shot dead by police in Salt Lake City, Utah. Despite video showing the police shooting him while he was running away, the district attorney ruled that killing Harmon was “justified” under Utah state law.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported on August 14th 2017:
“A man was fatally shot late Sunday night [the 13th] in downtown Salt Lake City after he allegedly pulled a weapon on police officers who were trying to arrest him on an outstanding felony warrant.”
The police said that a black adult male (Harmon) “produced a weapon.” Then:
“De-escalation tactics were used in an effort to get the suspect to drop the weapon.”
Then, for reasons not made clear, an officer shoots him dead.
The Tribune dutifully reported Harmon’s police record since 2000.
The police would not name the killer cop, would not say what Harmon’s weapon was, would not produce body-camera videos, would not even say what Harmon was being arrested for.
Protesters demanded the videos be made public, the same protesters who demanded and got de-escalation training for police some years back.
The police investigated themselves. The killer cop, Officer Clinton Fox, said Harmon pulled a knife on them, saying “I’ll cut you.” Investigators found that Fox felt “terrified by how close Mr. Harmon was to the officers” and that
“in ten years of law enforcement and two military deployments, it was the scariest situation he had ever been in.”
Police say they found a knife in the grass:
The police had stopped Harmon because he crossed all six lanes of State Street on a bicycle and did not have the “required red rear tail light.”
Biking while Black, sadly, is a thing. In Chicago, for example, biking is more common in White neighbourhoods, yet people in Black neighbourhoods are more than twice as likely to get a ticket.
District Attorney Sim Gill, after nearly two months, said on October 4th that he would not bring charges against Officer Fox:
“Officer Fox reasonably believed deadly force was necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to himself and/or others and therefore his use of deadly force was ‘justified’ under Utah State law.”
Police Chief Mike Brown:
“We trust the process and support the decision from District Attorney Sim Gill. I believe our officers have the training and judgement and ability to make split-second decisions in dynamic situations.”
Case closed!
Then they made the videos public: There was no knife to be seen. And no de-escalation even if there was one. And far from threatening the officers, Harmon is crying and pleading with them not to send him to jail. Then, when Harmon suddenly makes a run for it, Officer Fox shouts “I’ll fucking shoot you!” and guns him down from behind. Another officer shoots his – taser.
Alisha Shaw, Harmon’s niece:
“They just murdered him flat out. They are lying. There is no way they were threatened by anything. He was only trying to get away.”
Protests are planned for this weekend.
– Abagond, 2017.
See also:
- killer cops
- Phantom Negro Weapons – seen by Whites but not recorded by video cameras
- Black Brute stereotype – Black men are scary even when they are not scary.
- Unarmed Blacks killed by police in 2017 – an incomplete list
- Dillon Taylor – killed by police in South Salt Lake, Utah
- Walter Scott – also stopped for a tail light, also shot in the back while running away. In his case we know the weapon was planted on him because it was caught on citizen video.
629
The video I saw was from the shooters bodycam.
He pleads not to go to jail, the police handcuff him and then Mr. Harman bolts away. He runs about 25 feet before he is shot in the back.
There was not “altercation” where the police “feared for their lives” because Mr. Harmon “drew a knife”. Rather the police shot a handcuffed man in the back while he tried to run way.
The video completly contradicts the offical police narrative.
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I always wondered if there was an independent nation free of white supremacy that had its own resources, develop their own technology/self-sufficiency and was not a threat to anyone, would the west falsify the conditions/propaganda of that nation maybe in an effort to invade and overtake some of it? Probably We can only dream right?
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TeddyBearDaddy
I always wondered if there was an independent nation free of white supremacy that had its own resources, develop their own technology/self-sufficiency and was not a threat to anyone, would the west falsify the conditions/propaganda of that nation maybe in an effort to invade and overtake some of it? Probably We can only dream right?
Among others, Vietnam,Panama,Venezuela.Afghanistan, Iraq,Libya,Somalia …even Grenada.
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I always wondered if there was an independent nation free of white supremacy that had its own resources, develop their own technology/self-sufficiency and was not a threat to anyone, would the west falsify the conditions/propaganda of that nation maybe in an effort to invade and overtake some of it?
Wakanda comes to mind, but that is a fictional state.
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Family needs to sue for the highest amount possible – in the hundreds of millions. Tax payers want to support supremacist murderers in blue, then make them pay for them.
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Another violation of Tennessee vs Garner. The officers life was clearly not in danger to justify the shooting. The alleged infraction of crossing lanes on a bicycle does not create a context in which a reasonable person could safely conclude that the officers life was in imminent danger. Remember this is Utah’s 2nd case like this. They shot Dillon Taylor in Salt Lake 3 years ago & guess what DA justified that one as well? Sam Gill. Utah has corruption running rampant in their law enforcement.
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Darrien Hunt was also shot in the back while running from the cops three years ago in Saratoga Springs, Utah. He was carrying a replica (i.e., no cutting edge) samurai sword. The cops claimed he unsheathed the sword and brandished it at them, but there was no corroborating video or witnesses.
https://www.google.com/amp/fox13now.com/2014/11/06/new-footage-from-fatal-shooting-of-darrien-hunt-released-family-attorney-responds/amp/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/16/darrien-hunt-shot-in-the-back-by-utah-police-says-family-attorney
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@Joe
Are you kidding me? LOL Vietnam was and is still under many ways under the influence of France, Sex Tourists, just a pillage of all sorts. Those other places I’m sure came about existence under European Conquests.. The Latin American Country of Venezuela need not be explained but the names clearly indicate some type European control or intervention.
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I apologize to Abagond for jacking this thread but sometimes my mind wanders off as I am very sad for this man. How ever way Salt Lake City and White Conscious America explains this mess they know they are trying to cover up for what their true intentions are…. The past doesn’t overwhelm the future.
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A black man on a bicycle. Riding a bike while black gets a man killed by cops.
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@ TiredOTS
Lawsuits are a failed tactic. They don’t stop murders by police.
The taxpayers most likely to pay for police murders include people in the very communities the police prey upon. That allows the police to skate free of real consequences for their actions and have Black people pick up the tab for their murders. A better strategy is finding ways for the police (either individually or their unions/retirement funds) to pay for the murders they commit.
Prison would be a good first step. Requiring individual police to carry insurance would be a good second step. That way, trigger-happy cops would eventually uninsurable. Having all civil judgements come directly out of police union funds or retirement funds would be a good third step.
One reason police continue to murder Black people and others is that they don’t have to face consequences—–there is no downside to murder. Add consequences and the murder rate should drop like a stone in water.
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Just yesterday I was thinking about the current political climate and remembered when I said I didn’t think Trump was particularly racist. At the time, with emotions high, I feel this was interpreted very much as a claim that Trump was not racist. No, it reflected my dim view of America’s racial climate to the extent that I didn’t consider Trump to be real escalation.
This kind of “justified” murder routinely happens in America and racism is thoroughly entrenched in the nation’s police departments. It’s the norm. Trump or no Trump. Trump’s behavior just allows America to display to the world, the kind of ignorance and racism that already exists on the ground in the hearts of many of its citizens.
I have grown the like this quote:
H.L Mencken 1880 -1956
It’s hard to comment on these killings because the pattern is extremely repetitious and we already know what will happen. Thoughts go out to his family to cope with their loss. We have a lot of work to do to create a safer world for us to inhabit.
@TeadyBearDaddy
Many people seem unaware of the extent of the European’s colonial reach. Basically all of Africa was colonized, folks. All of North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean, all of Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and much of Asia including the entire Indian subcontinent. This was often accompanied by genocide, enslavement, cultural upheaval (new government, tongue and religion) or at least economic exploitation of the native inhabitants. Wary, insular Japan was probably the most well known escapee but after its disastrous imperial escapades in the early 20th century, it ended up as an occupied state.
Funny how we talk about the “American Revolution” all the time and the economic grievances with Great Brtian that led to it without considering that many places remained colonies for centuries after 1776 and were sometimes enduring chattel slavery, which America had also retained. Nonetheless Britain abolished slavery in its colonies in 1833 while it wasn’t illegal in America until 1865 after a bloody civil war. America had also actively opposed the black colony, Haiti, which managed to successfully expel its colonial master, France, with a revolution which started in 1791.
So if you are looking for a place untouched by European colonialism and its effects you will struggle to find it. Many of the countries of the world only gained political independence from a European colonial power [typically Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, or the Dutch, but sometimes Belgium and Germany] in the 20th century, some as late as the 1960s and 70s, after Europe was rocked by two major wars. Even then, the global political and economic system largely continues the colonial legacy. This is the genesis of the split between 1st and 3rd world: the empire and its tributary vassals.
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@ Origin
“Wary, insular Japan was probably the most well known escapee….”
Thailand should be added to that list. The Kings of Siam were quite adept at playing one imperial power against the other and managed to avoid colonization.
Ethiopia also managed to slip the imperial noose until they were invaded by the Italians in 1935-1936.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War
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@Afrofem
Thanks. I knew more about Ethiopia than Thailand.
Basically white people have inserted themselves into the history of almost every location on this planet often with negative results. Yet this is something white people are wilfullly ignorant about. Instead they villify the descendants of the people their ancestors attacked in order to sanctify the latter. The irony of white people stereotyping others as thieves and lazy, for example, in a land stolen from Native Americans and built-up economically with forced African labor is truly mind-blowing.
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TeddyBearDaddy
@Joe
Are you kidding me? LOL Vietnam was and is still under many ways under the influence of France, Sex Tourists, just a pillage of all sorts. Those other places I’m sure came about existence under European Conquests.. The Latin American Country of Venezuela need not be explained but the names clearly indicate some type European control or intervention.
TBD – I get a zero for comprehension. It’s back to school for me! LOL.
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@ Afrofem
I’ve already explained the type of consequences that are needed to make police officers think twice about wantonly murdering black men and women. Those consequences should also be extended to the judges and prosecutors who help them escape legal accountability.
I suspect the insurance industry hasn’t lobbied for this out of fear that they’ll literally bleed fountains of money if they did. Could you imagine an insurance company having to pay out millions for a police shooting? The screams you’d hear from the Board of Directors would transcend time and space.
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Reports such as these are ignored. After all the US is good while the UN is bad.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/11/us-faces-scathing-un-review-on-human-rights-record.html
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@ Mack Lyons
“…consequences should also be extended to the judges and prosecutors who help them escape legal accountability.”
Agreed. Judges, prosecutors, legislators at all levels (city, state and federal) and the media all help shield police from consequences. They are all part of the Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC). They all have performance quotas to reach and they consider Black communities low hanging fruit.
They all benefit from the PIC and recognize the role of police as the intake valve of a system that snoops on Black communities, harasses Black citizens and kills hundreds of Black people per year to maintain high levels of terror in Black neighborhoods.
If insurance were an employment requirement for police, the insurance companies would do what they do best, raise rates (an lower coverage) until the hot heads and the bigots were forced out of the occupation.
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I have tried repeatedly not to watch videos of black men being killed. What I was looking for was a video of a white man who keeps running from the cops, jumps up after they put him the ground, chases the police and eventually jumps back into this car, rams a squad car and is never tasered or shot. Even with several officers present.
That is the video I was looking for and I found it, but someone decided to put the video of Mr. Harmon being killed before the one with the white guy acting a fool and now I can’t sleep. I am sick to my stomach and sleep for me is gone for the night.
Before you seek out the video there is something you should know. Mr. Harmon is not just brutally murdered. He dies groaning and crying in agony. Knowing that these are final moments, knowing that he is already dead, watching this video is sickening.
And watching the cops show absolutely no mercy and put handcuffs on him when he is breathing his last is to replay the murder of every black person over again in your mind from Amadou Diallo to the unheard groans of every slave ever tortured at the hands of uncaring white people.
It is impossible to watch this video and not see through the eyes of little Elijah Poole and come to the conclusion that white people must be devils to enact such cruelty on any human being.
So I’m sick to my stomach, heart and soul. Sleep is robbed from me this night. Sanity is robbed from me this night.
I will find a way to go on, but I’m just not sure how much more my heart can take.
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So “perceptions” of police brutality is creating “extremists” according to the FBI.
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@ michaeljonbarker
This is how the media supports and disseminates pro-police propaganda. It starts with outlets like Foreign Policy which have a lot of institutional credibility. Soon it will seep out into every other media outlet in the country.
Even though the there is no established movement or concrete links to “violent extremists” among Black police anti-brutality activists, the FBI will create a fictional movement out of thin air. Even the FP article admits:
@ Origin
I first read about this report in this comment on the Open Thread by michaeljonbarker:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/#comment-381615
Thank you for bringing it to this thread.
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@Afrofem
“the FBI will create a fictional movement out of thin air”
It’s drapetomania all over again. Running away from slavery is a psychological disorder and protesting police bruality is extremism (and just being a genuine SOB).
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@ thatdeborahgirl
I hear you.
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@Afrofem, @thatdeborahgirl
I haven’t watched the video through either.
I have developed mixed feeling towards these videos too. On the one hand, it’s good that what happened can be known. However since there is never any justice I start to wonder what’s the point. Has this morphed into a perverse form of entertainment in which we watch black men breathe their last at the hands of armed police? Have we merely upgraded from lynching postcards to the sharing of video clips on social media?
Watching them starts to feel voyeuristic because they clearly are not serving their ostensible purpose of making convictions of excessively trigger-happy police possible. In the current context, they are simply snuff videos produced and disseminated by the state while the murderers get congratulated for using the “appropriate” amount of deadly force.
Since there are always debates about whether a shooting is “justified” I looked up the video and started watching after reading about it. But right when the policeman started shooting I closed it. I have yet to watch it through. These scenes prick neither America’s conscience nor its sense of justice so what’s the point? I think they are simply normalizing the slaughter of black men.
How often do you see videos of white people’s violent last moments on TV? IIRC, when they accidentally showed the Dallas shooter killing a policeman live on TV they apologized for it. One has to surmise that its because black men dying does not disturb white America that such videos are so widely shown. So far from triggering any empathy these videos might actually be satisfying the same sadistic desire that made lynching postcards tremendously popular.
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@ Origin
If it helps to bring justice or reform, no. Pictures of Emmett Till’s brutalized body in the pages of Jet magazine had that effect. But in a case like Patrick Harmon, the video becomes part of the act of terrorism, like those ISIS beheading videos. It is why I did not post a link to the videos and why I wrote the post so that they were not required viewing.
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I will be doing a post on Black Identity Extremism. God willing, it will be up tomorrow.
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…meanwhile a White man shoots a police officer dead, runs off and is still taken alive:
(https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-tech-lockdown-after-campus-police-officer-reportedly-killed-n809281)
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This is like living through the Loony Tunes Era of American history…something I would laugh about if I wasn’t Black and at risk for genocide.
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He shot the officer while in the police station being processed for jail. Good Lord.
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Saw how that white boy shot that police officer in the head at Texas Tech University. And on the mainstream news outlet in my city it was reported the shooter was from an affluent family. In my opinion passing the law for students on college campuses was not a good idea. Youth that age are too immature and impulsive their brain are not fully developed.
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brains^^^typo
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