Damn Them To Hell
There is nothing left to say.
The Columbus Division of Police Helicopter Unit had some time to kill early Saturday morning and they decided to tag their incorrect acronym over a predominantly black neighborhood in East Columbus.
Given that they went out of their way to avoid flying over the wealthy suburb of Bexley, the pilots’ choices were no coincidence. Of course that admission flies in the face of their union which is hellbent on protecting every criminal within their ranks.
“I would first like to apologize to the time and attention this has caused when the city has much more important things to focus on,” said Commander Robert Sagle of the Columbus Division of Police in a statement.
Lest we think that non-apology apology was an indictment of his colleagues, he added, “I also don’t want to take away from the great work achieved by the members of the helicopter unit on a daily basis.”
Jeff Simpson, the FOP Lodge #9 Executive Vice President and a man who looks like a bloated big toe on a waterlogged corpse that’s been at the bottom of the Olentangy River for the last year, was even more deranged in his declaration that his buddies did nothing wrong:
The Peacemakers would get a chance to bring peace to Chittenden Avenue a little over 12 hours later when a drunken and predominantly white mob of Ohio State students decided to turn an annual street festival into a scene out of a natural disaster movie:
As I said on Monday, I don’t draw this contrast because I think college students should have been tear gassed into submission. I draw the contrast to highlight the hypocrisy of Mayor Suburbs claiming last week that we live in a city that “won’t tolerate destruction.”
This city has a long and ignoble history of tolerating destruction from those that carry a badge and the citizens that look like them. Sadly we won’t even have to wait 72 hours for another tragic reminder.
The small amount of joy I felt over the conviction of Derek Chauvin — a rarity in the American justice system — lasted for roughly five minutes. During the reading of that verdict, a mere stone’s throw away from where the CDP had tagged their racist gang symbol a few nights prior, a Columbus police officer shot a 16-year-old girl named Ma’Khia Bryant multiple times in the back after she had called police for help from a group of girls who had come to attack her.
Our local media remains complicit as ever in helping the police set the tone:
From nbc4i.com:
COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Columbus Police said one person was shot and killed by an officer on the east side of the city Tuesday afternoon.
One person was initially taken to Mount Carmel East hospital in critical condition, according to Columbus Police, and was pronounced dead at 5:21 p.m.
From abc6onyourside.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Police say one person has died in a shooting in southeast Columbus.
Police said the shooting happened around 3:50 p.m. Tuesday on Marion Place in the Pine Tree Apartments.
…
No suspects have been taken into custody at this time.
There were no suspects in custody because the cops were the only ones who had done the shooting.
The Columbus Police released body camera footage within six hours of the incident, which is an unprecedented timeline that makes you realize 1) they know how bad this looks and 2) they think the body camera footage exonerates their colleague.
They refused to answer any other questions on account of the active investigation but had no problem dropping 14 seconds of tape that ended with a bystander shouting, “She’s a fucking kid, man! What are you, stupid?”
[I’m not sharing the body camera footage since it’s easy to find and I feel deeply uncomfortable sharing a video that ends with a 16-year-old girl dead in the street no matter the circumstances.]At the press conference, Mayor Suburbs tried his hardest to win an Oscar, doing his best to look distraught and being sure to remind the audience that he is a father himself.
But he couldn’t shake his obedience to the gang of armed thugs, noting that, “Based on the footage, the officer took action to protect another young girl in the community.” It was a performance that was somehow even worse than his initial tweet:
No, Mayor, a “young woman” did not “lose her life.” A 16-year-old kid was killed when a cop arrived on the scene with no sirens, unholstered his gun within eight seconds of getting out of his car, and fired four shots between four and six seconds later.
The mayor would also like us to forget that the cop had a taser on him as well:
I have zero doubt that, knife or no knife, the Columbus Police would not have shot a white kid to death in under 15 seconds of arriving on the scene of a teenage fight. It’s not like he was facing down a trained assassin wielding a machete, though that’s probably what he saw given how his CDP elders obviously see the residents of that side of town.
The bootlickers among us will be quick to point out that these are simply the bang-bang decisions that come with being a cop. That’s true, but it ain’t like they didn’t volunteer for those decisions or get paid handsomely for them as well.
I mean, the cops couldn’t even keep their cool around people that had just witnessed a teenager shot to death in the street. They had to taunt bystanders by shouting, “Blue lives matter!” at them as if they don’t take off their blue uniforms at the end of the day:
Like George Floyd, there will be no justice for Ma’Khia Bryant until we abolish the organizations that employed their killers. But first we must secure accountability on the police. That will be no easy task considering that Franklin County has the highest rate of fatal police shootings in the country.
Still, we must fight. It’s what the moral arc of the universe demands of us.
RIP GEORGE FLOYD. Video: George Floyd’s family reacts to Derek Chauvin’s guilty plea… Keith Ellison’s strategy in the Derek Chauvin trial pays off… No, Maxine Waters did not violate Derek Chauvin’s right to a fair trial… How a teenager’s video upended Minnesota police’s initial tale… George Floyd’s death reignited a movement. What happens now?
Imagine this same scenario except it happens in the middle of Clintonville with white children. No guns would be fired and no kids would be dead.