OK, I've Been Patient. Now What?
OK, I've Been Patient. Now What?
The cops shot another black man, this one in his bed, and our city leaders are asking for the patience none of them deserve.
Columbus Police officer Ricky Anderson fatally shot 20-year-old Donovan Lewis while serving a warrant on him at Lewis’ Sullivant Avenue apartment around 2 a.m. Tuesday morning. Then Officer Anderson and his colleagues accused Lewis of resisting arrest while he bled to death on his bed.
You probably didn’t need the header picture to guess Lewis’ race. This kind of stuff only happens to a specific type of person in Columbus, especially on early weekday mornings. Lewis was the third “officer-involved shooting” in the last eight days.
CDP wanted Lewis for charges of domestic violence, assault and the “improper handling of a firearm.” He had yet to be convicted of any crime.
I would have apprehended him when he went to the gas station or something. But these trained professionals decided the best method to apprehend this mastermind criminal was to barge into his room at 2 a.m. and shoot him dead within a second of opening the door as Lewis lay in bed.
The cops say Lewis had it coming because Officer Anderson mistook a vape pen on Lewis’ nightstand for a gun. Not sure how he could discern a vape pen in a dark room within one second of opening the door, but maybe he has superhuman abilities that none of us know about.
Mayor Suburbs has urged Columbus to be patient as the famously transparent police department and its counterparts at the Bureau of Criminal Investigation work through the case.
Patience and trust are not two things the police have earned. Remember this incident in April?
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — The family of 25-year-old Naimo Abdirahman says she was the woman killed in the hit-and-run involving a Columbus police officer.
The 911 call came in at 2:41 a.m. on April 20, about a person lying along Morse Road near Walford Street.
Witnesses told officers a woman was near the crosswalk at the intersection when she was hit by a dark-colored vehicle.
Officer Daniel Ortega, who owned the vehicle and was riding shotgun at the time of the crash, refused to cooperate and was suspended with pay. That was the last we heard of it! And this was back in April.
But patience from the populace also gives cops and their defenders time to push the narrative that the officer we all just saw murder a man in cold blood actually did everything by the book.
From Bethany Bruner and Monroe Trombly of dispatch.com:
Brian Higgins, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and an expert in police canine operations, told The Dispatch on Wednesday that his review of the body camera footage in the shooting of Lewis showed sound tactics by Anderson.
"He made a judgment call," Higgins said. "He had opened the door and he was able to hold the dog with one hand on lead and fire a shot with one hand. That’s not uncommon and it depends on the circumstance."
Higgins, who oversaw the K-9 program as police chief in Bergen County, New Jersey, and also served as safety director in that county, said police canine handlers typically undergo a minimum of one full day of training a month to maintain their certification.
"It seems as if he did everything in accordance with standard best practices today," Higgins said. "He used the dog to lead him to the individual. There was no justification to use the dog to bite him. If you let the dog go in off-lead, there’s a good chance the dog would bite them. That would indicate to me they were not intending to use force or use as little force as possible."
Seems ridiculous to dual-wield a K-9 and a pistol while servicing a warrant on a 20-year-old man, but hey, Lewis is fortunate he didn’t get bit! Unfortunate about that fatal hole in his chest, but Officer Anderson will try to do better next week.
When protestors arrived at CDP headquarters to protest Lewis’ death, they were greeted by an arrangement of cinder blocks planted by police with hopes the protestors would be dumb enough to throw them and entice the department’s wrath.
You will be shocked to learn that CDP’s entrapment plot did not work. That it was tried in the first place would be a scandal for a well-heeled police department, ain’t CDP.
City leaders demand patience because they want the anger to die away. They want something else to come along to draw away from another senseless death of a young black man in Columbus by those sworn to protect the city.
They demand patience because they have no actual answers. They will bleat the same lines — “Regardless of circumstances, a mother in this city loser her child!” — and then turn around and grant a Panzer tank to the CDP or whatever newest toy of war they swear they need to hunt 20-year-olds suspected of “mishandling a firearm.”
Don’t give them what they want. Patience is the last thing they deserve.
Ways to help Lewis’ memory:
Cash App for Rebecca Duran, mother of Damian Lewis.
Rally at CDP HQ (120 Marconi Blvd.) tonight at 6 p.m.
Rally at Goodale Park (120 W. Goodale St.) Saturday at 5 p.m.
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