Last Saturday, Roy Middleton went out to get a cigarette out of his mother’s car. A short time later, he would end up shot and bleeding on his driveway. Not the victim of a drive by or mugging mind you. The unarmed man was shot by police responding to a call of a man reaching into a car.
Middleton, 60, went out to the car at 2:42 am. I can understand why at that time a neighbor was concerned since car thefts tend to occur very late at night or in the early hours. He was bent over when the police arrived. and ordered him to “Get your hands where I can see them.” He says that he raised his hands and turned toward the deputies but that they opened fire. He was hit in the leg.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the incident Saturday.
Since he appears unarmed, the officers would have to argue that there was an object in his hand or some other reason that they thought he had a weapon. Given the relatively minor crime under investigation and his alleged compliance with the officers’ orders, this makes for a particularly bad case for the city to defend. It will be interesting therefore to see any response from the city, which should offer some initial explanation to the citizens when their own police gun down an unarmed man in his family’s driveway.
Source: PNJ
CortneyJ,
The cops shot him because they thought that he might be a threat.
Maybe he might have a gun or a weapon of some kind.
Maybe he would run at them and punch them.
It’s a simple choice for them.
Rather than risk being possibly maybe hurt or inconvenienced, it’s better to kill the guy.
I think the legal term for this is “depraved indifference to life”.
In addition to my recent post i want to know how did the person who called in the complaint not recognize the man who lives right next door.And if the victim was compliant to the officers request was did they still open fire.
Why is it that the police jus opened fire instead of questioning what he was doing. It only takes one shot to scare anyone and stop them in there tracks. But these officers fired multiple shots, while he was unarmed and at his residence.No one can say race wasn’t a factor in this shooting thanks to George Zimmerman.If you see a suspicious man of color its ok to take action into your own hands without any consequences. This man was unarmed with the keys to his vehicle in his hand but still they assume he is a car jacker. Nothing about this sits right with me.
Cortneyj: Why did the police open fire? Guns to the police a gods worn on their hips. That is why.
lotta,
Needless to say … I have a love-hate relationship with LBJ.
lotta,
It was a great program open to males, females, all races and religions, and, if the warmongers hadn’t been so intent on Nam, a program that would have effectively broken the poverty chain.
One of my friends back then told me that the very first class he attended was all devoted to scheduling. They were all given wind-up alarm clocks. Then they spent the first part of the class practising how to set the time, the alarm etc. The second part of the class was spent on individualized public transit scheduling. Where to catch the bus, what time to catch it, transfers … this was all geared towards teaching the students about arriving on time, every day not only for class but then for employment. The majority of 18, 19, 20 year olds in the class had never owned an alarm clock let alone used one.
I met a lot of these students ’cause one of the manpower agencies was located across the street from my practise studio. Two of them became life-long friends. Twenty years ago I attended the college graduation for one of my friend’s daughter. She was the first one in the family to graduate from college. Her dad, my friend, and a butcher by trade through the War on Poverty program, still had his alarm clock.
Getting back to the topic of cops shooting people in error…
I mentioned the NYPD cops shooting bystanders.
Today something passed my eyes.
Guess who was shot accidentally by a ‘cop’?
President Kennedy is who!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/28/jfk-second-shooter-documentary_n_3667317.html
.
All those years of conspiracy theory!
This is way more credible.
Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by …… “oops!”
I think the expansion and militarization of the police is definitely a class based effect of the economic system we now live under. Racism has always been a factor, a big factor, but flat wages for most workers for 30-40 years and almost no prospects for upward mobility for most american workers is a definite threat to good order.
“80 Percent Of U.S. Adults Face Near-Poverty, Unemployment: Survey”
“WASHINGTON — Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.
Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/28/poverty-unemployment-rates_n_3666594.html
Blouise, at 4:18 pm LBJ’s War on Poverty …
That part of the program, the manpower training, was for adults also. My aunt came from a very religious, conservative family and was prepared to be a wife and mother. She was pushing 30 and working as a live-in nanny (room, food, next to nothing wages for two kids) when she enrolled in the manpower program. It freed her economically and later, when she ended up as the principle breadwinner for her family for a while, kept them off welfare. She too got a stipend while in training. It sure opened up her world and offered possibilities she would not have otherwise had.
@ Nella because the elites DO NOT WANT THE BLACKS TO REMEMBER OR EVEN KNOW ABOUT HISTORY DURING THE MOORS/MU’URS. time if that happens then the truth comes out and that is something they can NOT and will NOT allow!! they have made history about race. what humanity didnt understant until recently is the race war isnt about black vs white but rich vs poor. but after triple digit hundreds of years of brainwashing how else are the people to think and feel. especially when its been proven time and again that a black and white person can commit the same exact crime at the same exact location, in the same exact scenario, and the white person gets a slap on the wrist while the black person loses everything he/she owns.
whats bugs some black people not all but some including me is that slavery tells the story of how and where blacks learned their lessons of criminality but if you listen to others its a lie and didnt happen that way.
im sure you havent noticed that in the crimes where blacks were killed or imprisoned for no reason or little reason. the stories get changed around, lies get told, evidence gets hidden, etc. ever asked yourself why? if blacks are really as bad as history has tried to make them. then how is it so many white people come and go to work everyday and still live? how is it those who own real estate in the inner city manage to get in and out and still survive?
until such time as humanity understand, acknowledges and accepts that they have been duped then the race card will continue to get played because its how we were all brainwashed to think
Reblogged this on teesepowell and commented:
Just beyond ridiculous!
Smoking kills, the guy got off easy. Next time he wont be so lucky. He thinks that mom smokes and she is 86 so what is the harm. Bang. He gets shot.
Stupid is as Stupid does…
David,
many of the new so-called voter id laws in the South and in some northern states controlled by Republican legislatures and/or governors are actually restricting voting very much in the same way that Jim Crow laws did.
rafflaw – I don’t see how expecting people to have ID in order to avoid voter fraud is the same thing as creating segregated voting, or creating literacy tests or a poll tax with the objective being to prevent Blacks from voting. I know a lot of people who support the idea of voters needing to have an ID. It is law here in Florida that they must have an ID. But I know of nobody who favors voter ID laws because they don’t want Black people to be able to vote.
I do realize that this has an effect of disenfranchising poor voters who cannot maintain an ID, or who cannot afford the $25 to get one. It use to cost only $3, and many of the poor could not keep one even at that cost. Another way to do this is to create an online voting methodology that uses a login userid / password kind of thing that costs nothing to get. The poor could then just go to the local library and vote, using his assigned login. Computer systems could make it so that each person is allowed only 1 vote.
For what it’s worth, I would actually favor testing people as a means of weighting the votes. The test should be focused on political knowledge and the candidates running for office as well as the duties of the office. Government should provide free means for people to educate themselves about the election and to do well with these tests. The vote of an informed citizen should count more than the vote of an ignorant voter.
The Democrat party needs to stop preaching the idea that voting is the right and duty of every citizen. They corral people into the voting booths who don’t even know a single name on the ballot and what they stand for. Just one person like this can cancel out a knowledgeable voter like you. Something is not right about that. Who cares if people stay home and don’t vote? If they don’t care enough to vote, let them not vote. They hurt the process more when someone pressures them to vote, as if voting is some great duty of the citizen, like he has done something to help society just by voting. No, he has HURT society if he votes ignorantly. Only a knowledgeable voter helps society.
And cannabis has few if any harmful side effects compared to FOXNews, heroin, cocaine or meth.
nick spinelli 1, July 29, 2013 at 5:33 pm
Gene, I completely agree. That’s one of the reasons I want cannabis legal. A natural way to alter your reality other than coke, meth, heroin, etc.
*****
And FOX News!
😉
Gene, I completely agree. That’s one of the reasons I want cannabis legal. A natural way to alter your reality other than coke, meth, heroin, etc.
nick,
It’s not just a supply and demand problem. It’s a human nature problem. Humans have been indulging in chemically altered states of consciousness since Ogg figured out that one mushroom certainly did make the world more interesting than than the others. If we outlawed all intoxicants tomorrow? People would be out on the front lawn spinning in circles just to feel dizzy and to see the world look different.
Amen to incompetence and unintended consequences!
Gene, I look @ the War on Drugs as more a very basic supply and demand problem. In Leavenworth, where there are no 4th amendment rights, you could get any drug you wanted even though inmates and staff could be subjected to a full body cavity search @ any time. Supply will always find demand. When I was in Colombia in the late 80’s I had a conversation w/ a local businessman. He said, “If Americans stop using cocaine we’ll stop making it. We make coffee, if Americans stop drinking coffee[no way!!], we’ll grow tea or whatever they are drinking.” Legalize and tax cannabis like booze. That is ~30% of the enforcement budget. Take that and the proceeds from cannabis tax and have free treatment for any addict the quality the wealthy can afford. And have a REAL education program set up by treatment specialists and Madison Ave. people who know how to sell. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
It may be paved with good intentions, but those good intentions are usually spread with the shovel of incompetence and the wheelbarrow of unintended consequences.