Stop and Think

Okay first of all I’d like to retract some of my comments the other day about John Travolta, his son, and scientology. I did not have all of the information that I have now that makes me realize that it wasn’t the scientology of it all that kept him from taking the medicines, it was an agreement between father and son to stop taking already prescribed medication that had stopped working effectively. I respect that and of course still send my sympathy and condolences to the Travolta family.


See, how hard was that for someone to apologize and mean it, and then get on with life. So many times I see something happen, one side apologizes for what happened and yet the other side either scoffs at the apology or gets hostile, offensive, and sometimes even violent towards the first party. What the hell people? Howard steps on Lucy’s foot at a dance club, “I’m sorry, excuse me”, says Howard. “Excuse you? I don’t think so, what do you mean stepping on my foot, these are expensive shoes you #*&$ing @$$&*($”, replies Lucy. Usually this is followed by slapping or kicking and inevitably a gunshot, sometimes by someone not even involved in the original festival of language usage. Recently a young man and his friends were pulled off of a subway train car in Oakland, California for what, I don’t’ know yet. At least two of his friends were handcuffed already when he begged officers not to use a Taser on him, he was then put face down on the ground with his hands behind his back as an officer began to handcuff him. He struggled, of course since not everybody likes to be restrained; at this point a second officer drew a sidearm and shot the man once in the back. The bullet passed through the young man ricocheted off the pavement beneath him and reentered his body and hitting at least one lung. He died at the hospital seven hours later. There was an amateur camera person filming this entire scene and of course he posted the video on the internet and released it to the media as well (whether or not he made money off of it I do not know). Right away the man’s family and an entire community rose up and demanded that the officer who fired be arrested, put on trial, and there were probably several calls for him to be killed as well. The officer has since received numerous death threats, most likely through the mail, phone, email, and shouted threats from protesters (since there are protesters everywhere these days).


Just the other day he resigned his post as a transit cop and has reportedly moved three times due to threats already. This is a horrible and bad thing to happen I’ll give you that but of course nobody is even thinking about he feels or even whether or not this was all an accident. Nobody ever stops to think about something before reacting quickly and unfortunately many times, violently. It has already been reported that this officer has been very distraught over what happened but of course nobody cares about how he feels do they. So stop and think about it for once, look at the past in all police involved shootings. Stop and think about every time you see a police officer walk past you and like me your eyes go to his belt to see if you can identify what his side arm is. Have you seen a police officer’s belt lately, there are dozens of things hanging off of that strap of leather. Sidearm and spare ammunition, nightstick (or expandable baton), handcuffs, radio, keys, notebook, cellular phone, and numerous other things that I can’t even possibly identify are all on his belt. Now take an even closer look, which one is his sidearm and which is his Taser? I usually can’t and I’ve studied and read up on all sorts of firearms for more than 20 years, and even more than they look alike is they are holstered right next to each other. Have you noticed that yet? No you probably haven’t since you’re probably already ridiculing me for actually defending such a cruel animal of a Gestapo-like police officer such as this aren’t you?


So here’s my alternate explanation for what happened, and this of course is purely speculation and in no means the actual truth until this man gets his day in court. The young man is pleading with officers not to use a Taser on him, when he is put into submission to be handcuffed he struggles back (as many people do anyways), and the officer standing over him reaches to pull his Taser and use it on the young man. Instead he mistakenly pulls his sidearm and fires a single round into the young man. Plausible, I think so especially after all of the police shootings you see and have read about. How many of those previous shootings involved an officer firing only one round? Not a whole lot hmm? Everyone always reports on the police shootings where two or three officers fire off nearly a hundred rounds of ammunition (certainly reloading their weapons at least once) in response to a hostile act.


Okay I’m done, now think about it while you enjoy some tasty lasagna like me. Stop and think. Two very easy things to do and yet not so easy.