That Didn’t Last Long

 

The other day we commended a race-hustler by the name of James Johnson for actually taking a sane approach to the investigation of the shooting of a suspect by police on Saturday. We should have known it would not take long for him to revert to his usual ways once the remainder of the Charleston area race-hustling industry got involved. As usual, the P&C is trumpeting the ridiculous innuendo and claims of these fools and demonstrating their usual reluctance to ask the hard questions any normal person would ask when confronted by such idiocy.

James Johnson, who has the dubious honor of running the local tentacle of Al Sharpton’s money grubbing National Action Network, wasted no time making his usual racial profiling claims. He spouted off at a news conference that the public needed to know, “…whether or not racial profiling was involved in the traffic stop and if all turn signals and brake lights worked on Scott’s car.” As you can see, Johnson  has learned a bit from his mentor Sharpton when it comes to not having all the facts yet still implying police are guilty of something.

Johnson went on to say, “We know that Mr. Scott was unarmed…..” That is also misleading. An unarmed man who subsequently forcibly takes a weapon from another is, by the very nature of that act, now armed.

Another local race hustler, Pastor Thomas Dixon wants the officer involved to be put on leave with no pay. Really? He wants the officer and his/her family to be made to suffer because a black guy made a couple of extremely bad decisions and the officer did his/her job?

Dixon also wants a civilian review board in North Charleston to oversee police policy and “weigh in on encounters like the one Saturday.” That is exactly what we need evaluating police policy and actions in this area - a bunch of ill-informed citizens with no actual law enforcement experience who automatically assume every action by police is based on race. A great example of this is Dixon’s next statement.

“Why not let Scott go? You got his address and phone number, you know where he works at. What says chase him down and then pull a gun and then all of a sudden that life is gone.” Of course, those racists James Johnson and Edward Bryant (of the NAACP) agreed with Dixon on that one. You knew the NAACP was going to show up sooner rather than later, right?

Those statements tell you right there why civilian review boards are a ridiculous idea. Most of the time police officers have no idea who is driving the vehicle they are pulling over. When the driver immediately flees from that stop there are tons of possibilities. Is the car stolen? Is that person armed? What has that person just done that the officer is not yet aware of? When the officer decides, “Ah, screw it,” and let’s that person go who will these race hustlers blame if he runs into that black neighborhood behind the auto parts store and shoots and kills a black citizen while carjacking them? Yep, they would blame the racist police for not caring enough to protect black citizens. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

A perfect example of this is a story about the high crime - high violence Waylyn neighborhood in the news a few weeks ago. NCPD had been cracking down in that neighborhood for quite some time and were making progress in cleaning it up a bit. Then the race-hustlers accused the department of being racist for actually enforcing laws and concentrating efforts in that high crime area instead of saturating an area like Coosaw Creek where white people live. What happened after weeks of criticism? NCPD bowed to the pressure and slacked off a bit. A few months later a citizen writes a letter blaming the Mayor, the police chief and the officers for not doing their jobs and making her community safer. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Of course, idiots like those above become emboldened when they have college professors at USC (Go Cocks) with little to no police experience recommending officers stay in their cars rather than dealing with problem suspects.

Edward Bryant seemed to confirm our initial conjecture that Scott ran because he had warrants for failure to pay child support. Bryant asked, “What’s wrong with issuing a bench warrant for back child support?”

Bryant is either too stupid or too caught up in trying to gin up the racial controversy necessary for his organization to make a dollar to realize he just told us Scott was probably running and fighting police officers because he already had those outstanding warrants. Logical thinking is not a requirement in the race-hustler business.

Curiously, none of the race hustlers bothered to ask questions like, “Why not just stay in the car, talk to the officer and deal with your problems like a man?” You know, the obvious questions asked by those who think personal responsibility is a serious issue. The last two times Scott was jailed for failure to pay child support in 2011 and 2012 he spent just one day in jail each time.

The problem with these officer involved shootings is that law enforcement agencies release an initial summary the public needs to know at that moment, then they let the official investigation run it’s course and wait to see what the evidence shows. That leaves a bit of a vacuum and these race-hustlers have learned to step into it. They know they will be able to make false accusations and imply wrong-doing on the part of police for weeks before any serious effort is made to counter their BS. By then, law enforcement has lost the battle and a segment of the population steadfastly believes the propaganda spread by those with a cash-driven agenda.

Johnson and Dixon both know how the process works because they were brought into the fold by former North Charleston police chief Jon Zumalt and educated on what happens. They just choose to ignore what they learned because the call of the almighty dollar is the only thing of any importance to them.

Maybe the race hustlers can tell us why none of these lives seem to matter to them.