Sunday, August 23, 2015

OH OH!

An autopsy shows that black 18-year-old Mansur Ball-Bey was shot in the back by two white St. Louis cops

On Wednesday afternoon, cops were executing a search warrant in a St. Louis Black neighborhood when two armed youths fled out the back. Two white officers gave chase and shot 18-year-old Mansur Ball-Bey dead when he turned and pointed a gun at them. The other thug got away.

As soon as it became known that white cops had slain a black youth the protests started. Bottles and rocks were hurled at the cops and at least one building was burned to the ground.

Even though in this case Ball-Bey was armed, the usual activist troublemakers declared that the cops could have and should have “deescalated” the situation instead of resorting to the use of deadly force. And that was before the autopsy report was released.

And now - - oh oh! – the autopsy shows that Ball-Bey died from one shot to the back.

On Friday, in response to the autopsy report, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said:

"Just because he was shot in the back doesn't mean he was running away. What I do know is that two officers were involved and fired shots, but I don't know exactly where they were standing yet and I won't know until I get their statements."

University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist David Klinger said that when someone gets shot from behind, "literally means nothing" without context, "We just don't know. You shouldn't look at one thing and say this is dispositive, and it drives me nuts that people want to rush to judgment."

Try telling the activist troublemakers what Chief Dotson and Prof. Klinger said. They were already all riled up because white cops shot another black man. Knowing now that Ball-Bey was shot in the back merely serves to throw more gasoline on the fire.

There are a number of reasons a person may be shot in the back by cops where the shooting can be explained and justified, that is to someone who is willing to listen.

1 comment:

bob walsh said...

One report I heard said the guy was shooting backwards behind him in the direction of the cops as he was running away. I have no idea how accurate that is, but it fits the known facts.