When the first bullet hit
If you look at the video, he'll be running from right to left. The cops are out of view to the right. Peterson comes running in like the athlete he was. He isn't looking around, he isn't fiddling with anything, he's moving fast, right to left, trying to get away.
In the background is a retaining wall with a chain link fence in front of it. Two of the fenceposts are visible, to the right of the yellow traffic posts in the foreground. They're the white vertical lines above the painted V-shaped marking on the pavement. As Peterson reaches the halfway point between the two fenceposts, his right arm flies up. That, I'm pretty sure, is when the first bullet hit him.
In the next frame, he's falling to the ground, and you can actually see, albeit in a blur, that both of his hands are out of his pockets. If he's holding anything in either hand, it sure doesn't look like a gun. That might be a cell phone in his left hand; he was on a call with his girlfriend the whole time.
Once he goes down, later video clearly shows that he quickly collects himself, sits up, and points what sure looks like a gun at the officers. At that point, he's lethal.
But he did that only after he had been shot and hit the ground. At least, I can't draw any other conclusion.
Watch that right arm fly up. That's a guy who's just been shot in the back. And the two hands in the fall. Not pointing a gun at anyone at that point. Not even holding one in his hand, as far as I can tell.
If he was running away and an officer shot him in the back that is a major problem. And if you ask me releasing this bank video on the evening before Thanksgiving is an admission of guilt.
ReplyDeleteYour last post mentioned the officers had a week before they were interviewed. That reminded me of the Kendra James shooting where the officers went to an Appelee's before they were asked what happened in separate interviews.
From the link in a previous post we learned that Washington State police have killed 90 people since December of 2018. That's my new runner-up number to be shocked by. That seems very high to me.
I say runner up because there's one number that really gives you a glimpse of what it's like being black in America. This was about the man in Minneapolis who was shot and killed 4 years ago in a traffic stop. During the course of the investigation it was revealed that in the previous 13 years, the man had been pulled over by the police 49 times.....49 times.
I bet there isn't a white person in the Pacific Northwest who's been pulled over by the police 49 times for a traffic stop. That's the number that won't go away for me.
They won’t give up the autopsy report. They’ve had it for weeks.
Deletehttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51152447-caste
ReplyDeleteCaste: The Origins of Our Discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson (Goodreads Author)
4.63 · Rating details · 16,681 ratings · 3,329 reviews
The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of America life today. (less)
"Now is the winter of our discontent." -the first line in Richard III.
DeleteThe Winter of Our Discontent is also a damn fine Steinbeck novel. As relevant as ever, touching on illegal immigration, and the desperate clawing for advantage over others that is such an important aspect of the American Way.
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