A Police Officer’s Get out of Jail Free Statement: “I Was In Fear For My Life”

Tyre King

Francisco J. Diaz, MD, FCAP, an independent forensic examiner, hired by Tyre King’s family after they were told Tyre’s autopsy would not be ready for weeks, came to the following conclusion:

Dr. Diaz notes: “Based on the location and the direction of the wound paths it is more likely than not that Tyre King was in the process of running away from the shooter or shooters when he suffered all three gunshot wounds.” Dr. Diaz describes Tyre as a “small-framed adolescent boy, standing 5’0” and weighing less than 100 lbs.” This follows the claims from the police that say the 13-yr old pulled a bb gun from his waist while he was being chased after matching the description of a robbery suspect.

The officers stated they feared for their life after they claim the teen pulled a gun on them. The medical examiner says it is likely the teen was running away. Would he have been running away while simultaneously pulling out his bb gun to point at the officers is the question? Is there something here that doesn’t sound reasonable? Perhaps.

Terence Crutcher

Police officer Betty Shelby who shot Terence Crutcher in Oklahoma stated that Crutcher was, “acting erratically, was incoherent and appeared to be under the influence of what she suspected was PCP.” Shelby also claims that Crutcher was not listening to her commands and once he got back to his car “he dropped his hands”. Shelby claims she thought he was reaching for his gun through the open window.

The dash cam video shows Terence walking with his hands up. Does it show him acting “erratic”? As for the claims Crutcher was reaching through the car window, still shots of the video show that the car window was up and that there is blood on the window, proving he could not have been “reaching through the car window”.

By the way, the officer says Crutcher was acting like he was on PCP, and it just so happens that officers found PCP in the car. What a great guess, right?

Keith Lamont Scott

Plain-clothes Officers attempting to serve an arrest warrant to a different man, somehow came into contact with Scott, who is not the man they were looking for. They claim after coming into contact with Scott, the officers “felt as if their lives were in danger”, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney. Officers demanded for Scott to exit his car and yelled for him to put down his gun down. Family members insist Scott did not have a gun.

Family members claim that Scott’s daily routine is to wait in the car for his young son to exit the school bus each afternoon, which is why he was sitting in his car. (Sitting in your car is not illegal by the way). Also, after the encounter with police, there are pictures online of a gun laying next to Scott’s body after he was gunned down, and there are also pictures online of no gun next to Scott’s body. While they are handcuffing Scott, he is moaning in pain and the police never state that there is a gun. The police simply say, “someone go get my bag” – they never say “gun”.

As an observer you have to remember, these are plain-clothes officers. Imagine sitting in your car and men with guns (you cannot tell they are police) approach your car, pointing guns and yelling at you while you are sitting in your vehicle, doing nothing wrong.

In each of these instances as an onlooker, watching these scenes play out over and over, it is hard to accept that we can trust the word of police officers. To hear in every story, from Michael Brown, to Trayvon Martin, now to Keith Lamont Scott and thirteen-year-old Tyre King, the same rhetoric continues of how officers (the people with the guns and tasers) were in fear for their lives. “I was in fear for my life” or “I felt as if my life was in danger” has become the key phrase, it’s the get out of jail free card, it’s the sentence that is used to make the officer the victim, and makes the victim appear as though he deserved not to have a day in court – to be gunned down like an animal.

In each of these incidents where we see unarmed men and women being killed, officers seem to be in fear of people who are posing no threat. Many of them are not in the act of committing any crimes, they are on the ground, they have their hands in the air, they are seen running away – and viewers are continuously wondering how is someone in fear of a person who isn’t even being threatening?

How can an officer honestly say “I was in fear for my life”? The answer may be that the fear they feel has always been there. The fear they see is the fear that was planted there by a parent that pulled them away as a black person walked near them on a sidewalk. The fear is the type of feeling that was rooted by family members and friends who told them that black people were (insert racist insult here). They are in fear of their lives because to fear us relieves them of the responsibility of looking at us as human beings. To fear us means to hate us, and with hate brings chaos, confusion and destruction.

“I was in fear for my life” is simply the bullshit statement that police use when their inherent fear of black people manifests itself during a routine stop. It is a lie and is being used as a get out of jail free card. Some police simply have an innate fear of blacks which is leading to automatic, unjustifiable death sentences. How do we fix this fear – we can’t fix their fear of us. We cannot march, demonstrate, riot, or meet about suggestions on how they need to change how they view us. There is nothing that black people can do to bring comfort to their fears. There is only one solution to fixing the unjust murders of unarmed citizens – police must be punished for their crimes. Until they are held accountable and are jailed for these murders, they will continue to kill and blame unarmed people for putting them “in fear of their lives.”

sources:

Walton Brown Law

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