Article from Reason by Robby Soave.
Jemel Roberson was working as a security guard at Manny’s Blue Room Lounge in Robbins, Chicago, last weekend when a fight broke out. He acted heroically—using his gun to protect innocent people. Then the police killed him.
The incident transpired around 4:00 a.m., after several drunken customers were ejected from the bar. Witnesses told WGN9 that one of these people came back with a gun and started shooting. Roberson, a 26-year-old black man, was armed, and returned fire. He was able to detain the shooter by pinning him to the ground and placing his knee on the suspect’s back. But when the police arrived, they thought Roberson was the assailant, even though he was wearing a vest that said “security.”
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The police shot and killed Roberson. He was the only casualty; the shooter and three other people were injured.
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This is an example of a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun, only to be murdered by another bad guy with a gun: the state, in this case. And while we don’t yet know just how irresponsible the cops’ behavior was here, we know it resulted in an innocent man’s death—and that multiple people were warning police not to shoot.
Read the entire article at Reason.
Image Credit: By Jamelle Bouie [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
wpDiscuz
You, the citizen, don’t need those things, guns for we, the police are her to protect you. If you listen, you might hear sardonic laughter.
The only rational choices are to abolish government police forces or to reestablish the concept that all government agents are servants of citizens and any violation by them should be punished in exactly the same manner as if the civilian had committed a questionable act.
If people were telling the police not to shoot that tells me that their shooting wasn’t immediate, They had time to think and see the security vest. What were the police thinking? Also police usually know if a bar has security with identifying vests on security people and also if the security also carries a gun and if security is black or white, or, if there is just a check in guy at the door. In my nearby city the police due to many calls to the bars know who is at the door at each bar. They know if a bar has security carrying guns also and if security identification is supplied by the bars.
It’s as if our law enforcement agencies are being mentally brainwashed with a shoot first and ask no questions (if any at all).sneezy