Mob Riots After Cop Shooting, but Body Cam Footage Shows It Was All Based on Lies
The police aren’t always right. I’ll totally cop to that, no pun intended.
Here’s a tip for anti-police rioters, though: It helps if you have your outrage factually accurate.
That lack of factually accurate outrage is sadly missing in the case of Javier Torres, a 26-year-old man who was killed by police in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday.
Torres was shot in the midst of a police chase after allegedly loitering and brandishing a weapon at a shopping center.
“He’s flashing it around,” an individual who called 911 said, according to WRAL-TV. “Not sure he’s using the gun, but he’s flashing.”
Shortly after that, he died — a horrible fact. The problem is that the circumstances of his death are in debate — which they shouldn’t be.
WARNING: The following video contains graphic scenes and language.
That’s the video. It’s pretty unequivocal: Torres ran directly at the officer with a gun in his right hand.
But try telling that to people who want to riot.
“As a result of the reckless and false information that has been spread on social media, a number of spontaneous protests occurred during the night, which caused minor damage to property in and around downtown Raleigh,” Raleigh chief of police Cassandra Deck-Brown said.
What did those protests consist of? Chants of “Whose streets? Our streets.”
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language.
Oh, there’s a winner.
Apparently, “Whose streets? Our streets!” is the new cri de coeur of the left, if new is 2016.
The protest “marched to the governor’s mansion, took flags off the flag poles and burned them, a Raleigh police officer said around 1 a.m. A smaller group of protesters continued to New Bern Avenue, followed by police vehicles,” according to WRAL-TV.
Again, this is hardly the storming of the Bastille, not that this needs to be celebrated. It is an inchoate revolt against the fact that the bodycam footage shows the officer was in the right.
The anger itself is sad. Now you’re almost left wondering about the waste of the anger.
Some of it was fueled by rumors that police had shot a child, WRAL reported.
It’s hard to watch bodycam footage of fatal police shootings. That said, most of the cases in which it’s viewed produce a clear case of guilt.
This is one of them.
And yet this is what we’ve come to.
“There is a method by which they can voice concerns without harming people or damaging property,” Deck-Brown said.
“That’s not who we are.”
There’s plenty of evidence that’s the case, too. In a 911 call, someone said Torres had threatened the original caller at a restaurant by allegedly saying, “I know your family. It’s done. It’s a wrap. You’re done.”
In the video, meanwhile, cops can be seen telling Torres to “drop the gun.”
All of this should tell us that there was ample opportunity for Torres to, well, drop the gun. Beyond that, he could have turned himself in to officials who were clearly seeking to interview him. Those obviously weren’t options that were on the table.
If those options aren’t on the table, however, this is what ends up happening.
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