The headline at the gateway pundit reads:
Unarmed White Man Killed by Alabama Police; No protests, No Riots, No National Media.
See, now that's just provocative.
Robert Lawrence had a troubled past. Already several run-ins with the law. He already had legal representation, already lost custody of his children, already had a giant chip on his shoulder. Apparently, he flipped out when asked for I.D. when turning in a stray dog.
Commenters latch onto the obvious immediately. "What, you need an I.D. to turn in a stray dog but you do not need an I.D. to vote for president of United States?"
Now, why would you be required to produce an I.D. to turn in a stray dog? I suppose because it might not be a stray dog. It might be stolen property. Turning in a treasured pet as a stray might be an act of vengeance. There are real world possible reasons why an I.D. is requested. Requested or demanded, we do not know from the information available. We only know the police were called due to Lawrence creating a disturbance. We only know Lawrence was first tased to no affect and then shot resisting arrest.
But we must acknowledge we do live in the preverbal *German accent* "Show me your papers" world. We do. Our comic book childhood play-line is present day reality. When a policeman says, "Show me your I.D" you had better show it. Or, I suppose, explain levelly why you do not have your I.D. on your person at that moment. But do not go banging on about being a "sovereign citizen."
But why not? Why is it fatally illegal to bang on about being a sovereign citizen? Why is it fatal to make a huge unnecessary public fuss? (My own sister would be well dead several times over.)
Comments at the site are interesting.
43 comments:
Interesting how the reporter went over the dead man's (sorry) the dead white man's history of run-ins with the law.
How did they dig up all that information so quickly... unless the cops where looking to quickly get ahead of the story, and turned it over to the news hounds.
Turning in a treasured pet as a stray might be an act of vengeance.
Eating a dog was an act of hunger, or so Obama has led everyone to believe ;)
what makes me sick is the democrat media industrial complex pushes false narratives that inspire protests that inspire cop killings- then have the audacity to blame the tea party.
The only deaths that count are deaths that can be used to sell anger and prooganda for one political party.
prooganda = propaganda (lol)
"After repeatedly being told to calm down, Lawrence was advised he was being placed under arrest. A physical altercation ensued, to which Lawrence was shot in the abdomen."
I wasn't there, but WTF did he get in a fight over his ID?
One hothead? Two?
Video would be helpful here.
In any event, I have nevertheless decided not to burn down the Quik Mart.
I have instead decided to drink a glass of pinot noir sometime tonight to calm my blinding rage.
Burning down the market where you stole stuff is the only way to make America great.
Maybe I will instead burn down a hastily constructed pile of newspaper, cardboard, and twigs, adding subsequently larger pieces of wood until the raging inferno reaches the limits of my stone fire ring.
And I will shout:
Glasses up! Don't Spill!
Put Wings on Prigs!
What do we want?
Dead Cows!
Mmmmm.
Dead cows.
Here is a video of a typical white person (in Obama lingo) getting arrested for a seemingly minor transgression.
In all these cases, it is irrelevant what happened before the decision to arrest. If you decide at that point to fight the cops, you are putting your life at risk for no reason. You cannot win, you will not walk away free. If you are in the right, you wait for your day in court. Resisting arrest is a whole separate crime including making armed men feel at risk for themselves and each other. That is a basic obvious stupid thing to do, no matter how you got to that point.
Now if you refused to show your ID, and just walked out, what happens? If they call the cops you say "either let me go or arrest me", but "let me go or fight me" is a really dumb offer.
prooganda is a great idea for a word.
Bagoh, quite right.
There needs to be an appeals process for the crap that school board pulled in Lem's video.
The reason this will not get coverage is the lack of product placement. You need something like Skittles, Arizona Iced Tea, or Swisher Sweet Cigars prominently shown in the story. You can't expect the media to work for free like they're doctors or something
He should have claimed he was trans-trans-gender trans-species.
He is a man-turned-woman-turned man and is a pre-op gay furry who wanted to marry the stray.
H8rz!
Instant news.
Prooganda:
When the media pursue narratives to fit an agenda that benefits the political biases of media bosses and their political benefactors.
Prooganda: A river in Egypt
Prooganda: rolling stone rape hoax.
Here's the thing. I could see being asked to show ID IF SOMEONE HAD REPORTED A DOG BEING STOLEN.
There's no probable cause (even with the man's background) to put him in that position.
It sure makes one less likely to drop off a stray, don't it?
He could have said, I am sorry I don't have ID. Attitude matters.
Had he been black and it went down like this, there would be a media shit storm. But frankly white people should freak out that the cops over react to stupid stuff.
But when it comes to ID, if you refuse to produce it and freak out, people think: "Why?" And instead of having Andy Taylor defuse the situation, we often get Barney Fife.
Of course the better thing to do is kill and eat the dog. I hear they are tasty.
OTOH states are passing laws that allow a parent to turn in their *child* with no questions asked. So... I'm a bit unconvinced that it should be a requirement for turning in a dog.
So you stole it from your jerk neighbor who doesn't keep it in her yard... so? Or you stole it out of her yard because it barks all night... so? That makes you a jerk, but the pound is still the first place to call if your animal goes missing and some other neighbor might just do the SSS thing... Shoot, Shovel, Say nothing? I forget but it's something like that.
I do understand why the guy might wig out. Particularly if he's someone who is always in trouble. Here he is, trying to do something *good* and he starts to get hassled?
Just take the GD dog.
The reason that the pound asks who you are and stuff is that they almost all want to *charge* you for taking animals. They treat you like a criminal when you get there. They really really do.
There is no... this is what we WANT you to do, and we're not going to scold, because we WANT you not to leave this animal running loose and if it's yours, we don't want you dumping it outside of town. There is no, you found a box of puppies? THANK YOU for bringing it in!
Animal control and rescue people are the most sanctimonious pricks I've ever run into. I'm sure some are nice but at work they are ALL confrontational.
Why why WHY not just say... OK, thanks for bringing the dog in. You can go. No ID. Just go. We have the dog. Have a nice afternoon.
How could it possibly have escalated to calling the cops and they couldn't get the guy to just LEAVE?
Sigh. We've been over this a million times. You have to show your ID For everything.
You Wanna: cash a check, open a bank account, buy liquor or cigs (assuming you're under 30), board an airplane, apply for a job, drive a car, getting a fishing license, etc.
Business, the Government, your landlord, everyone is trying to verify who you are.
So I'm not surprised the shelter wanted ID.
99/100 the perps are at fault - not the Cops. But that doesn't stop the "I don't know all the facts, but I'll jump to conclusions anyway" types.
Anything can escalate and end in a death, if you make a fuss, refuse to leave, etc. and then resist arrest and escalate things.
Pull a knife or a gun, physically assault the officer and try to grab his/her gun - put him in reasonable fear of their lives and you might end up dead.
I'm not at all surprised.
It's just that there is no justification for it. "Everyone asks" isn't justification. It's a sad indication of just how passive we are when it comes to government and quasi-government impositions on simple human dignity.
It was a cat.
I agree, Synova. Why do we put up with the government asking us what "race" or "color" we are? What difference does it make?
It appears that he tried to leave the cat at the Dothan City Animal Shelter which is operated by the Dothan Police Department.
And it appears that he was told by personnel at the shelter that he could not leave the premises without first providing acceptable ID.
That lit his (short) fuse. The shelter called for police support and he ended up dead.
I hope it wasn't the animal control officer who responded because getting shot by the dogcatcher would be totally fucked-up.
I tried to drop a stray dog off at a local Humane Society and was told that it would have to be brought there by a policeman. The cop I finally gave the dog to said the reason for that is that the Humane Society can bill the city if a cop brings it in.
Hmmmm. Safe-haven laws, with regard to human babies.
Odd discordance in policy or not.
He was told he could not leave? OMG.
"Short fuse," if so, I am not justifying.
Requiring ID to drop off a stray dog;--well, that provokes serious questions, especially given other...um, situations, including legal.
I do think that the not "resisting arrest" thing is very important. I say this without any philosophical support for a police state. There are *practical* reasons to say "Yes, sir. No, Sir. Of course, Sir." and to cooperate with police, even if they seemed to have stopped you for no reason. It worries me when people talk all tough about how the cops are supposedly supposed to put up with people being uncooperative or even messing with them. People on both "sides" of the political divide do this. (Including one very special young lady who tweeted something like... if he's scared just because someone pointed a gun at him, maybe he shouldn't be a police officer...)
People should cooperate as much as they can. Be as pleasant as they can. It's true that any interaction can become deadly, and that's always the case for the police officers because they never know if the person speeding is going to pull a gun on them. It happens. Being an ass to the cops just because you've a *right* to do so is just... being an ass.
It was a parrot.
And he was sick and tired of the parrot digging through his fucking tall tansy asters and making his parrot poo all over the place so he set up a parrot trap knowing full well the parrot belonged to his neighbor who pissed off earlier by having his water sprinkler shoot over the fence into his fish pond, changing the pH and endangering his prize koi.
Sometimes you cannot talk to people, and he HAD it up to here *makes cutting motion at neck* and took matters into his own hands. He's lucky he didn't kill the parrot chop it up and feed it to his pet platypus.
It's a zoo out there, People. So WISE up.
Thank God none of the animals were hurt in the melee.
There isn't enough info to make an assessment of judgment.
Did the guy lose his temper?
How do you end up dead at an animal shelter merely attempting to leave a stray?
More questions here than answers.
In any case, it is sad this man lost his life. Sad also that the press will ignore the story because there is no racial angle they can exploit.
"Animal control and rescue people are the most sanctimonious pricks I've ever run into. I'm sure some are nice but at work they are ALL confrontational."
Some of this is just the people validating themselves through how serious they take their particular calling. We all do that about "our thing" whatever it is.
The other part is how affecting being in rescue work can be. You see some of the ugliest, most selfish, uncaring, brutality and death that happens in our community. You see sweet, innocent animals neglected, brutalized, and killed by the dozens on a daily basis. It's often agonizing, depressing and angering, and it's day after day of it. It's constant, direct exposure to some of the ugliest things our fellow humans do, which most people never see. It's far worse than anything you see in those heart-wrenching ASPCA commercials. Your inbox is inundated everyday with disturbing stories, photos, and pleas for help that you can't face, because you are already overwhelmed from the ones you did choose to get involved with. It makes you feel incredibly overwhelmed, helpless and angry. Consequently, you can't stand people who show even the slightest lack of concern for animals - real or suspected. It's not fair, because they don't know what you know intensely - that many of our fellow humans are pretty disgusting with innocent animals.
Some people in rescue are just asses like any group, but many have a real chip on their shoulder that is understandable from the things they deal with every day. It's really disturbing stuff, and it doesn't take much exposure to it to make you angry at people in general, let alone someone bringing you one more tragedy today. You know it's all preventable, and it's all due to people, and you just want it to stop.
Being required to present ID when dropping off an animal is reasonable. An acquaintance was awakened in the middle of the night (again) by his neighbor's barking dog. The guy got out of bed, took a length of rope, captured the offending canine, drove over to the animal shelter, and tied it to the door. Couldn't do that mid-afternoon, when ID is required.
The first time that my husband and I took in an abused animal (and by abused, I mean including, for one example regarding abuse, legs that had been broken) was while we were still dating, well before we got married. That's a long time ago, now. This week, we will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.
Now, we are not fosters nor save-havens (some day, we'd like to do that). But we have taken in a number of abused/neglected/at risk animals, permanently. Three live with us now.
Also, I am at the point where I think that we are more libertarian than thee. More small government. More constantly questioning. More off-grid than demanding.
Copping to it.
Sorta shocking concept to me. I didn't think that many years ago, and I refused to believe it even just a couple-so/few years ago. But now I know.
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