Cops Kill Black Father in Atlanta
Rayshard Brooks, RIP
By James R Smith
Rayshard Brooks won’t be coming home for his daughter’s eighth birthday party, Saturday night. He was murdered by a white cop on Friday night. After spending a day with his daughter, he stopped for a burger at Wendy’s. Brooks was a wage worker employed at a Tortilla shop. But Saturday, he was off work and planned to take the birthday girl skating. Later at the party, he would also see his one-year-old and two-year-old baby girls. When the two cops woke him up and told him they were going to take him to jail (for drunk driving, or drunk sleeping), he broke away and ran. He might have run all the way home, but two bullets in the back stopped him, forever.
Add this to the things Black people can’t do: Sleeping while Black. A Wendy’s attendant saw him sleeping while he was waiting for his order. She called the cops (never, never, call the cops on a Black person, even if it’s with the best intentions).
Here’s what the Wendy’s attendant didn’t do: She didn’t say, “Hello police, there’s a Black man over here sleeping. Would you please come over and shoot him.” “Yes mam, we’ll be right over.” It shouldn’t have ended up that way, but it did. Rayshard wasn’t hurting anyone. He was asleep. He was on private property. The cop who shot him, Garrett Rolfe, said he was drunk. Brooks denied it. If the cop thought he was too drunk to drive, he could have called a cab or an uber. But that’s not the way it works in white America.
Now he’s dead. The police chief, Erika Shields, resigned. Officer Rolfe has been fired, and hopefully, arrested very soon. The Wendy’s, where the killing happened, has been burned down. There are probably some who are more disturbed about Wendy’s than they are that Rayshard Brooks is dead. But there are many Wendy’s and only one Rayshard Brooks.
I thought the cops were supposed to be on their best behaior. They saw what happened when George Floyd was murdered. What were they thinking? Didn’t every police chief in every city in the country lay down the law to their lawless cops? Don’t they know what’s at stake?
Every time there is an incident of police brutality or a police murder, it hardens our hearts. Millions of us become more angry and more uncompromising. We, millions, will not stand for much more, if any more. Lot’s of us will be thinking: they ought to burn the whole damn thing down. All the buildings in all the cities are not worth one more life.
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Is A New Lockdown in Our Future?
R scores, the rate of infection for COVID-19, have taken a turn for the worse. More states than ever are at 1.00 or higher, meaning there will be more infections. The scores measure how many people, on average, get infected from each person who is already infected. Scores below 1.00 mean the number of people being infected is going down.
On May 25, only five states had a worsening infection rate. On June 14, after most of the country “opened up,” there are 16 states at 1.00 or higher. Most other states are very close to 1.00 and could slide over depending on people’s behavior. Only 15 states seem to be on the safe side, with scores below .90.
Why are infections going up? Probably because all too many people are violating all, or most, rules for defeating the virus.
The four little rules:
1) social distancing (6 feet or more from other people);
2) congregating in crowds, such as, bars, picnics, funerals, protests, sports, etc.;
3) not wearing a mask when around other people.
4) frequent hand washing
My observation is that many people violate all four of these rules.. The end result is more people being infected (see R scores). The number of hospital cases, the amount of a doctor or nurses’ time goes up, as does that of other medical personnel. Even if we don’t know the yahoos who are getting immediate gratification at their own long-term expense, they don’t know, or don’t care that we too are affected because this means the virus will hang around longer, and we’ll be quarantined longer.
We should ask if most people are really aware that the pandemic is still on. Do they know that in most of the country, it is worse than ever? Infections are up, and we haven’t really seen the impact of the protests yet. Will they be a disaster as far as the virus goes? Most of the protesters were wearing masks, but the police were not. What kind of message were the cops sending us?
We also need to ask if the government is doing its job to protect people. Is the mass media informing readers of the greater danger we are now living under? Newspapers should publish vital information, charts, graphs, maps, etc, in every issue. Young people should be informed that they can sustain serious organ damage, as well as being carriers who can kill older people. Why is it difficult to obtain information on R scores, numbers of infections and deaths, and whether the numbers are going up or down. The most consistent information that I’ve seen is from the New York governor’s daily press conference, shown on youtube; the Rt Covid-19 website; and The Left Coast. Be informed, or be sorry.
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