Sunday Bloody Sunday In Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge PD officer Markell Morris

Yet another shocking act of terror committed by another disturbed lone gunman armed with an assault rifle and a twisted personal agenda.

Another bloody consequence of the almost unrestricted access to firearms in America.

On Saturday I had to work so yesterday, Sunday, was my one day off - but it didn't really feel like a day off.


The news that a disgruntled former Marine murdered three law enforcement officers on Sunday morning left me feeling numb.

While Gavin Long left a slew of social media posts that offer a glimpse into his anger and frustration over the killing of Alton Sterling by two Baton Rouge PD officers, his violent response cannot simply be pinned on a legitimate protest movement.

Long's incomprehensible decision to shoot six members of the law enforcement community took the lives of three innocent people and forever altered the lives of family, friends and associates who knew them.

His actions on Sunday morning didn't vindicate anyone, or right a wrong, it marked him as a ruthless killer, dishonored his service in the Marine Corps, and did a disservice to the millions of people who are using peaceful means to demand an end to the disproportional use of deadly force against people of color by some members of the police community.

His actions also undermine the legitimate protest movement against police brutality and excessive use of force and the apparent unwillingness of local, municipal and state justice systems to hold officers who use unjustified force accountable for their actions - just today we learn that a fourth Baltimore PD officer was acquitted of the heinous death of Freddie Gray while in the custody of the BPD.

Baton Rouge police killer Gavin Long 

What was going on in the mind of Gavin Long?

Since this just happened yesterday, results from the investigation will take time obviously, but knowing that he was a decorated Marine begs the question: 

Did undiagnosed, or untreated, Post Traumatic  Stress Disorder from his time as a Marine serving abroad in Iraq play a part?

Some of his associations certainly raise questions.

He's allegedly been linked to anti-government "sovereign citizen" groups that refuse to pay taxes or recognize the authority of police or courts; not unlike another paranoid ex-soldier who took the lives of innocent people, convicted Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.

  

CNN reports that an email linked to the shooter Gavin Long shows he was associated with a group called 'Freedom From Covert Harassment and Surveillance'. 

The group's mission statement describes their elusive purpose to help people who've been, "Marginalized and abused by...Remote Brain Experimentation, Remote Neural Monitoring, of an entire humans body.

Despite Long's fragile mental state and association with fringe groups prone to a radically distorted view of reality, conservatives have been quick to use the demented act of a single individual to try and score cheap political points on the eve of the start of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

Why? Open carry activist outside the convention

Trump immediately took to Twitter to blame the actions of an unbalanced lone gunman to try and cast blame for the incident on President Obama, childishly admonishing a two-term president with a law degree from Harvard for not having "a clue." 

The Republican candidate tried to fan the flames of hysteria by suggesting the "our country is a divided crime scene, and it will only get worse!"

Sage observations from the presumptive GOP nominee for the White House.

Trump's divisive Twitter posts made no mention of how Gavin Long was able to acquire at least two assault rifles and a hand gun in the first place; and carry them across state lines from Missouri to Louisiana.

No, Trump's political advisers likely encouraged him to "go Benghazi" and try and seize on a frustrated and dismayed American populace by trying to make the post-shooting narrative about the president and Hillary Clinton, in part to appease the NRA by not making the issue about the loaded assault rifle that Long used to kill three police officers and wound three others.

According to the latest statistics from the Gun Violence Archive, this (latest) heinous act in Baton Rouge is one of 29,113 gun incidents in the United States in 2016, and one of 7,503 deaths caused by guns this year.

The outrage over this incident is shared by most Americans, including the family of Alton Sterling who was gunned down on video recently by two members of the Baton Rouge PD, but the fiery rhetoric by some conservatives has been toxic and divisive.

I'm listening to NPR's coverage of the Republican convention and earlier they mentioned that a group of armed militia types were seen marching outside the convention center in single file, and Republican Governor John Kasich ignored a call from Cleveland's largest police union to place a temporary ban on Ohio's open-carry laws during the RNC event - he said there was nothing he could do about it even though he's the governor.

So Republican open carry activists are walking around public places in downtown Cleveland with loaded weapons; it's a reflection of a distorted view of reality in which Trump and his supporters seem to exist.

No question that recent high profile incidents of violence have shocked us all.

But the Brennan Center for Justice reports that crime rates in America are at a 30 year low, meanwhile inside the Quicken Loans Arena, the theme of tonight's RNC event?

"Make America Safe Again."

Alton Sterling's Death - Use of Force Gone Wrong

Cameron Sterling & Quinyetta McMillan earlier today

Another July, yet another senseless death at the hands of overzealous police officers responding to a non-violent civil offense.

The world is once again stunned over video showing police officers killing a man who's already restrained on the ground.

Last night two officers from the Baton Rouge Police Department shot and killed 37-year old Alton Sterling after a confrontation escalated over, of all things, Sterling selling CD's outside of a small store. Not drugs or weapons. CD's.

Earlier today I listened to some audio excerpts from the press conference in Louisiana earlier this morning where Quinyetta McMillan, the mother of Alton Sterling's 15-year-old son Cameron, read a statement to the media about the impact of Sterling's death.

If you haven't heard it, McMillan read her statement with remarkable composure, but it was difficult to concentrate on her words with the sound of Sterling's son Cameron crying softly as he tried to cover his face (pictured above), watching this child, clearly traumatized over watching video of his father's violent death, brought this incident into a human perspective.

While preliminary reports indicate police responded to the scene based on a 911 call from what media reports have described as "an anonymous caller" reporting an armed man, during her press conference this morning Quinyetta McMillan insisted Alton Sterling was simply selling CD's.

Thus far there's no definitive evidence that Sterling had a gun or attempted to point it at the two officers who had him pinned to the ground.

Judge for yourself, if you watch the cell phone video taken at the scene by a horrified bystander, Sterling is standing by the front of the car arguing with the police officers, but there's nothing in his hand, nor is he threatening them with any kind of weapon.

While an investigation is just getting started, and all the facts are not yet known, the parallels between this case and the death of Eric Garner two years ago on July 17, 2104, are disturbingly similar.

Alton Sterling

Two heavyset African-American men, fathers of children with families, engaged in selling items of relatively little value to make a few bucks being confronted by white police officers who somehow escalate a remarkably minor civil infraction to the point that they feel the use of deadly force is justified.  

Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes on a street in Staten Island in the neighborhood where he lived.

After members of the NYPD confronted and attempted to arrest Garner, officer Daniel Pantaleo placed Garner in an illegal choke-hold even as he was already on the ground being restrained by other officers, rendering him unconscious - minutes later he was dead.

Despite the video evidence, a grand jury declined to press charges, Daniel Pantaleo is working the streets of New York as a police officer as you read this.

It's way too early to tell what the outcome of this case will be as far as the two officers being held responsible for Sterling's death, but a federal investigation is underway.

Baton Rouge PD officer Blane Salamoni 

But there were Justice Department investigations into the death of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and Freddie Gray too - thus far no one was held legally responsible for their deaths.

The two officers have been identified as Howie Lake, II and Blane Salamoni (pictured left), and it is interesting to note that the New York Times reports that Salamoni's father Noel Salamoni is a captain of special operations on the Baton Rouge police force.

As I've often said in far too many entries on this blog, at some point this country needs undertake a serious examination into what is going on inside the minds of police officers who are so quick to resort to the use of deadly force in situations that don't warrant it.

Especially when the victim is a person of color in a nation in which entrenched racial bias in policing is a problem in police departments across the country.

It's hard to watch, but take a close look at that cell phone video, watch the officer nearest to the camera remove his handgun from his holster even as he's on top of Sterling.

Obviously I can't understand what was going on in his mind at that moment before Sterling was fatally shot in the chest and the back, but viewed from the standpoint of a civilian who has seen too many of these videos, did he think his life was threatened by a man already pinned to the ground by two officers?

Or did the race of Alton Sterling unconsciously make him seem more of a threat than he actually was in the mind of the man who shot him?

As in many things, perception is everything, but in this case, from what we know so far, it seems perception was the difference between life and death.