Credit: Shutterstock.
Two Houston police officers fatally shot an African-American man who pointed a gun at them despite their commands that he lower his weapon, authorities said on Saturday, two days after five Dallas policemen were slain by a black military veteran.
The two Houston officers, both Hispanic, encountered a man standing in the middle of a street with a revolver around 12:40 a.m. while on a routine patrol, police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said.
The officers exited their patrol vehicle to speak to the man, who initially had the firearm pointed to the sky. The officers ordered him to lower the weapon, Silva said.
“He instead deliberately and slowly lowers his arm and allows it to come to a stop at his waist,” Silva said. “Now the gun is pointed directly at officers.”
Fearing for their safety and for nearby witnesses, both officers discharged their weapons, striking the man, she said. The man’s motive remains unknown.
The suspect, who did not fire his gun, died at the scene. His identity was not immediately released.
I’m out of things to say. Feels like I’m sliding into permanent numbness.
Via Raw Story.
UPDATE: The man’s name was Alva Braziel. I just read an article where there was the usual laundry list of every wrong thing he ever did in his life, oh hey, he had done time, so sad, too bad. Absolutely infuriating. If you watch the footage from a nearby store / gas station, you can clearly see Mr. Braziel with his arms in the air, high up over his head, then he was shot. 10 times. 10 fucking times. https://twitter.com/hashtag/AlvaBraziel?src=hash
Sounds like suicide by cop.
The only thing I can’t decide is whether guns are a primary disease in this country, or just a symptom of deeper diseases.
brucegee1962 @#1:
Yes,
People should brace themselves and expect to see a lot more tit-for-tat killings. People are tired of violent cops acting with impunity. As happens in many other places, when legal means don’t work, people resort to extralegal means. Note that I say extralegal, not illegal. There is a difference.
I won’t be shocked if the US turns into Vietnam on a small scale, warfare between the occupiers (cops) and the populace. The US military killed Vietnamese civilians indiscriminately to try and subdue the populace, but instead enraged people into supporting the resistance. The resistance killed US soldiers randomly to demoralize them, blending in with the population, and leaving the US military unable to find them.
Occupation of a population is impossible because people won’t stop fighting for their homeland until they win or they can’t fight anymore. It ends up in one of three results: a police state (e.g. USSR, South Africa), genocide to the point where the populace can’t fight back anymore (e.g. US, Canada, Australia), or the occupiers realize they can’t win and give up (e.g. Vietnam, India, Afghanistan, the US civil rights fight). Palestine is a place heading towards one of these three endings.
Really?
He had his own gun, apparently. Why go to the trouble? Why even put on a show of co-operating?