Tamir Rice: A Case of Bad Parenting, Not Bad Policing

      The death of Tamir Rice, the young man who was shot and killed by Cleveland police in 2014 while he was in the commission of a crime, has sparked outrage among the race-baiters and their mob of the easily riled. Tamir Rice was indeed only 12 years old, but was five foot seven and weighed 175 pounds, not exactly the innocent 8 year old of the pictures plastered by the media for public consumption. And the "toy" gun he pulled on police was in reality an Airsoft pistol with the orange tip removed, which made it look even more like the Colt 45 it was made to replicate.
      Tamir was in the process of threatening people with the gun in a high crime area of Cleveland, an area where there had been past shootings, including police officers who wound up on the wrong side of those shootings. He was threatening enough for those working at the Cadell Recreation Center that day to call police for fear that he might hurt someone or worse. It was these facts that drove the urgency in the officers' response, and that urgency was heightented to an even greater level when Tamir was told to put up his hands and instead reached in his waisteband to pull out the pistol.
      To be sure, the untimely death of Tamir Rice was very unfortunate. But while everyone is feeling horribly for his mother, I have to ask, "Is there sympathy available in the reasonable heart for one who is so complicit in a loved one's death?" You see, Tamir Rice's death was not a result of bad policing, but bad parenting. It was not the police who allowed the young man to be waving a gun at strangers in one of the highest crime areas of Cleveland. And it was not police who could care less of the whereabouts of this young man until something tragic happened to him. It was not police who abdicated the parental responsibilty to guide their child into constructuive pursuits instead of neglecting his descent onto the path of wannabe thug-hood.
      The Cleveland Police Department, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and two out-of-state independent organizations all investigated the shooting, as well as it having recently been considered by a grand jury. All found from the evidence that the police did not act unreasonably or with any criminal intent. Of course for the mobs that now rule our cities, and are pandered to by local politicians, facts mean little when a black teen is shot by police. In their warped and mangled opinion, the police are always wrong and should have been willing to take a bullet, instead of the young deliquent who was threatening the citizenry with what looked like a real gun.
     So shame on Tamir Rice's mother for not making her son's life a cause before he threw it away. And shame on the professional agitators, who call themselves activists, for being active only after the death of a young man can be used to feather their public personas, instead of advocating for change in the black community that could prevent such deaths. Shame as well on public officials and politicians who allow our streets to be ruled by the mob because they do not have the courage to keep law and order. And finally, shame on all of us for ignoring the downward slide in our culture over the last 50 years from a society where young men wanted to be police officers, to one where they recklessly pull firearms on them and are held blameless for doing so.

What Really Killed Tamir Rice?

     You may have heard about the Tamir Rice shooting death at the hands of Cleveland Police, namely officer Timothy Lohman. The media's and Black Lives Matter narrative is that the innocent 12 year old Tamir Rice was playing with his pellet gun in the park when officer Lohman gunned him down in cold blood, presumably because he hates black people like all cops do. The truth about how Tamir Rice met his most unfortunate death is as far from this narrative as the moon is from the earth.
But as has been the case with all recent police shootings of blacks, political reality trumps actual reality.
     The 5 foot 7 inch, 195 pound Tamir Rice did not have a pellet gun that day he was shot at Cadell Recreation Center, but an Airsoft pistol, sans the orange tip on the barrel, which Tamir had removed to make it look more like a Colt45. A man who worked at the center was so scared of the threatening way in which Tamir was pointing his weapon at pedestrians and cars, that he waited until Tamir's back was turned before he called police. The Cleveland police are well familiar with gun play and crime in the neighborhood of the Cadell Recreation Center, having been called there for both on a regular basis.
     When Officer Lohman and his partner arrived on the scene and told Tamir to put his hands up, Tamir reached into his waist band and pulled out the pistol. At which point the officer shot him, feeling that his life, the life of his partner, and the lives of innocent victims may be in jeopardy. Of course the media and the standard array of advocacy groups tried to make Tamir out to be the innocent victim of racist police, using his age but not his size. They showed a picture of him as a bright-eyed six year old, instead of the surly out-of-control gangster wannabe that he had grown into in the ensuing six years between the photo and his untimely death.
        The Cuyahoga County Sheriffs Department and the Ohio State Patrol both investigated the incident and cleared Officer Lohman of any wrong doing. At which point the anti-police county prosecutor, Tim McGinty, commissioned two independent, outside investigations of the incident. The results of those two investigations have found that Officer Lohman was justified in shooting Tamir Rice, fearing for his safety as well as the safety of others when Tamir drew his weapon on them. Of course, Prosecutor McGinty being a completely political being, is not convinced by the findings of the four investigations into the matter and is continuing to suggest bringing the case to a grand jury.
     The death of Tamir Rice was unfortunate. It was unfortunate that the 12 year old had the pistol to begin with. It is unfortunate that he removed the orange tip to make it look more like a real gun. It is unfortunate that he was threatening innocent people with that gun in the park that day. And it is unfortunate that when instructed by police to raise his hands, Tamir instead chose to raise his gun. But his death can not be attributed to bad policing, but to bad parenting. Just like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, etc. Unfortunately in our nation today police have been made the scape goats for uninvolved and non-committed parents.

    

The Al Sharpton Factor

     The murder of Walter Scott by now former police officer Michael T. Slager is a tragedy in the scope of its brutality. There seems to be no reason or mitigating circumstances to support the former officer in the actions he took. And even though he was immediately stripped of his badge, charged with murder, and jailed for his crime, one can guarantee that these appropriate actions will not be near enough for those in the race industry who make their bread and butter off police shootings, trying to equate all of them with what happened in South Carolina.
     Walter Scott's body barely had the life drained from it by the evil act of Michael Slager, and the "Reverend" Al Sharpton was preparing to organize protests and acts of thuggery. I put the word reverend in quotes because I wonder when the last time was that anyone witnessed Al Sharpton reciting scriptures, inspiring congregants with spiritually-based sermons sans political motivation, or engaging in any other behavior in which any other reverend would. The term "reverend," when applied to Al Sharpton, is analogous to applying the term jumbo to shrimp, or intelligence to government.
     Al Sharpton is the somewhat buffoonish figure head of the politically correct race-baiting industry that has stolen the identity of the 1960s civil rights movement. The goal of the political correctness movement, among many others, is to transform truth into controversy to avoid its dissemination. It is also the tactic of the practitioners of this bastard child of Karl Marx to build an edifice of fear and lies from a grain of truth.
     In the coming weeks I am sure that the public will be treated to pronouncements by the race-baiting industry that what has happened in South Carolina is endemic of any police shooting anywhere in the country, rather than the truth, that it was more of an anomaly. It certainly looks as though Michael T. Slager murdered Walter Scott as he was running away. However, we have no information as of yet that would suggest that the shooting was based on the color of Mr. Scott's skin.
     It is a shame that former officer Slager sullied the reputation of his fellow officers, and gave the deplorable race-baiters like Al Sharpton the ammunition to tag all police with his misdeed. Justice will be carried out in South Carolina, just as it was in Ferguson, Missouri. Unfortunately the race-baiters, disguised as reverends and the political purveyors of ignorance, will forever see no difference between the two events. They only see in terms of color and their conclusions and beliefs are based purely on this most bigoted view of life.