On Monday afternoon Chicago police shot a 14 year old named Ellis Woodland in the Cabrini Green section of the city. Woodland is alive, but not in the greatest condition. The story is that Woodland and a friend alledgedly tried to rob some kid, who then ran and told some local police.
There are a lot of police officers patrolling Cabrini at any given time. The city is trying to renovate the entire area and change it into a mixed income neighborhood by adding high rises and other housing.
The city is going about the project in an unpopular, controversial way that prompts the current residents to feel like they're being driven out and generally leads to a lot of animosity. Animosity that boils over.
Back to the story.
After finding Woodland running behind a Best Buy the police pursued him. Now according to 3 witnesses Woodland reached into his pocket or waistband and pointed a gun at two officers.
The gun was a Daisy PowerLine Model-a BB gun.
The thing is, the BB gun looks A LOT like a real gun.
The cops, as they're prone to do when somebody points a gun at them, opened fire.
Ever since there has been a lot of outrage and protests in the Cabrini Green area. Residents, mostly black, are pretty upset by the whole thing. Based on the way residents have been treated there in the past, it's completely understandable that they're frustrated.
My problem is that the race card is being played in a situation in which it holds absolutely no ground. I don't care if your black, white, latino, asian or a god damn pigeon. If you pull a gun on a cop, the cop will shoot at you.
If it had been me who pulled the gun, I would have been shot. The difference is I'm not stupid enough to pull a gun and aim it at a couple of cops.
The fact that Woodland IS black and does live in a rough neighborhood should have been all the more reason for him NOT to pull the gun. I mean I wouldn't walk through the streets of Compton shouting "White Power!!" while twirling a noose over my head.
That's just begging to get shot.
Woodland had two other completely viable options. One would have been to just run like hell and hope that he actually got away, and the other would have been to surrender. Neither of which would have resulted in getting shot 4 times.
From what family and friends say, Woodland is a pretty good kid. He hasn't really ever been in any trouble before, and is an A-B student. His father, also named Ellis Woodland, is a former gang member who's had his own number of run ins with the law. In his own words he says that he has a couple of bad kids, but Ellis isn't one of them.
It's a real shitty thing that happened, and I hope the kid can pull through. But please don't pull the race card out on this one. I'm sure there are plenty of injustices dealt out on the residences of Cabrini Green on a daily basis that need to be looked at and dealt with accoringly, but don't start the "they wouldn't have shot him if he was white," bullshit. It's just going to distract the focus from where the problems with police in Cabrini Green really are, and in the end nothing will get changed.
***************
Friday Random Ten
- Waiting In Vain-Bob Marley and The Wailers
- Suffocate-Cold
- Smoke Two Joints-Sublime
- Consequence-Incubus
- Big Balls-AC/DC
- Do the Evolution-Pearl Jam
- Big Bad John-Johnny Cash
- The End-The Doors
- Through the Wire-Kanye West
- Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner-Fall Out Boy
Keepin It Real Since 1980,
Tom
5 comments:
great post, tom.
as you said, what's tragic is this kind of claim does serious damage because it devalues legitimate claims of mistreatment by the police (and there are many).
You're just saying that cuz you hate black people.
no. just you.
Well I know a black guy, so that makes you a racist.
Sublime sucks, fake ass Reggae music by a bunch of corny ass white boyz. Fuck 'em, hooray for heroine.
Post a Comment