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Is Kendrec McDade the Next Trayvon Martin?
The_Ripper:
Is Kendrec McDade the Next Trayvon Martin? L.A. Civil Rights Leaders Question Pasadena Police Shooting.
While the nation copes with the sickening murder of 17-year-old black boy Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watchman, we might have our own civil-rights battle to fight right here at home.
Kendrec McDade, a popular 19-year-old football star who had recently graduated from Azusa High, was shot dead by Pasadena cops on Saturday night. The story originally ran like this: "Armed robbery suspect shot and killed by police in Pasadena." However, the Pasadena Police Department has yet to find evidence that McDade was armed.
And so the Trayvon comparisons set in.
Eric Hutchinson, local radio host and president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, thinks this could be a deadly case of police racism. (Hutchinson was heavily involved in another Pasadena officer-involved shooting in 2009 -- that of young black man Leroy Barnes, whose family has since filed a "wrongful death" lawsuit.)
Along with seven other L.A. civil-rights leaders, Hutchinson is demanding that Pasadena Police Chief Phillip Sanchez attend an "emergency meeting" to "walk through the narrative" of exactly why and how McDade was gunned down.
The two officers who riddled McDade with bullets on Saturday night have yet to be named, despite a new state law saying they must be. (We've contacted the department for that information.)
All accounts of the young student-athlete make him out to be a good, hardworking kid.
"I never would've thought this would've happened to him," his coach, Joe Scherf, tells the Pasadena Sun. "He was a good kid who was never in trouble, never got suspended from school or anything like that."
Also: "I just never thought he would have a gun."
That's one of the most concerning aspects of this shooting, says Hutchinson. The Pasadena PD -- with help from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department -- has been searching high and low with helicopters and bloodhounds for any trace of McDade's alleged weapon.
To no avail.
"You claim there's an armed robbery, but there's no gun," says Hutchinson. "Now, I don't know many people who can commit armed robberies with no gun."
The whole concept of McDade being armed in the first place was based on a 911 call from a man who claimed McDade and his 17-year-old friend had just tried to rob his car. The man said he had seen one of them flash a gun. From the Sun:
Police received a call at 11:04 p.m. from a man who said he was driving in pursuit of two men who had taken items from his car as he visited a taco truck. The two had asked him to buy food and he had refused, [Lieutenant Phlunte Riddle] said. When he return to his parked car he saw the two men inside and confronted them. One of the men flashed a silver or chrome gun and the man backed off, Riddle said.
During a subsequent foot chase with McDade, the cops claimed he reached toward his waistband.
But Hutchinson says the story reeks of racism. If a white kids' hands had wandered toward his waistband, would police have used deadly force?
"There are too many holes in the story," says Hutchinson. "They just have some explaining to do."
To add insult to injury, McDade's 17-year-old accomplice has been arrested for his friend's murder. That's because California law stipulates that if you commit certain types of felonies -- including armed robberies -- you're ultimately responsible for any death that occurs as a result.
McDade's killing likewise dredges up painful memories of last year's LAPD shooting of unarmed black football star Reggie Doucet, Jr.
"It always fits the same pattern," says Hutchinson.
Russell Bell:
Police shoot people when they shouldnt have all the fuckin time, white and black.
So is he the next race martyr that the dumbass media will latch on to and blow up, yes probably.
I feel bad for both of these kids' families (martins family trying to make $ off of trayvon is a huge red flag but whatever), but people are waaaaay to stupid in this country to think that both these cases happened because they were black.
Chamillitary Click:
I do find it comical how black people go out of their way to tie an entire genre to their race, have songs like this & then throw their hands up every time a black kid gets popped like he was a saint lol.
http://www.youtube.com/v/1M8vei3L0L8
http://www.youtube.com/v/t0vNnuP8XTU
http://www.youtube.com/v/ik4KGk6PKyA
Black Excellence:
but when black people start tearing shit up white people get scared.
Chamillitary Click:
--- Quote from: Blue Magic on March 28, 2012, 06:21:27 PM ---but when black people start tearing shit up white people get scared.
--- End quote ---
lol, actually when black people start "tearing shit up", we pull guns & then you cry to media that we're all racist lmao.
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