America, it's an election year, so get ready for the Black Lives Matter protests. This might be our 2024 George Floyd moment, cuz look how the Washington Post is covering this story about a kid who opened fire on police during a traffic stop.
Let's look at how writer Jennifer Hassan opened this story:
Dexter Reed's mother remembers the last time she saw her son alive. "Mom, I'm going for a ride," he told her, before heading out in the car that he had purchased just three days earlier.
Reed, 26, was killed that same day, when tactical-unit police officers fired 96 bullets at him within 41 seconds, according to Chicago's Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA, which investigates allegations of police misconduct and police shootings. "He was just riding around in his car," Dexter's mother, Nicole Banks, told Fox 32 Chicago on Tuesday, as she broke down in tears. "They killed him."
Sounds bad for the police, right?
This happened down in Chicago, where we know MAGA people roam the streets looking for black actors to lynch.
Well, before you go grabbing that pitchfork for another Summer of Love, let's do what WaPo didn't and give you the facts.
There are FIVE bodycams that recorded the shootout. Here is the first one:
[Warning: Violence, Language]
And the camera from the officer who was shot in the arm:
(Since WaPo wants you to infer that systemic racism is causing police to gun down black men, notice this evil racist cop is black.)
A screenshot from the 4th officer on scene shows us the extent of the injuries. You can see the bullet wound in the officer's arm (in case it wasn't clear, this is GRAPHIC but since the "journalists" want to make this kid into a martyr, visuals help dispel their lies).
(If you didn't want to look you are safe to continue reading now)
Reed wouldn't cooperate with police and then he opened fire on them. All over a seatbelt violation.
This screenshot from the 3rd officer on scene shows Reed jump out of the passenger side of the vehicle after shooting at police. It is at this point that the killing shots are delivered.
I'll also leave you with this still from the 5th officer on the scene since WaPo wants us to think these cops are white supremacists who enjoy killing black men.
Okay, now let's talk about the 96 shots.
The police are shooting Glocks - I would guess Glock 22s because that is the most popular service pistol used by law enforcement in the United States. Standard magazine capacity is 15 rounds.
Regardless of the make and model, Reed was likely using a similar handgun.
In a force-on-force scenario, you shoot until the threat is verified to be stopped. There have been many times when a wounded combatant has killed officers and/or civilians because they were still alive and could still pull a trigger.
96 bullets between 5 officers is a total of 6.4 mags in a standard Glock 22. In essence, between the five of them, each officer fired one mag and two reloaded.
This is not excessive force by any means.
When Bonnie and Clyde were killed by six officers in 1934, their car was riddled with 167 bullets in 20 seconds to ensure they would not pop back up and start shooting.
Questions of accuracy when using handguns also come into the equation. Shooting and moving is not easy. Even a trained officer may miss half his shots.
And that right there is the actual concern WaPo should be talking about. Did the officers have a clear shot? Did any of their bullets graze the buildings behind the scene? From my perspective, there are some training issues here throughout the scenario.
There's also the valid question of whether or not these plainclothes officers correctly identified themselves. Why were five plainclothes officers on site for a seatbelt violation anyway? Was there an undercover operation going on? Did Reed think they were a rival gang? Can we get a statement from Chicago PD with details? These are the questions that serious journalists would ask.
But nah, we're gonna go with the "cops gunned down a beautiful austere scholar because he was black" instead.
Police killings of Black Americans including Tyre Nichols, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have prompted protests and a racial reckoning that translated into hundreds of bills aimed at curtailing law enforcement powers and reshaping policing.
"A racial reckoning."
These people are the worst.
Here's the kid's mom speaking to the media:
Kid opens fire on police, finds out, and now we got the media trying to ignite a Summer of Love 2.0 in 2024 so that they can get a racist old man reelected.
Y'all ready for this?
Let me leave you with one of the most helpful reminders I can give you for the year ahead:
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