Lancaster Sheriff’s Department Denounces Tactics by Deputies
How several deputies used bad policing, restrained a Black man with a gun pointed at this head, sat on his back and brandish a gun at onlookers
Accountability and transparency is the key to stopping such bad elements within the police force and the community. Lives have been destroyed beyond repair at the hands of ill-policing with a personal agenda to destroy people of color by any means necessary, even when the cause does not justify the means or the end.
At a Lancaster gas station, a deputy holding his gun to the head of a detained Black man who laid facedown and not resisting was videotaped by a bystander. Thank God for this bystander, otherwise this man may have been another George Floyd. This has become the norm across the country where many gun happy police officers or deputies are pulling their guns and pointing them at citizens without just cause as they violate many constitutional rights. All police officers are supposed to be trained to serve the community but somewhere in this training process has been and is an ill agenda to destroy all people of color.
This horrific incident occurred during the daytime on April 30, and justly has caused much outrage among some residents of the Antelope Valley. According to the media, the Sheriff’s Department has delayed in correcting its bad policing tactics via the 2015 settlement agreement. Well, this speaks volume, and conveys why policing is what it is. When the head is malfunctioning then the body will follow suit. How long does it take to stop bad policing if it is too be done?
Due to much outcry around he country and with millions of eyes watching, this police department acknowledged that the deputy actions did not adhere to proper protocol even though it was claimed that the detainee was armed with a loaded handgun with a high-capacity magazine. Facedown on the ground, gun to his head, where is the gun? Evidently, the gun must have been taken, so why not handcuff the person, take them to jail like a human being and get to the bottom of the issue? Sadly, to say, but in similar cases where the detainee was white, the detainee was escorted to jail and not forced to such inhuman treatment. What does this say about all this policing of people of color? People wonder why #BlackLivesMatter?! Injustice is a disease and will affect and infect all sooner or later.
Martin Luther King said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
This deputy actions are being reviewed. It was all caught on camera, what is there to review. In my opinion, it is not the time for reviewing but it is the time for punitive damages, e.g. these deputies should be suspended without pay until investigation is completed. To stop a bad seed or two, you must uproot and make a point where it matters.
According to the officials, this deputy “thought” he saw a drug sale and an outline of a handgun, so he followed this Black man to a gas station. Ordered him to stop and he complied and laid down on the ground with the deputy’s gun pointed at his head. You’d think this was bad enough, the videotaped by the bystander showed the deputy sitting on the Black man as he laid facedown on the pavement with one leg slung across his upper back while the barrel of the deputy’s gun appeared to touch or nearly touch the man’s head, while the Black man arms are extended with empty hands. All this time, the Black man is not resisting, how can he? The problem here is not the detainee but the deputy who is wrong and is a betrayal to what his badge suppose to represent.
In realty, did the deputy see a Black man first and assumed drugs, the public knows how people of color are viewed when standing alone, sitting in cars, driving a new car or just walking down a street. The wrong view of persons of color breeds what is embedded in the system, systemic racism. Another fact that this 22 year old Black man ran from the deputy is not indicative that he had done anything wrong. Given the number of Black men killed innocently at the hand of police officers for no reasons, why would he not run? It is called being a survivor of an element designed to kill. If you run, you are guilty or if you don’t run you die. Which would you choose?
Shockingly, another deputy stood idle by in front of the pair brandishing his gun pointed downward as the crowd shouted, “Handcuff him and get off of him.” One man yells, “Why you still got the gun to his head?” When other deputies arrived took the handcuff man, the said deputy continually held his gun on the Black man. Why? Was he waiting for a moment to justify shooting him, e.g. “I thought he was trying to escape or I thought I had my taser!” Stop the racism!
According to the Sheriff’s Department, the Black man was arrested on suspicion of felony possession of a loaded firearm and felony possession of a concealed firearm. Okay, and what happened to the deputy. The Black man was released, and thank God not dead, as he stared death in the face and almost became another statistic.
To add insult to injury, the Black man was already restrained, not moving, not resisting, not kicking, not fighting but was treated worst than a dog. These deputies would treat a dog with more respect. While the bystanders opposed this injustice, another deputy brandished his gun at the innocent community. These said deputies are wrong in every sense of the word of policing and their actions spoke loud about how they felt about people of color. Sounds like slavery by another name to me. One activist stated, “It looked like we were in a police state,” he said, “with the deputies and the shotguns drawn in a community of African American people.”
In conclusion, from the top to the bottom, the police and sheriff department need to eliminate any white nationalist group and/or any other racist groups whose agenda is to inflict harm or death on another based on skin color. Laws on the state and federal level need to be implemented to stop such behavioral. Also, the community need to demand more accountability and transparency by letting their vote count, getting on community boards, making their voices heard by city officials and by getting the ear of the ethical police officers.
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