There’s little point in setting up a surveillance state when the police who act upon the info are left hanging when they become politically inconvenient. Little Rock, Arkansas successfully used a license plate reader and a city’s worth of cameras to track down a stolen car. Officer Charles Starks was dispatched to make the arrest. He ended up mag-dumping into an extra-vibrant Dindu who decided to run over the uniformed cop to escape. Starks now faces murder charges and an overzealous FBI.
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/mar/08/in-video-officer-heard-ordering-driver–1/?news
Video released Thursday from a Feb. 22 police shooting that left a Little Rock man dead shows the first responding officer firing his weapon at least 15 times, including 12 times after he stepped in front of the car the victim is driving.
Thirteen days after officer Charles Starks made a traffic stop involving a stolen vehicle, the Little Rock Police Department released audio and video footage of the shooting that killed 30-year-old Bradley Blackshire.
Bradley Blackshire’s 2016 mugshot for parole violations and failure to comply. Also:
August 2012: Possession of firearm/probation violation, resisting arrest
April 2015: Criminal trespass, probation violation
Oct. 2015: Nonpayment of traffic ticket, misdemeanor
April 2016: Contempt of court
Jan. 2018: Failure to pay child support $10k-$25k
Sept. 2018: Drug possession with intent to sell, possession of firearm, poss. of firearm and drugs at the same time, failure to pay a fine on a previous misdemeanor.
Feb. 2019 (not filed): Grand theft auto, Possession of firearm/probation violation, felony aggravated assault on a police officer, failure to comply (proved fatal)
And that’s just in this one county. Little Rock is a better place because this thugbait got lead poisoning.
Before releasing the video, [Mayor Frank] Scott allowed Blackshire’s family to view it and provided copies of it to attorneys for Starks and Blackshire’s family. Omavi Shukur, an attorney representing Blackshire’s family, said the video confirmed his office’s “assessment that the officer used an unreasonable amount of force when he fired into a slowly moving vehicle.”
Shukur, a Harvard-educated lawyer specializing in grievance politics and founder of Seeds of Liberation, a racist organization providing lawfare and political activism services. I doubt it’s a coincidence that the FBI got involved shortly after he did.
Blackshire died at the scene, according to previous reports.
According to procedure, the department placed Starks on administrative leave on Feb. 22. Four days later, the department confirmed that Starks had been relieved of duty, and had surrendered his gun and badge.
Officers placed on administrative leave can continue to work in some capacities at the department. Officers who are relieved of duty cannot.
Four days to recruit a high-end lawyer, perhaps?
Scott said FBI officials informed Little Rock police a “few” days after the shooting that they intended to review the investigation “from a civil-rights perspective.” Scott said he had no further information about the scope or purpose of the FBI’s review.
Does a “few” days mean four? Sounds like this Shukur has an entire harem of “please don’t call me racist” political dhimmis on speed-dial. The FBI has no jurisdiction here so they’re getting involved as a “favor” to Shukur.
On Monday, Blackshire’s family requested that the Arkansas State Police investigate the shooting. Scott said Thursday that the Police Department reached out to the state police, but the agency declined to investigate because it was called so long after the incident.
So far as I can find, the State police told him to go pound sand.
Bill Sadler, a spokesman for the Arkansas State Police, said his office declines to investigate use-of-force incidents on principle when the agency is not immediately called in. Taking on such a case would mean that investigators would have no access to the original shooting scene and the sources would have already been interviewed.
“We just weren’t there at ground zero, and that’s what you need to have an accurate investigation,” Sadler said.
The dashcam footage coming up plus the “victim’s” extensive history of drugs, violence and lawlessness should have made for a very short use-of-force review. That it didn’t is pure politics.
Shukur said he did not want to comment on the Blackshire family’s reaction to the video, but there was “nothing to indicate Mr. Blackshire knew why he was being approached by Starks in that manner.”
That’s not how police work. First cops take control of the scene, then they have a pleasant conversation with everybody. Turns out in this case that Blackie was illegally armed while driving his parents to dinner in a stolen car, which is exactly why police don’t do things the other way around.
Shukur said the next step for his office will be to wait for the prosecuting attorney to decide if filing criminal charges is appropriate in the case.
The spokesman and president of the Little Rock Black Police Officers Association did not return requests for comment Thursday evening.
Fortunately for Officer Starks, not every not-Negro authority figure involved is grabbing for his tiny little balls.
Ronnie Morgan, president of the Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police, said he and the union’s executive board watched the video before it was released on social media. In a news release last week, Morgan expressed support for Starks and his family. Morgan said Thursday that his position has not changed.
“We still feel the same way,” Morgan said. “We support officer Starks.”
The national Fraternal Order of Police offers insurance that provides legal assistance if an officer is involved in an incident while working in his official capacity, and Morgan said Starks, who is a Fraternal Order of Police member, has filed a claim with that agency.
The video. 7min-9min is the highlight. The preceding is an interesting insight into the surveillance state that cities are turning into.
Now that you have the facts, let’s cover how hard even a high-powered attorney like Shukur must reach to make this sound like it’s the cop’s fault.
Family of Bradley Blackshire, man killed by LRPD officer after traffic stop, calling for state police investigation
In a press conference Monday afternoon, civil rights attorney Omavi Shukur, representing the parents of Bradley Blackshire, shared details of the family’s “preliminary” investigation into Blackshire’s fatal shooting death on Feb. 22 by LRPD Officer Charles Starks and asked the community to come forward with any information or video footage of the incident…
Shukur, who is an attorney with the Chicago-based Loevy & Loevy civil rights law firm, said the family has seen “nothing that indicates” that Blackshire knew the car he borrowed the day of the shooting was stolen.
But Momma knew Blackie was a parolee and warned the cop that Blackie still had his gun when she got out. “Hey, Ma, just so you don’t panic, if the cops pull us over it’s because this ride is hot. Now where you want go for dinner? I’m driving.”
“What we do know is that Mr. Blackshire lawfully turned into the parking lot, backed into a parking space, and within seconds, was looking down the barrel of Starks’s gun,” Shukur said. “Mr. Blackshire was not given the dignity of being treated as if he was presumed innocent of the nonviolent crime that he was suspected of committing.”
The cops can lawfully presume that somebody operating a stolen vehicle knows it’s stolen.
Shukur said LRPD Officer Charles Starks, who has been relieved of duty by the department…
See, this is why optics matter. Being put on administrative leave is standard policy for officer-involved shootings but when the police brass decided to give in a little to pressure, Starks began looking guilty, friendless and vulnerable.
…did not ask Blackshire if he knew that the car he was driving was stolen upon pulling him over, but instead “immediately pointed his gun” at an “unsuspecting” Blackshire. Shukur said Blackshire’s car then began to roll forward, but “Mr. Blackshire did not slam on the gas, Mr. Blackshire did not run over Starks, he did not run over anybody.”
No?
“The car was moving so slowly that when the fender of the car made contact with Starks. left thigh, Starks did not fall to the ground,” Shukur said.
Ladies and gentlemen, the best of Harvard Law.
“Starks remained standing and the car immediately stopped upon making contact with Starks’s left thigh.
One person cannot hold back a moving vehicle even at low speeds.
… When the car initially came to a stop, Starks did not move towards the driver’s side door and demand Mr. Blackshire to get out of the vehicle. Instead, Starks foolishly stepped in front of the vehicle and shot Mr. Blackshire repeatedly. The car then rolled slowly towards the back of the parking lot.”
This is the face of the new identity politics in America. Blacks were the ones to teach us “my race, right or wrong”. Someday, my people will learn that lesson. Or not, seeing as how the police chief and mayor didn’t quickly step up to defend a cop who got run over while ending the life of an armed drug dealer violating his parole for at least the third time.
Thank you for bringing this to light.