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    KC Complains A LotMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 2:14pm

    I love these plans black folks have, wherein they present identification, social security numbers, addressess and are coming fresh from their 9-5 who decide to rob Chad and Becky for a couple of iPhones in the middle of the goddamn day.

    Like, this is my hook for my Black Ocean’s Eleven movie. Idris Elba is Danny Ocean and Don Cheadle is Rusty (I don’t give a shit if Don was already in it, it’s my reboot and my head canon), and they’re trying to hit up a large bank in New York owned by Tyler Perry, because Tyler Perry is always a bad guy in the scripts I right.

    So in order to case the bank they want to rob, they send Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson across the street to be really friendly to some white people in a Subway/T-Mobile, and it freaks them out so bad that cops arrive on the scene with guns drawn. Elba, Cheadle, and Daniel Kaluuya playing the Matt Damon part sneak in and find the bank basically empty because too many people think the nice negros across the street are secretly gangster.

    I’ma bang out this script and it’s gonna be hot y’all, because stupid white people keep giving my ideas.

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      ThirdAmendmentManKC Complains A Lot
      7/06/18 2:22pm

      Now the realistic version would be to send the black people as a diversion across the street and then have white people just rob the bank blind.

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      GodDamnTheseElectricSexPantsKC Complains A Lot
      7/06/18 3:09pm

      When I was a teenager I worked at Taco Bell. One of the adult employees (30ish) was fired. A few days later he was arrested for robbing a local bank branch.

      He handed the teller a note claiming he had a bomb. That note was written on the back of his deposit slip. He left it there when he left. Not hard to track down the culprit.

      For all I know he is one of the officers pointing a gun at Mr. Johnson.

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    capeoMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 7:38pm

    The cops actually did everything by the book there. They got a 911 call of a robbery in progress, from a store that was robbed before, and when they tried to call the store to confirm nobody answered. They responded under the assumption that there was a robbery in progress. Having Johnson crawl is standard procedure when you have a potentially armed suspect and you have no idea what’s going on inside the premises so you can’t give up cover by walking in front of the windows. The cops were entirely calm and were explaining the situation to the best of their knowledge the whole time. That all didn’t go bad because it was handled correctly.

    From the conversation you can hear when the cops enter the store it was the black employee that called security. It’s hard to hear at parts but it appears he thought that were going to try to shoplift a phone? I can’t quite make it out. You can definitely hear that he called their security company and not the police and he didn’t seem to realize the security company would call the police. You can specifically hear the cop ask if Johnson or Lemar said they were robbing the place or anything to that effect and the employees say no. That’s where I think this response got overblown. Colloquially robbery just means stealing something but it actually has a specific definition of stealing from someone under the threat of violence. Somewhere between the employee calling security because they seemed think shoplifting was about to take place it got escalated to robbery. I don’t know if that’s because of the specific words the employee used, a security company hearing “robbery” will pass it on to the cops, and I’m not sure why no employee answered the phone when the cops tried to call them. That unto itself solidifies approaching the situation as a robbery in progress.

    All in all though, and I know it looks ugly, but that was handled pretty much perfectly by the cops in this case. They were responding to a robbery in progress, had no idea what was going on inside the premise or how many people could be in danger inside, safely cleared a suspect, cleared another cleanly, ascertained the situation and everyone went home. The question is why the communication went so bad between the employee, security company and then 911.

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      Old white guycapeo
      7/06/18 7:57pm

      So he thought they were going to shoplift? How does that get to armed robbery and potentially armed suspects?

      Since they have cover why not just have the man put his hands up and walk to them?

      Cops are real brave and forceful when shooting unarmed or legally armed men and women, or shooting people in the back, or throwing girls to the ground because they’re at a pool.

      But the second they face an unknown threat, they’re whining babies hiding behind their cars demanding law abiding citizens to crawl to them while facing the real threat one of these brave cops will just start shooting because he bends his elbow too much. 

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      capeoOld white guy
      7/06/18 10:23pm

      Okay, Old White Guy (which I doubt and am probably making a mistake taking you out of the grays), your first question was already explained. Whatever the employee said to the security company got conveyed to the cops as a robbery in progress. The police got a 911 call from the security company and when they tried to call the establishment and confirm nobody answered the phone which only solidifies a robbery in progress.

      To your second question, there was nobody there but one car, two cops, taking cover and having absolutely no idea who could be in could be in the premises, their numbers, how they were armed, or if they had civilians in danger, possibly leading to a hostage situation that your everyday beat cop is not equipped to handle. The crawl is a safe scenario to engage while delaying action, and it’s far from the first time it’s been used. It’s pretty much the go to if you don’t have control of the premise.

      The rest of your stuff, I’m not sure what your point is. It’s a conjecture that didn’t actually happen in this case. 

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    ForgotmydamnloginsopassmetheburnerMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 1:47pm

    They get off on this shit. And by “this shit” I mean terrorizing and emasculating black men. We already have to check our tone, yessir them, all sorts of extra shit just to show compliance. Crawl forward on his fingertips? Wtf? We in Saw now? I’m so sorry for his family who had to watch this. Since they had to, everyone should - all 2 minutes and change of a grown man reduced to crawling towards the cops by his fingertips for his life. 

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      pointingouttheobviousForgotmydamnloginsopassmetheburner
      7/06/18 1:51pm

      Wait wait. We don’t have all the information yet. What imaginary valuables were at risk? Were there any imaginary hostages to protect. Was the imaginary perpetrator armed with an imaginary weapon? 

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      lkeke35Forgotmydamnloginsopassmetheburner
      7/06/18 3:57pm

      I refused to watch the video because I know my emotional limitations, but it hurt me just to read about that crawling part.

      And I’d be shit out of luck , and just end up getting  shot, because my disabled ass (arthritic knees) can’t CRAWL anywhere. I certainly cannot do it on my fingertips.

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    HoustonDude2016Michael Harriot
    7/06/18 1:59pm

    “Thank God no one was hurt. Except for the psyche of Johnson”

    And the psyche of few hundred/thousand/million people who watch this and know, “that could be me, and they could just as easily shoot me”.

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      HoustonDude2016HoustonDude2016
      7/06/18 2:00pm

      And a few hundred/thousand/million White dudes would have said, “Fuck you”, and just sat there while the cops calmly walked up to handcuff him rather than shooting them for not complying.

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    myopicprophetMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 1:40pm

    “Thank God no one was hurt.

    Except for the psyche of Johnson”

    My exact thought every time I see one of these headlines.

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      Mortal Dictatamyopicprophet
      7/06/18 1:47pm

      Fucking hilarious ain’t it how those who’ll no doubt see this and will excuse it as “well he wasn’t hurt” will no doubt be the first to complain about “aggressive language” being used to describe certain voting choices..

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      SixSpeedSteveMortal Dictata
      7/06/18 1:54pm

      Same people who complain about political correctness but expect civility. 

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    EnochMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 2:14pm

    What?! This is their is hero worship.

    Sorry.

    So-called law enforcement officers, spending so much time in fuckery; so little time upholding law.

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      EnochEnoch
      7/06/18 2:16pm

      What?! This is their is hero worship.

      Sorry.

      So-called law enforcement officers, spending so much time on fuckery; so little time upholding law.

      There.

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      ModestMonkeyEnoch
      7/06/18 2:57pm

      So you’re of the opinion that officers should not respond to calls alerting them to a felony in process?

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    Tomi MarchantMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 2:02pm

    The inhumanity is nauseating.

    If you are black, there is no such thing as a good “law enforcement” officer.

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    OherewegoMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 2:52pm

    I get it. The way The Root gets readers is with hating white people and cops. Good for you for making this a better world.

    If this were a white guy, it wouldn’t even make the news. Maybe because while people already know that cops have guns. That’s the convo I had with my teenager - “Do what they say and keep your mouth shut. They have guns and a license to use them.” They got a call, someone reported a robbery, the robber could have had a gun, the cops didn’t know who was coming out the door, but maybe you think they should have psychic abilities and they absolutely should know who is coming out the door and remember that all people of color are really good people who would never commit a crime or use a gun. Golly, why isn’t that in the news more often?

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      chubsyubsyOherewego
      7/07/18 1:53am

      “If this were a white guy, it wouldn’t even make the news.”

      If this were a white guy it never would have happened because they wouldn’t have called the cops.

      If you’re white, you can set off the shoplifting alarms and they’ll still just wave and tell you to keep going, you’re fine.

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      Publish, me?Oherewego
      7/08/18 2:22pm

      Just stop.

      Reply
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    ThoseAreDigimonMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 3:14pm

    Though we have found no evidence that the employees acted improperly, we would take definitive action if we did.

    Reporting crimes that never happened is 100% proper. 

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    The Ghost of James Madison's Rage BonerMichael Harriot
    7/06/18 3:49pm

    This is the same town that elected Devin Nunes, in case you were wondering. 

    Reply