Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Just a "bad decision".

The Field Negro education series continues.

Let's head to South Carolina.

"CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A white South Carolina police officer was charged with murder Tuesday, hours after law enforcement officials viewed a dramatic video that appears to show him shooting a fleeing man several times in the back.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey announced the charges at a hastily called news conference in which he said City Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager made "a bad decision."

 
The shooting, which began as a traffic stop, occurred as Americans grapple with issues of trust between law enforcement and minority communities after a series of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police. They include the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten Island, New York. Both sparked protests nationwide.

In the Charleston case, authorities said the victim, 50-year-old Walter Lamer Scott, was shot after the officer already hit him with a stun gun.

"When you're wrong, you're wrong," Summey said. "When you make a bad decision, don't care if you're behind the shield or a citizen on the street, you have to live with that decision."

A video of the shooting released to news media outlets shows the officer firing several times at the man's back while he's running away. It then shows the man falling down, the officer slowly walking toward him, and the officer placing him in handcuffs. He then walks away as he talks on his radio, and Scott is not moving. The officer later is seen dropping something by Scott's side.

Slager's attorney dropped him as a client Tuesday, a day after he had released a statement saying the officer felt threatened and that Scott was trying to grab the officer's stun gun.

"This is a terrible tragedy that has impacted our community," said the attorney, David Aylor.
North Charleston Police said Slager was arrested by officers of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said the Federal Bureau of Investigation will also investigate the shooting.

At the news conference, North Charleston Police Chief Eddie Driggers confirmed the suspect was shot as he was running away from the officer.

"I have been around this police department a long time and all the officers on this force, the men and women, are like my children," he told reporters, his voice cracking with emotion. "So you tell me how a father would react seeing his child do something? I'll let you answer that yourself."

A woman who answered the phone at Scott's residence identified herself as the victim's niece but did not give her name. "That's great. That's great," she said, when told about the murder charge, then hung up.

North Charleston is South Carolina's third-largest city and for years battled back from an economic slump caused by the closing of the Charleston Naval Base on the city's waterfront in the mid-1990s.
But now the city has bounced back in a big way, largely in part to the huge investment by Boeing, which has a 787 aircraft manufacturing plant in the city and employs about 7,500 people in South Carolina, most of them in North Charleston.

The shooting occurred as heightened scrutiny is being placed on police officer shootings, particularly those that involve white officers and unarmed black suspects. A grand jury declined to indict Ferguson, Missouri, officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown last August, leading to nationwide protests.

In a separate case in South Carolina, a white police officer who shot a 68-year-old black man to death last year in his driveway was charged Tuesday with a felony: discharging a gun into an occupied vehicle. A prosecutor previously tried to indict North Augusta officer Justin Craven on a manslaughter charge in the February 2014 death of Ernest Satterwhite. But a grand jury instead chose misconduct in office, which is a far lesser charge.

Craven chased Satterwhite for 9 miles beyond city limits to the man's driveway in Edgefield County. After Satterwhite parked, the officer repeatedly fired through the driver-side door, prosecutors said. The 25-year-old officer faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the gun charge." [Source]

That's what we are calling murder these days? "A bad decision"? Wow.

Anyway, we will just keep writing and educating from this end. Hopefully everyone is taking note.


47 comments:

  1. To quote myself from the last thread, LOL::

    Yīshēng said...

    Well looks like a Whuteemoo cop in SC has FINALLY been charged with murder after shooting a BM in the back as he was fleeing to avoid an arrest for back child support. And after he shot the man, cuffed him with his head face down in the dirt, Whuteemoo attempted to plant a taser as evidence the shooting was justified.

    1 Whuteemoo down, thousands more to go......

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  2. Limpbaugh10:25 PM

    What makes me think the cop would have gotten away with it if it wasn't video taped? At least they are charging him with murder this time.

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  3. Anonymous10:40 PM

    Has Murder By Cop become the 21st century form of lynching?

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  4. Anonymous10:48 PM

    Crazy.

    This one is even worse than the Tamir Rice shooting.

    In most of these cop-involved shootings, I can at least see how the cop made the decision to shoot, even if his judgment was terribly faulty.

    In Officer Slager's case, I can't begin to understand what he was thinking. This is one sick, disturbed dude. You have to wonder if his colleagues had any idea he was on the verge of flipping out like this before it happened. This is, indeed, a flat-out murder.

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  5. I flew with a guy who was a former cop, a real winner. They really need to screen these people better. For the record he really shouldn't be a pilot either IMHO.

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  6. Also, if you get a chance check out DeWayne Wickham's article in today's USA Today. Real good writeup about a salon in Harlem. I really want to go to one of these. Not a big fan of NYC but this would get me out.

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  7. I see the resident Whuteemoos are hiding with this post.

    Cowards!!

    You know PX, with what happened in Europe, I'd NEVER leave the cockpit.

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  8. Anonymous11:42 PM

    This is thoroughly disgusting. To watch that video and see that poor man gunned down and killed for a broken tail light!! A broken tail light of all things!!! He was doing nothing wrong! He emptied his gun on him! For a freakin broken light stop!!!!!!!

    I swear it looked like my grandma would tell me her ancestors went through as slaves. I swear I lived it!!!

    What the hell is going on??? Disgusting!!!












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  9. Anonymous12:06 AM

    "This is thoroughly disgusting. To watch that video and see that poor man gunned down and killed for a broken tail light!!"

    Apparently, it wasn't only about a tail light. The guy had an arrest warrant for failure to pay child support, which is why he took off running from the officer, rather than sticking around for the officer to write him a ticket for the tail light.

    Still, it's not like that in any way justifies the officer shooting him in the back. Officers aren't allowed to use deadly force on a fleeing suspect unless he “poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.” Owing back child support hardly made him a lethal threat to the general public.

    Bona fide psycho cop.

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  10. Anonymous12:11 AM

    Anonymous Limpbaugh said...
    What makes me think the cop would have gotten away with it if it wasn't video taped? At least they are charging him with murder this time.

    10:25 PM
    ----------
    Well, a lot of cops were caught on video tape beating the hell out of Rodney King, and they got off. All all-White jury found those cops "not guilty".

    So yeah, I can understand how you feel about dirty ass cops getting away with murder because there was no video tape to prove the "innocence" of bm.

    Whites automatically assume a bm is guilty. It's been that way for centuries.

    I still don't believe the cop will be charged with murder and serve time.

    Hell, in Oakland, a cop shot a bm in the back while he was co-operating with the police. Guess how much time he spent in jail? ...less than two years!

    They frame innocent bm and send them to prison for decades. Yep, this is all about being Black. That's how Whites 'justify' the evil they do.

    BTW, have you noticed that Bill, Kinky and Josh are like crickets? That's a good sign for Whites. It shows they have a vague sense of conscience.



    So yeah, even with video

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  11. Anonymous12:29 AM

    "Hell, in Oakland, a cop shot a bm in the back while he was co-operating with the police. Guess how much time he spent in jail? ...less than two years!"

    The cop in the shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland claimed he'd meant to Tase Grant and accidentally drew the wrong weapon. And some of the video of the event supported at least the possibility that that claim was true. That's why he only served two years -- it was ruled an accident.

    (Also, Grant was NOT cooperating with police. He was resisting being cuffed at the time he was shot. I'm not saying that means he deserved to die, but those are the facts.)

    It's hard to see how Officer Slager could beat a murder rap in this case in South Carolina, unless he can pull off a Twinkie defense and convince a jury he's legally insane. He clearly killed this guy intentionally and without any justification at all.

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  12. Anonymous1:10 AM

    Does anyone think police abuse of Blacks and White support of that abuse will ever change? I don't think so.

    Whites see all Blacks as guilty for just existing. It's been that way since slavery. How these people can live with themselves under a Christian umbrella is beyond me.

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  13. Anonymous1:22 AM

    "That's what we are calling murder these days? "A bad decision"? Wow."

    Well, Whites have their own PC labels for Whites. For Blacks, however, they call murder for what it is.

    That seems fair enough when it comes to murder...Negroes murder, but Whites make 'bad decisions.' It makes good pc sense.

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  14. Seems to me the "bad decision" was hiring this cop on in the first place.

    I don't understand how some of these people make it on to the force to begin with. An officer who just unleashes murder on a fleeing suspect with back-shooting is undoubtedly not without notice in a department. I doubt those types can exist without incident in perfect accord with the law prior to a sudden meltdown.

    On a personal level, I laugh at folks who continue to bring up Brown-Wilson to strengthen their case of police shooting unarmed people. Cases like these, where the victim obviously wasn't trying to murder the officer, make the case strongly and unequivocally that some police are just fucking murderers. Using the case of a cop who was in legitimate fear after having been attacked by an extremely large man, well, suffice to say that the only reason that one's still talked about is because the dubya in "Wilson" is white, and B in Brown is for, well, brown.

    I don't know how it works everywhere, but here in Northern VA, our town police and sheriffs have different units for different things. E.g. the patrolmen (or patrolpeople for the PC butthurt crowd) deal with things like traffic violations and emergency calls. Then detectives handle actual crime scenes. The task force police handle drugs. Etc. In no way do I think America should adopt some Euro nations' stance and leave police unarmed, but giving patrolmen authorization to only use non-lethal in traffic stops seems like a good compromise to me. If it's a domestic call or a response to a crime in progress, sure, strap on the glock. For anything like traffic stops, stick to the non-lethal weapons.

    As for citizens, I hope it becomes widespread what some are doing with those unconstitutional traffic DUI stops. Hold up a sign in the window, "I'm not rolling my window down. I'm not stepping out of the vehicle. I want my lawyer." while showing their license and registration through the glass.

    And, for fuck's sake, child support! It fucking figures. When's the last time anyone has ever heard of a woman showing ass and elbows for a child support beef? The overwhelming majority of the time, it's the man not only on the hook for it, but whose life is fucking ruined because of it. In America, we basically treat men--especially black men--like rapists who forced women to bear progeny before abandoning said progeny. So we hold the fellas accountable with legit prison time hanging over their heads, while for the women we simply continue to prop them up, call them "queens" and allow females to exist in America under a completely different set of rules.

    Folks will run around shouting how it's white men who are privileged in America. Yeah, tell that to the millions who are homeless, in jail, getting hurt and dying doing dangerous work, etc. Women are the only privileged class in America. And while some of it is justified, the family court system we have needs to change yesterday.

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  16. A black man not supporting his chillins?


    That's unheard of!


    What ever happen to HANDS UP! DON'T SHOOT!!!?

    His family is going to be suing the po-po. Hopefully, they will support his chillins and not spend all the money on flat screens, weaves and crack...

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  17. OptimusPrime8:17 AM

    Im like JZ,Brett Favre coming out of retirement on this one. Good Job Field & Josh [for a reasonable solution]

    I'm reasonable. I also own every Public Enemy record. This poor guy is not Mike Brown under the shadow of criminality, this is an everyday black man who had a less than perfect record. This was not a bad decision, this was an execution. I expect no less for the officer. This was a depraved deliberate hate crime. If he is not executed, other bad apple officers are sent the wrong signal.

    Walter Scott's life mattered.

    I pray that the lawsuit provides an opportunity for his loved ones to move forward beyond this tragedy. I pray that the victims and officer's children are not infected with hate for generations to come.

    I respect the Northern VA approach, body cameras on ALL law enforcement. Defective camera in a shooting? Presumed guilty.

    Applaud the family! No looting! No cartoonlike 'black' leaders! Just a heartbroken family, their lawyers, SLED leadership, FBI and reasonable local community.

    A more perfect union. We demand it.

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  18. Quote: Republicans Freeing blahblahfucking blah

    "His family is going to be suing the po-po. Hopefully, they will support his chillins and not spend all the money on flat screens, weaves and crack..."

    Hi!!!, This is just little old TPC here, just popping in to remind you that you are a grade A cunt.

    I have no doubt that people remind you of this on a daily basis (chiefly your wife I should imagine), but it's always good to be reminded of such things.

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  19. Anonymous11:51 AM

    Yo mama.......

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  20. The Field Negro said...
    A grand jury declined to indict Ferguson, Missouri, officer Darren Wilson


    As a lawyer, do you believe there was enough evidence to charge wilson with murder?

    If you believe the evidence supported charging darren wilson, why do you believe Eric Holder and the DOJ also "declined" to charge wilson.

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  21. Did Field Negro do some of that dumbocrat selective editing?

    Also from the [Source] that Field Negro didn't copy/paste.

    Scott may have tried to run from the officer because he owed child support, which can get someone sent to jail in South Carolina until they pay it back, Stewart said.

    Once again the government made laws for the police to enforce. Just like NY making Eric Garner a criminal for selling loosies.


    Keep voting for dumbocrats if you believe we need more laws for the police to enforce.

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  22. My favorite blogger (other than Field) weighs in on this too. The last paragraph is the most critical one.

    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a34212/the-south-carolina-police-shooting/

    Please wake me when this goddam nightmare is over.

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  23. "Keep voting for dumbocrats if you believe we need more laws for the police to enforce."

    Well I can't speak for all you Septics obviously, but a law about not shooting unarmed men in the back would be kind of useful right now.

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  24. Anonymous1:44 PM

    I hope someone is looking out for the welfare of the person who captured the shooting of Mr. Scott.

    Remember what happened to the young man who captured Eric Gardner's killing!

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  25. A guy supporting the Republicans makes a racist post. I'm shocked.

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  26. Anonymous2:12 PM

    Dear Mr Field, as a white writer I found it interesting and very realistically true how this story would have been written in the news IF there had been NO video as proof...Enjoy....

    Also, I am sure Josh, Bill and FOX NEWS would disagree:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/08/walter-scott-shooting-without-video_n_7024404.html

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  27. Anonymous2:26 PM

    Wow, anon, that story is pretty much like all of the cop shootings of bm over the decades where there was no video. It makes me wonder about those cops in the stories whether they were on the 'level' or not?

    There are so many bad racist cops today that a bm chances of not being murdered by a white cop is pretty slim.

    Not only today, but I am certain many cops DID murder bm in the past and got away with it.

    This is quite depressing. I live in fear of the police and the corrupt justice system built by Whites every day.

    To be a bm in America is to live in hyper-vigilance and to stay on high alert about unlawful policemen who want to kill me.

    It is to live a life of trauma, fear and degradation in a white hostile society.

    dpressed negro

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  28. Anonymous4:17 PM

    PilotX:Freeing slaves from the Republican plantation since the 70's said...

    A guy supporting the Republicans makes a racist post. I'm shocked.

    A guy who supports the Democrats cries RACIST!!!!

    I'm shocked....

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  29. "A guy who supports the Democrats cries RACIST!!!!"

    Neo-Nazi imbecile criticises people who point out obvious racism.

    I'm shocked...

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  30. Limpbaugh6:49 PM

    It is my opinion that this shooting was the same as the Michael Brown shooting, except there was a video this time. Eric Holder disagrees. But something that is a fact is that house negro Eric Holder defended war criminal Donald Rumsfeld against torture charges. I personally don't care about a few terrorists being tortured, but get the people who lied us into war and caused a million deaths, any way you can. They got Al Capone on tax evasion. Obama/Goldman Sachs is another house negro. Prosecute him for protecting war criminals. You people will vote for Hitler when he is the lesser of two evils. Wake up!

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  31. Well anon don't you think Mr. Republican's post is a bit racist? Then again to most Repubs that's just SOP.

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  32. Ya think repubs just forgot to poast as anon or does he just assume we know Republicans are cool with being bigots?

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  33. Anonymous9:01 PM

    Limpbaugh said...
    "It is my opinion that this shooting was the same as the Michael Brown shooting, except there was a video this time."

    Yes, I agree. Of course, you won't hear about the similarities without the video because Whites like Josh want to believe Michael Brown deserved to die.

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  34. Anonymous9:34 PM

    I could less about the Mayor of North Charleston or the Republican Governor of South Carolina condemning the shooting of Walter Scott. Rather, this particular question should be asked: Would the Mayor and the Governor had condemn this officer had it not been for the video surfacing?

    Personally, and in my honest opinion, ... absent the video, these official in all likelihood, would've opined the same old tired script involving police shooting of an unarmed black man by making comments such as:
    He made a furtive or sudden move
    He placed his hands in his pocket or waistband
    He reached for my gun or taser
    He wasn't cooperating

    In other words, it would've been Ferguson v2.0. These so-called officials were literally forced to voice their opinion and condemn this piece of sh$t cop. I keep wondering if it would've been different if not for the video footage.

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  35. "because Whites like Josh want to believe Michael Brown deserved to die."

    Get off your fucking sophist horse, moron.

    "Deserve" has nothing to do with it.

    But you don't attack a motherfucker with a badge and a gun. I don't care how loudly you wanna smack your tin cup against the prison bars and moan how "Nobody knows..."

    There are things in life you don't fucking do. You don't fuck with a pit bull you don't know. You don't kick a beehive. You don't let your mouth write checks your ass can't cash. And we can go on here for a long fucking time. Near the top of that list should be: You don't assault a motherfucker with a gun!

    So if you sophists want ever to make an actual difference in these fucking communities, you could start by getting over the demonstrable lies like "hands up, don't shoot" and start imparting in children's brains a little bit of wisdom like, "don't attack police officers."

    ....

    "...but a law about not shooting unarmed men in the back would be kind of useful right now"

    Oh, yeah. That's a law that would magically stop it! Like listing a school as a gun-free zone.

    "Hey, it's against the law to bring that rifle in here. Don't you know this is a gun-free zo..."

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  36. Anonymous9:48 PM

    There are things in life you don't fucking do. But you don't attack a motherfucker with a badge and a gun - Josh the Posh

    Get the EFF outta here Josh the Posh! You do know that it's against the law to shoot a fleeing and unarmed man in the back, ... DON'T YOU> You do realize that if someone is fleeing from you, he's no longer a threat, ... DON'T YOU? You EFFing similac deficient cretin!

    Nat Turner

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  37. "You do know that it's against the law to shoot a fleeing and unarmed man in the back, ... DON'T YOU> You do realize that if someone is fleeing from you, he's no longer a threat..."

    Why are you anonymous trolls so fucking demonstrably stupid?

    I mean, it's not like this is anyone's opinion; all one need do is scroll up and read and it can plainly be shown how fucking retarded you morons are.

    I clearly fucking said in my comment above: "Cases like these, where the victim obviously wasn't trying to murder the officer, make the case strongly and unequivocally that some police are just fucking murderers."

    You morons are so hell-bent on creating your own narrative that you don't even pay the fuck attention to what I write anyway. You skim through it like flipping through the cable menu, quote-mining the shit you think can be used to bolster your argument, but all you fucking morons do is prove habitually how stupid you are.

    The best thing you fucking morons can do, because everyone knows y'all can't stop posting, is to delete these comments that prove just how fucking stupid you are.

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  38. So on that basis are you and Bill are going to delete all of yours?

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    Replies
    1. Gotta admit, he threw a big fat fastball right down the middle. You HAD to hit it out of the park. Ha!

      Delete
  39. Oh, my sides!

    I wondered when you'd be responding again. Typically, when you get a hare up your arse, I'll find a response to last week's post in Field's latest post. But, for our most recent exchange, I guess even you haven't been able to yet find a way to explain logically how I'm responsible for proving another person's claims. So while I did expect you to paste some fucked-up, twisted yarn explaining shit away, like you love doing with the definition of words, I can't say I'm surprised over the silence.

    But silence isn't in your nature. You motherfuckers are obsessed with taking jabs at me. So, at the first opening, here are you. I wouldn't be surprised in the least to learn that you were one of the anon trolls. I already know Pilot's one. The others, I have no clue -- but have my suspicions.


    What's the O/U on times you've reread that one-liner and chuckled at it? I got $20 on +12.

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  40. Can't be a large field you're playing on if that's "out of the park." Y'all are stuck on the tee-ball field. 100-feet to dead center.

    And just by the bye: If I were still in my youth, ain't a blogger here what could hit my fastball. I might still break 85 on a good day, but back in the day I had a rifle. I'd whiff the lot of you on three straight all day long.

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  41. Back in my day I hit .500 off 100 mph pitching. 40 plus homers a year. In fact had I not decided to become a pilot I'd either be the starting point guard for the Wizards or second baseman for the Dodgers. It's true, it really is I swear.

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  42. I played half a season for the AA collegiate league Cardinals in northern VA before tearing up my knee for the third time before I hit 20. I only had enough mustard in the cannon for 95, 97 if I let it go wild. But I'd smoke a cutter through low and inside and let you take it yard around the bad side of the foul pole, and then throw you a 12 to 6 breaker that would make you pull a back muscle just following it. Then, as you're standing there angry, choking up on the bat and sure that the next swing is the revenge, I'm coming high with a heavy four-seamer at eye level, and like Al Bundy turning around and saying, "STRIKE!" as the ball reaches the pins, I'll have my glove up ready to get the ball back after you whiff.

    As the Soup Nazi might say: Next!

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  43. But reading over this again, I have to question the decision of someone who claims to bat better than Ted fucking Williams, Wade Boggs and Joey D, not going that route.

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  44. Soup Nazi10:44 PM

    Or as the soup Nazi would say:
    "No soup for you!" :)

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  45. Anonymous8:48 PM

    Ooh Yeezusss!x(

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  46. That's what we are calling murder these days? "A bad decision"? Wow.

    Thank you brother Field Negro for calling it the way it is!

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