The Monroe Bird story.

So I saw the following story over at Daily Kos, and I thought to myself that it was worth sharing. (h/t to my twitter fam, Shaun King.)

It's important,  because although it's one incident in Oklahoma, I think it speaks to a much larger problem plaguing our society.

"It's no accident that Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, and Akai Gurley are dead.

The men who shot and killed them showed them absolutely no compassion after they were fatally wounded. Officer Timothy Loehmann stood and watched 12-year-old Tamir Rice struggle to live and offered him no aid whatsoever. Officer Peter Liang literally called and texted his union reps and stepped over the body of Akai Gurley instead of offering him assistance after shooting him in the stairwell of his own apartment building. You won't see any pictures of Officer Darren Wilson checking the pulse of Mike Brown. Eric Garner, completely unconscious on a Staten Island sidewalk, was virtually ignored by officers who performed no CPR. Baltimore police expressed zero concern for the well-being of Freddie Gray.

In many ways, these dead boys and men are much less dangerous to those who killed them than they would be alive. They can't give their side of the story. We'll never again hear from Tamir Rice or Akai Gurley or Freddie Gray.

As George Zimmerman, the Florida asshole/neighborhood watch volunteer who racially profiled, chased, confronted, and shot teenager Trayvon Martin in his own neighborhood, continues to abuse women and pile up mugshots all over Florida, we'll never be able to hear from Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman made sure of it.

The many mugshots of George Zimmerman. But a case with a living survivor shot by an overzealous wannabe cop in his own neighborhood is out there, a case with many parallels to the killing of Trayvon Martin, and his story needs to be told.

 

On February 4, sitting in his own car in his own neighborhood, talking to a female passenger, Monroe Bird was shot in the neck by a security guard, Ricky Stone, a 52-year-old white man. The bullet pierced the C3 vertebrae in his neck. Standing 6 feet, 8 inches, Bird, a gifted athlete, is now unable to move his arms or legs and relies on a ventilator to breathe. Beloved by his family and friends, Monroe had a larger-than-life personality and was really a model citizen. His parents pastor a church outside of Tulsa, Okla., and actually serve on the city council of their hometown.
Below we will dig into exactly how this happened and identify some very troubling aspects of the story.

1. The security guard who shot Bird possessed marijuana at the time of the shooting. He told the Tulsa police that he hadn't smoked it in a few weeks, and they didn't even give him a citation. This is the definition of white privilege. In Oklahoma, possession of marijuana is an automatic misdemeanor. Why was Ricky Stone not cited?

Mind you, Tulsa was quick to test Eric Harris for drugs after they killed him and then released the results widely—even though he never acted violently toward officers.

2. The security guard went to the tired, age-old excuse and claimed that he saw Bird reach into his glove compartment. According to the police report, no weapons were found in or near the car, and no items that even seemed to belong in the glove compartment were found out or about in the car. Yet, in a hurry to leave, we are expected to believe that Bird randomly fidgeted in the glove compartment just for the hell of it.

3. The security guard claimed he thought Monroe and his female passenger were having sex in the car and that he only approached them because of this.
She's white. Bird is black.

Both she and Bird have adamantly denied any such thing was happening and denied it when the security guard confronted them. What role did race play in this confrontation?

The security guard has claimed that Bird, who has no criminal record, attempted to run him over and basically kill him there on the spot—a preposterous claim—and that is when the guard says he began firing his weapon into the car.

Both the female passenger and Bird denied the guard's account and stated that they were driving away when Stone began recklessly firing his gun into the car.

4. The security guard who shot Bird worked for Benjy D. Smith, who owns Smith & Son Security Company. This important to know because Smith is a reserve deputy for the same Tulsa Sheriff's Office that is currently under national scrutiny for its unethical practices with Reserve Deputy Bob Bates, who shot and killed Eric Harris earlier this year.

5. Here is where we get a real glimpse of what life could perhaps have been like for Trayvon and his family, had he survived the gunshot wound from George Zimmerman.

Even though Bird has not been charged with a crime of any kind, his insurance company has denied him coverage because of comments made by the district attorney, who claim the entire ordeal was Bird's fault and not the fault of the security guard who fired his gun into the car.

Because of this, Bird, who needs 24/7 care and attention, is going to be sent home and denied rehabilitative care. Because his bed and equipment are too big for his bedroom, he will have to live in the living room of his family's home while his mother cares for him. The insurance company will not even cover home nursing care and has advised that the family simply call 911 if they need help. Mind you, Bird is on a breathing machine and is a quadriplegic." [Source]


I know that there are other big news stories that I could be blogging about: The Iraq nuke deal, NASA doing a fly-by of Pluto, and Donald Trump leading the GOP  field. But you already knew about all of these things.

Now, at least, you will learn about Monroe Bird as well.

*Pic from twitter.