Shootings, beatings, and unanswered questions.

There was yet another shooting in the St. Louis area of a young black male by a white police officer. Shades of Ferguson?


According to the police it is not.


The police claim that the man fired at the officer and had a weapon, but the young man's family says that all he had was a sandwich.


So let's take a look at this story:


"Police cordoned off a major street in the largely African-American area as demonstrators denounced police and smashed windows on several police cars.
Some in the crowd shouted "Hands up, don't shoot," referring to the fatal shooting in August of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in the suburb of Ferguson, about 16 miles away.


Some social media postings urged residents of Ferguson to come to St. Louis to join the protest in the Shaw neighborhood, police said.


Unlike the Ferguson protests, demonstrators did not attack or damage businesses and the police did not try to confront the demonstrators, move them off the street or use riot gear.


Police Chief Sam Dotson, of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters that the police showed a "tremendous amount of restraint" despite the damage to police cars.


"We will do everything we can to support everybody's right to protest and allow their voices to be heard as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights," Dotson said.


Dotson did not identify the victim but said he "was no stranger to law enforcement." He was identified by relatives as Vonderrit Myers Jr., 18.
At the time of the shooting, Myers was wearing an ankle bracelet ordered by a court as a condition of bail in a previous gun case, according to his lawyer and police, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.


According to the newspaper, Myers was to go on trial in November on charges of unlawful use of a weapon and resisting arrest. The case, according to court documents, involved a high-speed car chase and crash. Myers, who had been a passenger, ran from police and allegedly tossed a .380-caliber pistol in a sewage drain, where it was recovered by police.


The police chief said the shooting in Shaw unfolded after a 32-year-old officer, working off-duty for a private security firm, confronted three black teens who fled as he drove by.


After a chase on foot, one of the teens approached the officer "in an aggressive manner," Dotson said, and refused to stop or surrender.


The two got into a "physical alteration" that pulled off the suspect's gray-hooded sweater. As the teenager ran away, grabbing at his waist, Dotson said, the officer felt that the teenager was carry a firearm.


Dotson said, however, that the unidentified officer, a six-year veteran of the St. Louis police force, did not open fire because "he wanted to be certain it was a gun."


At one point, he said, the suspect allegedly turned and "pointed the gun at the officer and fired at least three rounds at the officer." He said the suspect tried to continue firing, but his gun jammed.


The officer, who was wearing a city police uniform, responded by firing at least 17 rounds at the suspect, killing him. The officer was not injured.


Dotson said a 9mm Ruger handgun, allegedly belonging to the suspect, was recovered at the scene and a forensics search located three projectiles that had been fired at the officer.


"An investigation will decide if the officer's behavior was appropriate," the police chief told reporters.


The victim's mother, Syreeta Myers, told the Associated Press by phone Thursday that her son wasn't armed, as police contend. She said he was holding a sandwich when he was killed, not a gun.


"Police lie. They lied about Michael Brown, too," she said.


More than 20 black leaders gathered for a news conference Thursday outside police headquarters and questioned why the officer approached Myers in the first place. "This here was racial profiling turned deadly," state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed said.


St. Louis Alderman Antonio French of the 21st Ward posted on Twitter that Syreeta Myers' mother came to the scene of the shooting and fainted. "An ambulance came to attend to her," French tweeted. "There is nothing like a mother's pain at the loss of a child." [Source]


I will wait for more facts to come out before I pass judgment one way or the other about this story.


Sadly, this is where we are in this country. When you go shooting unarmed teenagers or teenagers holding a bag of Skittles, you are going to get the "side-eye" when you shoot and kill a teen you claim was armed. 


Finally, those cops up in New York were caught on tape again acting in a very unprofessional thug like manner.


This time they knocked out a teenager for having what appears to be the good collie weed on his person.
 
"A police officer apparently knocked out a Clinton Hill teen with one blow after stopping him for smoking a cigarette, hitting him so hard he now has neurological problems, according to the boy’s family.


Lawyers for Marcel Hamer say he was walking home from school down Gates Avenue with friends near Waverly Avenue around 3:30 pm on June 4, when the plainclothes cop jumped out of a blue van and accused him of smoking marijuana. He and his friends started to run, then stopped, Hamer told a registered nurse at Brooklyn Hospital Center. The cop caught up to him, pushed him to the ground, and Hamer hit his left arm on a planter rail, after which he couldn’t move it, he said, according to medical records.


A video of the incident picks up with Hamer lying in the gutter, pleading with the officer to lay off as the cop holds him by the right hand, which according to Hamer’s account in medical records is handcuffed. The undercover orders, “Turn around.”


“Mister, it was just a cigarette, sir,” Hamer says, without rolling over.


Teens, apparently friends of Hamer’s, hover nearby and the officer turns to one, still holding Hamer, and threatens him.


“Do you wanna get f----- up?” the cop says." [Video tape]


Mission accomplished, officer, you did f--- him up.


But hey, it could have been worse, at least young Mr. Hamer didn't get assaulted in his own home.


But Field, these cops were black, what do you say about that?


It makes no difference. In fact, it makes it even more egregious; they should know better.


This just goes to show you that the roots of the house run deep.