A few months ago cops bust into the house of a 80+ year old woman. She was selling drugs out of her home and when the cops came in she shot at them. The cops fired back and killed her. Now the entire black population of Georgia seems to be out and calling this a hate crime. How could it be a hate crime.. is it because she was black or what? She fired at a cop and they fired back. It makes perfect sense. Anyone would have done the same thing if they were the ones being fired upon. The Atlanta police department had to fire the 3 cops involved, an internal investigation is underway, and I believe two of the cops have already had punishment handed down in court. It seems to me that this was just a way for the black community to have the spot light put on them. It's such crap to say that the cops went into the house planning on killing the old woman. I mean she fired a frickin gun at them for petes sake. I just don't understand why people have to make such a big deal out of something so small. It's unfortunate the woman died, but she was doing something illegal and that's what happened. This needs to stop, the Police are here to help us. Why do people have to cause problems for them.
-Matt
Do you have linkage to the story so I can read it?
"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?" George Elliot
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle
Link would be nice...like I said in the other blog, people are just unhappy because she was black. Being black compensates for selling/making illegal drugs I guess...
"Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays." ~George Balanchine
*Tatiana Romanov
Why did cops kill a 92-year-old woman?
Police burst into Kathryn Johnston's Atlanta home last fall using a no-knock warrant they obtained by lying to a judge about drug activity there, according to prosecutors.
Afterward, when they realized their mistake, the officers tried to cover their tracks, and one has admitted planting drugs in the house and coaxing a street-level informant to go along with their story, according to court papers.
According to the plea agreements for two of the officers involved, police working on a tip from a suspected drug dealer falsely claimed that a secret police informant — Alex White — had witnessed a drug deal at Johnston's home so that they could get a no-knock warrant.
In the Nov. 21 raid, plainclothes narcotics officers burst into Johnston's house unannounced. Johnston fired one errant shot at the intruders, hitting no one, and the officers responded with 39 shots, five or six of which struck her.
After searching the home and finding no drugs, the officers tried to cover up the mistake, prosecutors said. One officer handcuffed the dying woman and planted three bags of marijuana in the basement of her house. He then called White and told him to pretend he had bought crack cocaine at the house, court papers say.
Two officers involved in the raid have pleaded guilty to manslaughter, violation of oath and other charges and are awaiting sentencing. A third officer still faces charges.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/2412
I think it is disgusting to witness the way that people are continuing to slander this woman even AFTER it has been definitively established that she was innocent and in fact the victim in this case.
Was this a "hate crime?" I don't know. I don't generally like hate crime laws. But I think it isn't difficult to argue that if this had been a 92-year-old white woman living in the wealthy suburb of Buckhead the response of the department would have been significantly less dismissive and obstructive to the investigation.
percivale
-------------------------
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp July 30, 1816
To answer your quesion, the alternative could be that the community knows something that the outsiders don't know. For example, being an upper classmen in high school or college allows a person to know the "in's and outs" of the community. This can be related to the community of the old woman.
However, I feel that the community is saying this because she was an old woman. Not everyday an elderly person is caught and shot down for selling drugs. Hm...hate crime. I wonder if the community would preach "hate crime" if the person shot down was younger and fit the typical drug dealer persona.
...why isn't there more outrage in the white community over two cops who lied to get a warrant, killed an innocent citizen, and then planted drugs in an attempt to cover up their other crimes.
percivale
-------------------------
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp July 30, 1816