Alton Sterling and what we know so far. Let's be objective.

People are quick to jump on bandwagons concerning these matters before even hearing the details, so it's worth trying to share some of the important information that is available before jumping to conclusions. This is what we know so far:

- A tip to the police alleged a man outside a convenience store was brandishing a firearm and threatening people.

- At the scene, the police confronted Sterling (who was the suspect). He did not comply with the officers, resisted, was tased, and eventually tackled. We see this last part in the video.

- While on the floor, one of the offers shouts "he's got a gun." (A gun was later retrieved from the scene).

- Although Sterling was pinned, his hands were not visible to the camera(s), and it can't be seen whether both of his arms were fully restrained.

- A couple of seconds after the officer calls out the gun, several shots are fired. Again, the camera's view of Sterling isn't particularly clear at this moment.

We must concede it is possible he wriggled a hand free and got hold of his gun, which would have been out of view. In which case shooting him may have been justified. It isn't 100% clear at this point. We should reserve judgement until we have more information, and refrain from once again making assumptions based on popular conceptions about black men being shot by police.

I saw a picture and his hands were empty.

Care to share?

Why bother with trying to hire a contract killer these days ?

Just call the cops on someone, claiming they’ve got a gun.

The police use black males for target practice. Always have. It’s just that now we have videos and social media showing it as it happens. And they will always get away and if you think this bad you ain’t seen NOTHING if the white majority put dictator Trump in office.

The video cameras were disabled. One must assume intentionally, since there were two body cameras, and both of them just happened to be out of action. The attempt to suppress evidence means that everything the officers say about what happened must initially be assumed to be a lie.

Police have been cleared of charges through footage from their cameras. These two evidently expected and were preparing to do something they knew was wrong, so they disabled their cameras.

But I have to laugh at how white people like yourself try and come on this "Voice of Reason" mantra.

Stop pretending that you wait around for all the evidence before coming up with some general conclusions about the guilt or innocence of criminal suspects. You don’t. You jump the gun, and the direction in which you jump relates to the white supremacist that you have.

Alton Sterling was no angel by any means. But lets take a trip down memory lane and list some white americans who brandished/fired their guns at police officers and civilians, yet lived to tell the tale.

[list of stories where white people weren't killed]

Whichever website you lifted those from probably hasn't bothered to list any occurences where armed black people weren't shot either. In fact, less black people are shot by the police each year than white. This is despite accounting for about half the violent crime rate (both suspects and arrests) and living in more dangerous and intensively policed areas on average.

Whichever website you lifted those from probably hasn't bothered to list any occurences where armed black people weren't shot either. In fact, less black people are shot by the police each year than white. This is despite accounting for about half the violent crime rate (both suspects and arrests) and living in more dangerous and intensively policed areas on average.

I challenge you to find ONE video an armed black man shooting and aiming at police and still be taken into custody alive.

I'll wait.

True, out of the 1146 people killed last year, 581 were white, and 306 were black. So, 50% were white, and 26% were black. BUT, this is wildly out of proportion with the rest of the population. Around 77% of the population is white and around 12% is black. If the fatal police shootings were not racist, were based purely on the threat of the situation, the percentages should be similar, but they aren't.

You may argue that black people are more likely to commit crime, because of other factors, such as social class, but 25% of the black people fatally shot by police were unarmed. Only 17% of the white people shot were unarmed. So there is evidence of institutional racism here.

That's a very specific search I'm not even sure how to google, but I found this story from yesterday where an armed black man who had a stand-off with police was taken into custody: Armed man at Cape Coral gas station ends up in canal, cuffs

And this story from about two weeks ago: Heavily Armed Man Arrested On Sarasota Street

That was from a quick google search. Regardless, we need statistics of armed black men arrested vs armed white men arrested; no individual stories we find on the news.

A booking photo shows a wet Wallie Julien of Cape Coral arrested on charges of carrying a concealed firearm and resisting police without violence Tuesday.

Did you not read the articles

Source 1:



Source 2:

No mention of him shooting or drawing weapons on officers on officers.

The fact that you failed this very VERY simple task is quite telling.

Your excuse is that "oh just because they nobody reported it doesn't mean it doesn't happen", as if the DailyMail doesn't collect and publish every little misdemeanour a black man commits. Get a grip.

It's hard to draw meaningful statistics from cases where unarmed people were killed. There were only 60 unarmed people killed by police in total last year - that's a very small sample size (26 were black). It's hard to draw meaningful conclusions from a 7% difference on such a small number of people compared to total shootings and the overall US population, particularly when black and white populations are not evenly distributed socioeconomically or geographically. It's apples to oranges.

As I said, it's a very specific search I don't know how to google (unless you cheat and have a website do it for you). I don't have the patience to sift through every story on the internet just for you. Regardless, he was armed, the police saw he was armed, and they didn't shoot him. You're nitpicking.

[Inserts sad, snarky gif here]

It does not matter if he was holding a gun or not. It does not matter if he did not comply with officers. None of that justifies the shooting by the police. Alleged criminals should not be shot by the police. If he was holding a gun, he should have been de-armed safely.

Many other police forces around the world manage to keep a control of (alleged) criminals, in England and Wales, there have been 60 fatal police shootings in the past 26 years (source). In Texas, there were 112 fatal police shootings last year alone. (source) Texas' population is around half of England and Wales.

The whole of the US had 1146 fatal police shootings last year, 229 of those were unarmed.

The whole of the US has had 561 fatal police shootings this year, 82 of those were unarmed.

Police shouldn't have guns.

In the need of them, police forces in the UK have AFO's, or authorised firearms officers, who have been extremely well trained with the use of firearms, even the police officers permitted to use tasers have to be trained. Most officers who are permitted to use firearms very rarely open fire, a quote from an AFO states that, "I carried a firearm for five years in London, and I never had to fire it. Actually firing a weapon is very rare."

Don't forget this case
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/louisiana-police-shooting-video-arrests-norris-greenhouse-jr-derrick-stafford/
Was that caused because of racism?

True, out of the 1146 people killed last year, 581 were white, and 306 were black. So, 50% were white, and 26% were black. BUT, this is wildly out of proportion with the rest of the population. Around 77% of the population is white and around 12% is black. If the fatal police shootings were not racist, were based purely on the threat of the situation, the percentages should be similar, but they aren't.

You may argue that black people are more likely to commit crime, because of other factors, such as social class, but 25% of the black people fatally shot by police were unarmed. Only 17% of the white people shot were unarmed. So there is evidence of institutional racism here.

Really? You don't know how to use google? That's your excuse? Ok then..

And I'm not nitpicking. It's not illegal to have guns in America. You can't kill people for owning them. But you can kill them for threatening you with them. Yet all these white people brandished and fired their weapons and were not even shot at, yet alone killed. The same caution is not taken when handling the lives of black suspects even when they are less hostile than the white criminals I have posted.