The Media is Doubling Down on the Idea That Police Have No Right to Interfere in a Stabbing

New video shows that the Ma’Khia Bryant shooting saved someone’s life, or at least saved someone from getting gutted open. It’s unclear what Ma’Khia would have done after she’d sunk the knife into her enemy, though she presumably would have finished her off, and maybe started stabbing other people.

The media, however, is quadrupling down, claiming that Ma’Khia was a victim of police brutality.

NPR:

In Columbus, Ohio, where 16-year-old Ma’Kiah Bryant died in a police shooting this week, distrust of the police department runs deep. Protesters chant a long list of local Black people killed by officers. For many, “police protection” is something of an oxymoron; police themselves are a danger. That’s led to a major reform push that activists want to accelerate.

Hours after Bryant was killed, protests erupted in the area, with neighbors like Ira Graham III saying her death was further proof of something they’ve believed for years. It is not safe to call the police.

“I have an 18-year-old who happens to be at college now and I tell him, unfortunately, never called the cops for anything, because you call the cops and things can unfortunately end up like this,” said Graham at the neighborhood demonstration.

That sentiment isn’t unique to Columbus, but it is pervasive here, even for people like Dejuan Sharp, a 37-year-old U.S. Army veteran.

“I shouldn’t be scared of the police,” says Sharp. “I shouldn’t have to live in fear when these people pull up. I should be able to call 911 if my family needs it.”

Black people in Columbus have good reason to fear, according to activist Jasmine Ayres.

“We have one of the most violent police departments in the United States,” says Ayres.

That’s especially true for African Americans. According to the group Mapping Police Violence, Columbus police are responsible for more Black deaths in the last several years then departments in much larger cities like LA or Philadelphia, and many more than in comparable nearby cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati.

And the problems go way back. In 1998 the U.S. Justice Department investigated the Columbus police and found a raft of abuses, a pattern of excessive force, false arrests and false charges.

Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin says unrest last summer after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis led to a fresh and powerful push to rein in the department.

“There really has been a lot of change and a lot of reform. We’ve done more in the last year in terms of police policy than we’ve done in 30 years, combined,” says Hardin.

Along with the media, very mainstream social media voices are supporting the theory that the cop was wrong to use deadly force on a black who was in the process of using deadly force.

The Biden Government is also on board with – I guess? – legalizing stabbing.

I don’t think this Columbus incident will be used as a major flashpoint. But it is being used to up the ante on just what qualifies as “excessive force.”

If it is wrong to shoot a black person who is in the middle of stabbing someone, then it is pretty much never allowed to shoot a black person. If it is never allowed to shoot a black person, then black people can do whatever they want to anyone, without fear of consequences.

This is leading up to the Federal Government taking action to restrain local police from being able to keep the peace, and it is leading up to a series of violent riots that are going to make the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots look tame in comparison.

They will march into the suburbs, and they will start killing people. The cops will not do anything, except to restrain whites from defending themselves.