This past weekend, CNN dropped this reactionary and inflammatory article: 'An Ingrained Fear For Your Life.' Black Men Say They Understand Why Jayland Walker Fled Police.
Garbage. Pure Garbage.
But let's break the article down and treat Nicquel Terry Ellis like the piss-poor journalism student that she is. First of all, Ms. Ellis is the head of CNN's Race and Equity Team, so that's her angle. In her article, she interviewed a Black white collar professional, a Black community activist, and a retired Black police commissioner. They all agreed that they understood why young, Black men would flee police. They had empathy for Jayland Walker.
What Nicquel Terry Ellis neglected to talk about was the facts of the Jayland Walker Case. She said Walker didn't have a criminal record. Really? Jayland Walker was involved in a separate high speed police chase less than 24 hours before the high speed police chase that killed him. Why was Walker in any high speed chases to begin with?
Did Jayland Walker shoot at Cops? Yes. Ellis neglected to talk about that.
Ellis also pointed out that Walker was unarmed. Uh, technically. Walker shot at police, then left the gun on the seat of the vehicle when he ran. Also unmentioned in her piece was the fact that Walker was wearing a ski mask on a 90 degree day, 80 degrees when the shooting took place.
More from Ellis at CNN: "(Compliance) doesn't guarantee a Black person will walk away from the encounter. Most young Black men in his community are terrified of having contact with police."
Really?
Just 2 days after Ellis' propaganda, this story popped up over at the Daily Mail.
Using Ellis' own journalistic template, the Daily Mail painted the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metroplex as a lawless, no-go zone where cops are routinely accosted by even its youngest citizens.
I spoke with an unnamed cop in Cleveland and an unnamed cop in Akron who both agreed that
Ms. Ellis may be speaking for Rich Blacks, but not all Blacks, which is the danger of claiming to speak for a whole race of people based on 3 interviews. The 2 cops I spoke to said that in the heart of inner city neighborhoods, police are more afraid of the citizens than the citizens are afraid of the police. The Cleveland Cop used this caveat, he refused to judge people specifically by race, but by the way they came at police. He pointed out he has to be drug tested to keep his job, but many citizens roaming the streets at 1 AM are under the heavy influence of drugs and alcohol.
Both cops agreed that there's a general disdain for officers at night, but usually citizens are cordial or neutral toward them during the day. It's not so much of a race, but a neighborhood, or a time of day, type of thing.
You know who else has an ingrained fear of the cops? I do. My Dad taught me that if I took a shot at a cop, that cop, and a dozen of his friends, were going to take a shot at me. If my life went really sideways and I went on a bender, even at age 50, I would be deathly afraid that the cops would kill me...
IF I SHOT A GUN AT THEM!
Just a reminder, I ran a restaurant in Akron, Ohio not too far from where Jayland Walker was shot. Here is part of the article Media Exaggerations, reprinted under permission from myself (2018.)
"I worked at a Taco Bell in Akron, Ohio, it was my last stop before "retiring" from the service industry. The last time I drove by, the store (and most stores around it) had closed. I was in charge of a store that was in the bad part of town and I remember one night, it was around 10 pm, (I had already worked 13 hours that day,) I was in the back of the restaurant washing dishes while the brand new shift manager was running his very first shift. The kid must have been 18-19 years old, and you could tell that he was really nervous. The problem was, we were short handed and someone had to be in charge, he was the best candidate in a very shallow employee pool.
Anyhow, I was washing the dishes and all of a sudden he ran by me and hid under the shelving. I turned around and asked him what was wrong and he was shivering and non-responsive. So I walked out from the back of the restaurant and poked my head out of the drive-thru window. Nothing. Walked into the dining room. Nothing. As I came back behind the counters, another employee was under the register and I asked her "what's going on." She responded that someone was shot and to call the police. So I called the police, to report a shooting, but I didn't see who had been shot.
Apparently a lone gunman walked up to the Mr. Hero Manager as she left her store, about 20 feet from the drive-thru window, shot her in the face, grabbed the night time deposit, and then ran away. As the police swarmed the Mr. Hero, I made the executive decision to close my store early. I was done and my crew was a wreck.
After arguing with my District Manager over whether I had the authority to close the store or not, (which was a moot point, because I had already done it) I allowed the shaken crew to go home and I had lots of time to think while closing down.
The next morning I looked in the newspaper for the story. No story. I watched the news. No story. I came into work the next day and the only inkling that something had happened was Mr. Hero was still closed. According to second hand sources (my crew), the gunman shot the girl in the face, but the bullet didn't kill her, it grazed her cheek and ear. My recollection is that my District Manager called the Akron Police to confirm that there even was a shooting.
Because, according to my crew, things like that happened everyday in Akron, Ohio. It wasn't newsworthy. Every member of my crew knew someone who had been shot in the neighborhood.
What happened that day in Akron, Ohio was an assault and a robbery. According to the crime statistics, assault happened every day in Akron that year and robberies happened twice a day.
I vaguely recall that Service Workers had more shooting deaths on the job than Policemen that year, but it was still a much less dangerous job than your average Logger.
At no time has Journalist been on any of these lists.
....Policemen, for example, have to deal with violence nearly everyday, depending on their municipality. Journalists then decide whether the violence against policemen fits their narrative of what news they want to report. Local Cop breaks up Domestic Violence dispute in a trailer park and dies. Local news. White Cop shoots Black Teen? National News for a month."
