Book review: "I Can't Breathe", by Matt Taibbi

It's been difficult for me to read I Can't Breathe, by Matt Taibbi (Spiegel & Grau, 2017). Not that it is poorly written; it is quite the opposite. Nor was it because I don't see eye-to-eye with the author on the issues. Mr Taibbi is reliably liberal, as you would expect of a writer for Rolling Stone. If anyone is entitled to put the letters "SJW" after his name, it's Matt Taibbi. My discomfort stems from being reminded that those advocating "Justice for Eric Garner" and other victims of police killings are not always wrong, as some on the right say. That's what I Can't Breathe is about.

For those who don't remember, Eric Garner was a petty criminal who eked out a subsistence living for himself and his wives and children by hawking untaxed cigarettes around Tompkinsville Park, in Staten Island, a borough of New York City. On 17 July 2014, a cop named Daniel Pantaleo, already the subject of numerous complaints, put a chokehold on Mr Garner during an arrest for allegedly selling "loosies" -- single cigarettes.

The final moments of his life were captured on a video shot by Ramsey Orta, another small-time miscreant and Mr Garner's friend. What millions saw in the video was Officer Pantaleo killing Eric Garner. In spite of the video evidence, Officer Pantaleone was never indicted, let alone convicted, nor was he punished in any way for anything.

The case was presented to a grand jury by the then District Attorney (now Congressman) Dan Donovan. Mr Taibbi suggests, as have numerous lawyers, that Mr Donovan "threw" the grand jury hearing, focusing on exculpatory evidence and the unsavoury background of Eric Garner, rather than trying to get an indictment. We will never know, because the authorities have stonewalled the release of any details of the grand jury hearing.

I Can't Breathe focuses chiefly on the death of Eric Garner and the subsequent denial of justice by the so-called "justice system", but Matt Taibbi also canvases some of the many other extra-judicial killings -- police murders -- which have occurred in today's "postracial America" (as the Prez would have it), in Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, Ferguson MO and Star City AR. The author makes a powerful argument for the proposition that the "criminal justice system" is (a) racist and (b) broken.

Having been caught up in the system myself, I cannot but agree with (b). The system is FUBAR. For me, (a) is the hard part. But the evidence is there, in black and white (if you'll forgive the pun). I don't believe that anyone, of any colour, no matter how much of a lowlife he may be, deserves to be killed or even physically assaulted by cops who believe their badge gives makes them judge, jury and... yes... executioner. If you think Eric Garner and the others who met death at the hands of the police "just got what was coming to them", please read I Can't Breathe.

Further reading: "Prez calls for 'soul searching' in wake of Baltimore race riot", WWW 28/4/15.

Q&A about US vs THEM (includes VIDEO)

The events of this week demonstrate both meanings of "police killings". If this is a war between white police and black civilians -- notice I didn't use the word "criminals" -- whose side should the rest of us take? Walt has a few further questions, and some off-the-top-of-my-head answers.

Q. Why do cops shoot people?
A. For the same reason a dog licks his balls. Because they can. It's the nature of the beast.

Q. What kind of people become cops?
A. Sadists, bullies, people with insecurity complexes who like dressing up in uniforms and pushing other people around. Like Cartman here.



Q. Do white cops shoot only blacks?
A. Nope. The majority of people -- armed or unarmed -- shot by American police last year were white. Blacks and semi-whites (Hispanics) accounted for about 40% of the "deaths by cop".

Q. But blacks and Hispanics don't account for 40% of the US population, do they?
A. Not yet.

Q. So how come the minorities get killed more often?
A. Because white police -- and the majority are white -- have an "US vs THEM" mentality, which causes them to see all darker-complected people as actual or potential criminals.

Q. Why so?
A. Because blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be engaged in criminal activity, carrying guns and generally making trouble. Half a century of "civil rights" and the "progress" of which President 0 boasts have created a huge black and brown underclass which the nanny state can't control except by force. White cops are the agents used by the establishment to keep the rest of us -- of all colours -- in line.

Q. What can be done to stop the war between the police and the rest of us?
A. Errr, errr....

Further reading I: "Why Dallas Happened", by Paul Craig Roberts, Institute for Political Economy.

Further reading II: "The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America", by Edwin S. Rubinstein, New Century Foundation.

African-Americans kill cops; protests NOT expected

Walt remembers what Hattiesburg, Mississippi was like half a century ago, or perhaps a little more. The city fathers were white. The police where white. Most of the general population was black. But everyone kind of rubbed along together according to the natural order of things, and Hattiesburg was a sleepy, more-or-less peaceful burg.

So it was until the folk-song army and agitators from New York came to town preaching "civil rights", integration, an "end to slavery", yada yada yada. Not without a struggle, Hattiesburg did change. Today the mayor, Johnny DuPree, is black, and the police force is integrated. That was proved this weekend as two officers, Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate, were killed in the line of duty. Officer Deen was white. Officer Tate was black. Both officers were shot dead. Equal in life, equal in death.

Here's how it went down. About 8:30 PM on Saturday, one of the officers stopped a gold-coloured Cadillac Escalade in an industrial area of town for a traffic offence. For reasons as yet unknown, he called for backup and was joined by his colleague. Someone in the Cadillac started shooting and, just like that, the two officers were down. They died of their wounds later that night.

Police put out APBs for two "known felons" -- the words of Mayor DuPree -- Curtis Banks and Marvin Banks. If you still haven't guessed what colour the Banks brothers are, here are their pictures.

You probably guessed it the minute you read "gold-coloured Cadillac Escalade", right? It didn't take long to find them. Warren Strain, spokesthingy for the MS Department of Public Safety, told AP that Marvin tried to escape in a police car, but "he didn't get very far, three or four blocks, and then he ditched that vehicle." No dummy he!

Police arrested Marvin and charged him with capital murder. Also charged with capital murder is Joanie Calloway, who is also, errr, black. Curtis Banks, Marvin's younger bro, has been charged with being an accessory to the murders. Cornelius Clark was arrested yesterday afternoon and charged with obstruction of justice. [I haven't been able to find a picture of him yet. Ed.]

The Hattiesburg incident is kind of a switch on the several recent stories about white cops killing poor, oppressed black people. Well, OK, the Baltimore cops accused of killing Raymond Gray were a mixed lot. Baltimore has a black mayor and an integrated police department, just like Hattiesburg. It doesn't matter. Cops killed a black guy and that's the cue ["excuse", surely! Ed.] for taking to the streets for the customary rioting and looting. And, of course, the customary bleating from the Prez and other Forces for Good about what's wrong with America and how it's somehow all the rich, white people's fault.

Walt would like to know when the protests are going to start in Hattiesburg and Oxford County. When will newly-appointed Attorney General Loretta Lynch arrive to spearhead the investigation into the violation of the cops' civil rights? When will the "Reverend" Al Sharpton come to lead the march for "Justice for Deen and Tate"? When will President Obarmy start wringing his hands on national TV as he calls for reform of America's racist police? Answer to all three questions: probably never!

Further reading:
"Attorney General Lynch Follows a Liberal Formula In Baltimore"
"Why cops shoot so many black Americans"

Why cops shoot so many black Americans

As Walt told you earlier today, President Obama has asked Americans to search their souls about the terrible treatment given by (mostly white) American cops to "African-Americans". In what he called "a slow-rolling crisis", he referred to "troubling police interactions with black citizens". Here are some specifics, as recorded by the FBI and reported in the current Economist.

No-one knows how many people die in contact with America's roughly 18,000 law enforcement officers. Incomplete FBI figures (police forces are not required to submit data) show that at least 461 people died in "justifiable homicides" in 2013, an increase of 33% since 2005. Other sources suggest the true number could be as high as twice that.

Here are the stats from one of America's most violent cities, Chicago. The Windy City's cops shoot dead about 50 "suspects" each and every year. Over 75% of them are black. The police are mostly white or Hispanic.

Why does this happen? Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago's Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project* did some research -- or maybe it was soul-searching -- and came up with the amazing conclusion that, consciously or otherwise, the mostly white police tend to associate blacks with criminality. Fancy that!

Why do they do that? Well, about 70% of murders in Chicago are committed by "African-Americans", who account for about 33% of the city's population. Is it any wonder that, according to a 2014 survey by the ACLU, black Chicagoans were subjected to 72% of all stop-and-frisk searches. And, as surely as night follows day, a disproportionate share of take-downs and police killings.

Where, then, does the problem lie? With the police or with the so-called black community? As the Prez sez, search your souls, folks.

Worth reading: "Baltimore shows police killings America's real state of emergency" - Neil Macdonald (WM, 58), senior Washington correspondent for CBC News, explains why American police scare him.

* Note from Ed.: It's a good thing the U of Chicago stuck "Police" in the name of that project, otherwise it would have had an awkward acronym.

Prez calls for "soul searching" in wake of Baltimore race riot

Tuesday morning in Baltimore. The sun rises over deserted streetscapes, boarded-up windows of looted business, shells of burnt-out police cars, and the trash and debris left over from a day and a night of... what? Of fighting for justice for Freddie Gray, of course! Don't you read the lamestream media?

Well, yes, certain of the meeja did use the word "riot". And what kind of riot was it? Why, a "police riot" of course! Those thuggish Baltimore police were just provoking and attacking those poor, downtrodden, innocent "African-American" chillun, as you can see clearly in this picture.

Oh... wait... You don't see any police? Just a mob of black folks running wild, stomping on cars? But there were lots of cops around, dressed in full riot gear, armed with guns, batons, teargas and other WMDs. The police certainly had their work cut out for them. Rioters set police cars and buildings on fire in several neighbourhoods, looted a mall and liquor stores and threw rocks at police, who responded occasionally with pepper spray.

So it was all the cops' fault, right? Errr, not exactly. Seems the cops were targetted by a coalition of black gangs -- Bloods, Crips, and others. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (of the coloured persuasion herself) called last night one of her city's "darkest days" ["nights", surely. Ed.], and said these actions of "thugs" had nothing to do with protests. "We cannot allow our city to devolve into chaos because of a small group of criminals that are moving throughout our city."

Right. It's a few "thugs" that are causing all the trouble, not the black folks shown in this picture demonstrating for justice for Freddie Gray.

Yep, fighting for justice... and loot... just like the old joke about the Irish lawyer who said all he wanted for his client was justice... with costs, of course.

Justice for Freddie Gray... Mr. Gray was taken into custody by Baltimore police on April 12th after "making eye contact" with officers -- an offence Walt never heard of until now -- and then running away. He was held down, handcuffed and loaded into a van without a seat belt. Leg cuffs were put on him inside the van when he became irate, for some reason. Less than an hour later, he was dead.

The latest victim of a police killing was not just Gray but black. No surprise there. Police have declined to specify the race(s) of the six officers involved in his arrest, all of whom have been suspended while they are under investigation. With pay, of course.

Mr. Gray's death comes amid a national debate over police use of deadly force following the high-profile deaths of several black men in encounters with police, from the Brown death in Ferguson MO to the deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Walter Scott in North Charleston, SC. Black people are angry. Walt understands that. So does Mayor Rawlings-Blake. "I understand anger, but what we're seeing isn't anger," she said. "It's disruption of a community. The same community they say they care about, they're destroying. You can't have it both ways."

Indeed. What we're seeing in Baltimore is not only the venting of anger and legitimate protest against injustice, but criminal violence, destruction and, yes, looting. Fifty years ago, when such things happened in Watts, Harlem and Detroit, we called them "race riots". But in 2015 that term is no longer politically correct.

UPDATE: The Head Soul Brother, Barack Hussein Obama, says all Americans need to do a lot of soul searching to understand what's been going down in Baltimore. Of course the police are to blame. The Prez said today there have been too many "troubling police interactions with black citizens" in what he called "a slow-rolling crisis."

But, he said, there was no excuse for rioters to engage in senseless violence. In a remarkable moment of clarity, Mr. Obama said those who stole from businesses and burned buildings and cars should be treated as criminals. "There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday," he told a White House press conference. "When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they're not protesting, they're not making a statement. They're stealing."

A  man in the street, Leroy "Kwame" Jones, responded, "Excuse? Excuse? Whuffo we needs an excuse?!"

Illegal alien kills FL cop, dies of "natural causes"

There's something about Florida that attracts Walt's agents. Some live there full-time. Some go for a few months to escape the harsher northern winter. [You got that right! Ed.] Walt himself still has an expired FL driver's licence in his pocket. However, Walt has yet to set foot in Polk County, somewhere between Tampa and Kissimmee [pronounced with the stress on the second syllable. Ed.]

Agent 9 has added to our stock of strange but true Florida tales the story [verified by Snopes! Ed.] of an illegal alien who got stopped for a traffic violation, shot the cop who stopped him, and was in turn executed by Polk County deputies. No Miranda rights. No negotiations. Filled full of lead -- 68 bullets worth.

Just before noon on 28 September 2006, in Lakeland (Polk County's biggest city), Polk County Deputy Doug Speirs pulled over a speeding rental car bearing Kentucky tags, driven by Angilo Freeland, a 27-year-old native of Antigua who had been arrested on various charges in 1999 but had afterwards skipped bail. The fake driver's licence proffered by Freeland made the cop suspicious, so he called for backup. Deputy Matt Williams and his police dog, DiOGi [geddit? Ed.] were dispatched to the scene.

Likely sensing things weren't going well, Freeland broke from the officers and ran into the woods. He took cover in the densely forested area near a fallen oak tree that made him all but impossible to see. The two officers and the dog went into the woods after him, Williams and DiOGi working one area, and Speirs another.

As DiOGi closed on the suspect's hiding place, Freeland shot the dog in the chest from close range at an upward angle, killing it. He then fired on nearby Deputy Williams, wounding him in the right wrist, left bicep, rear left thigh, right leg, right buttock, and upper right arm. One of the shots penetrated to the officer's spine. Freeland then approached the immobilized man and delivered two shots to Williams' head at point-blank range, finishing him off.

Deputy Speirs heard the shots from a nearby ridge, moved towards the sounds of the gunfire, and was shot at by Freeland. The two exchanged fire, and the deputy was wounded in the leg. He radioed for help and made his way out of the woods.

Every available unit and canine team descended on the area. Freeland remained under the oak tree overnight, where a 10-member SWAT team found him the next morning. When they saw Freeland raise his right hand clutching a gun (one they would later learn belonged to the dead deputy), nine of the ten officers fired, hitting him with 68 of 110 shots. Freeland was dead at the scene.

When asked by the local meeja for a statement about the manhunt and its outcome, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd explained: "You have to understand, he had already shot and killed a deputy, he had already shot and killed a K-9, and he shot and injured another deputy. Quite frankly, we weren't taking any chances. You kill a policeman it means no arrest, no Miranda rights, no negotiations, nothing but as many bullets as we can shoot into you...PERIOD."

Sheriff Judd was reported to have told the Orlando Sentinel that his deputies shot Freeland 68 times "because that's all the ammunition we had."

The Polk County Coroner who examined Freeland reported that he had died of natural causes. When asked by a reporter how that could be, since there were 68 bullet wounds in his body, he answered, "When you're shot 68 times you're naturally gonna die!"

White lives matter! Another police killing goes unchallenged

Very disturbing story today out of Fairfax VA, as reported by Neil Macdonald, CBC News's man in Washington. The only place you'll find it in the US mainstream media is the Washington Post, which published this photo of a Fairfax cop about to shoot an unarmed white man, standing with his hands up in front of his own home.

Here are the facts, as laid out in the CBC report:

In April 2013, John Geer's common-law wife, who was breaking up with him and moving out, called police to report he was angrily throwing her possessions onto his front lawn. Asked whether Geer had weapons, the woman answered yes, but they were legally owned and secured. No, he hadn't been drinking.

Two squad cars — four officers — initially responded. Geer, on seeing them, retreated into his home, refusing to answer questions. A few minutes later, Officer Rodney Barnes, a trained police negotiator, arrived, and as the four other policemen stood close behind him with weapons drawn, he began trying to coax John Geer out onto the porch.

Barnes would later recall that Geer was polite, but reluctant to leave his home, saying repeatedly he was frightened of being killed. He said "I don't want anybody to get hurt," the negotiator told investigators a few months later. "I don't want to get shot."

Barnes asked Geer if he owned a pistol. Geer said yes, and fetched it. He held it up, holstered, for Barnes to see and set it aside, raising his hands again. He offered to let Barnes come into the house and retrieve the weapon. He asked for permission to scratch his nose, Barnes said, and did it slowly, then raised his hands again. He asked to reach into his pocket for his phone; Barnes asked him not to, and he obeyed.

"He said 'I know if I reach down or drop my hands I can get shot," Barnes told detectives later. "I said, hey, nobody's going to shoot you…" But Geer pointed to one nearby officer in particular: Adam Torres, who kept raising his Sig Sauer pistol from the "ready" position (pointed at Geer's legs) to aim at Geer's chest.

"Please ask him not to point his gun at me," Geer begged Barnes. Geer even offered to come out and be handcuffed voluntarily if Torres and the other patrolmen would agree to move "way back." Then he asked to scratch his nose again. Barnes consented. And Torres fired.

Geer, grabbing his wound, screamed in pain and stepped back, slamming his door. "And I'm like, who the fuck shot?" Barnes told detectives later. "I kinda got a little pissed."

Torres acknowledged it had been him, and began muttering how he was sorry, and that his wrist was hurting. Then, unbidden, he told Barnes how he'd had a fight over the phone with his wife just before arriving on the scene.

Asked by Barnes why he'd fired, Torres said Geer had dropped his hands to his waist suddenly, that he appeared to be going for a weapon. "I said I didn't see that," said Barnes later. "You know, and I never took my eye off him (Geer)."

The other three officers who'd been present told investigators the same thing. So did two civilian witnesses. But prosecutors and police commanders and county officials buried the case. Fairfax County's top prosecutor declared a conflict of interest and referred the shooting to federal authorities. Federal investigators did investigate, and have reported to the US attorney in Virginia, who has done nothing.

All this was done under a cloak of secrecy, until, earlier this month, a judge finally ordered disclosure of nearly 11,000 documents, containing interviews with nearly everyone involved. According to those official documents (including audio of the witness statements), now available on the Fairfax County website, the shooter — a cop with significant anger issues (he once screamed and cursed at prosecutors in open court) — is contradicted by four fellow officers and two civilian witnesses. That sort of rank-breaking is practically unheard of.

And yet [Mr. Macdonald continues] there has been no judicial action, and almost no public uproar. Most politicians have remained silent. Those who have marched against police shootings in the past have been largely uninterested. A protest at Fairfax police headquarters drew a couple of dozen people. Only the Washington Post has taken a serious interest in the case.

But the killing of John Geer should frighten everyone. It is the best example yet that while police often target minorities disproportionately, their basic and overriding demand is total and unquestioning submission to their authority. Resist, however peacefully and even in your own home, and heaven help you, no matter what your skin colour.

That, dear readers, is the stone truth about the police state Americans (and Canadians too) live in today. Cops do not discriminate. You can be black, white or striped; they'll shoot you anyway.

Here are the links you need to read the complete stories.
CBC News - "In Fairfax, Va., a different, no-less-scary police shooting" - I've copied most of Neil Macdonald's well-written piece above.
Washington Post - "Seven unanswered questions in the Fairfax police shooting death of John Geer" - This article is a follow-up to the original reports, and there are a couple of updates since. Search "Fairfax police" or "John Geer" on the Post website and you'll see all the stories.

Looks like "a pile of trash" to me too

- What's dis yere? A pile of trash?
- NO, fool. Dat be a memorial to Mike Brown, killed by the racist Ferguson police!

- But it sho looks like trash. Look, you can even see where it been burned.
- Hey, dat was an accident. Somebody din't know dat if you puts candles next to teddy bears and balloons, dey gonna burn.

- Well why it lyin' all down da middle ob de street like dat?
- Fool! Din't I tell ya, all dem Ferguson people racist! Some honky done drove his car into de memorial.

Well, I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder. But "a pile of trash" was what it looked like to Officer Timothy Zoll of the Ferguson MO Police Department. At least, that's what he told a reporter for the Washington Post who called what about a tip that the trash had been trashed on Christmas Day by an unsympathetic (and doubtless white) motorist.

The Post  quoted Officer Zoll as saying, "I don't know that a crime has occurred. But a pile of trash in the middle of the street? The Washington Post is making a call over this?"

Seems to Walt like a good question, but the Post characterized the comment as... wait for it... racist. But St. Louis radio station KMOX later reported that Zoll told its reporter he had been misquoted and actually said that the memorial might have been destroyed by a motorist unfamiliar with the area who had mistaken it for a pile of trash.

That explanation didn't wash with the cop's bosses though. They said yesterday that "the officer admitted to Department investigators that he did in fact make the remarks attributed to him, and that he misled his superiors when asked about the contents of the interview."

For his sins of racial insensitivity and political incorrectness, Officer Zoll has now been placed on unpaid leave, while the investigation into the dastardly crime continues. 


City officials were at pains to note that police Chief Thomas Jackson kept investigating the statement even after Officer Zoll initially denied making it. "The City of Ferguson wants to emphasize that negative remarks about the Michael Brown memorial do not reflect the feelings of the Ferguson Police Department and are in direct contradiction to the efforts of City officials to relocate the memorial to a more secure location."

A more secure location? Walt suggests the Ferguson Memorial Sanitary Landfill. And my suggestion has nothing to do with the identity or race of the dear departed who was being "memorialized". It's just that I am sick and tired of seeing these unsightly and pointless "memorials" that pile up on the site of any sudden and public death.

The practice of leaving flowers, candles, teddy bears, balloons, crudely lettered signs and other detritus at the scene of  the accident or crime is maudlin, mawkish and pathetic. Pointless, too.

The only people who are made better off by these empty gestures are the sellers of toys, flowers, candles and what-have-you. For them, a sudden death -- particularly of a child or other "innocent" -- is better than Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Christmas all rolled into one!

I don't know how, where or why this sloppy sentimental nonsense started, but I hope one day we'll see memorials, in the more dignified form of flowers and wreaths, confined to the cemeteries in which the victims are buried. Toys, balloons and suchlike dumped in the city streets deserve to be treated as... well... trash.

Meanwhile in France... another Muslim "lone wolf"

It seems to be open season on cops and soldiers, not just in the USA and Canada, but in Europe too. If it's not blacks, it's Muslims...or black Muslims...or Muslim blacks. No wonder they're nervous!

BBC News reports that police in the town of Joue-les-Tours, in central France, shot and killed a black man who attacked them with a knife while shouting "Allahu Akbar!" ("God is great!" in Arabic). The man, a French citizen born in the tiny African country of Burundi, injured three cops before being send to paradise.

Now get this! The BBC's Lucy Williamson reports from Paris that investigators are focusing on whether radical Islam played a role, and have launched an inquiry into "attempted murder and criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorism organization". Gee, do ya think?

In the video embedded on the web page, Grainne Harrington says the attacker appears to have acted alone -- the usual "lone wolf" story -- which would appear to be at variance with Lucy's report. However, other reports suggest the attacker's brother was known to have expressed a desire to travel to Syria. So, a conspiracy then?

Further reading on WWW:
"Canucks admit 'lone wolf' shooters 'were influenced by ISIS'"
"Charles De Gaulle warns about Muslim immigration"

UPDATED! NYC cop killings - a little detail we shouldn't mention

Walt is reading the AP report of the "assassination" -- Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's word -- of two New York cops by someone the lamestream media is being careful to call a "lone gunman".

"Targeted for their uniform" -- Commissioner Bratton speaking again -- were New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. They were sitting in their patrol car in the crime-ridden Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto of Brooklyn, when they were shot in the head by 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a Georgia boy with a long history of arrests on various charges, including robbery, shoplifting, carrying a concealed weapon, disorderly conduct and obstruction of a law enforcement officer.

In other words, the shooter was "known to police". And, if anyone had been paying attention, they might have known that he was out to kill a cop or two. He'd written on Instagram: "I'm putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let's take 2 of theirs." He used the hashtags #Shootthepolice #RIPErivGardner [sic] and #RIPMikeBrown.

Eric Gardner and Mike Brown. Yes. They were too large black men who were killed, rightly or wrongly, by white cops. Officers Liu and Ramos were, respectively, Chinese and Hispanic. What about Mr. Brinsley? From his first name, you might think that he was Muslim, either by birth or conversion. We don't know.

Well, was he black? Errr, yes, but you have to dig deep into the AP account to learn that. Commissioner Bratton confirmed that the suspect made "very serious 'anti-police' statements" online, but declined to get into specifics of the posts. He professed ignorance of Brinsley's motive, saying they were still trying to figure that out!

However, two city officials with direct knowledge of the case -- one a senior city official and the other a law enforcement official -- confirmed the posts to Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity, since they were not authorized to speak publicly on the topic!

When white people kill black people, they're racists -- even when acquitted by grand juries -- but when black people kill white people, a politically correct pall of silence descends from on high. Welcome to the new, "post-racial" America!

Further reading: "Justice for Zemir Begic!"

Update and !!! - Word just in from Tarpon Springs FL that a police officer -- almost certainly white -- has been shot and killed by a suspect... errr... Well, let's wait and see. But if the cop-killer turns out to be black, school's out! (I got that line from Howie Meeker.) [Who he? Ed.]