unarmed WM killed by police in Iowa...no one cares

I thought this was worth a read...when white people act a fool and get themselves killed we don't protest...why is that?

A few minutes before Des Moines police killed Ryan Keith Bolinger Tuesday night, the 28-year-old white man was dancing in the street, according to an officer. Police didn't find the display funny. In a news conference Wednesday, Des Moines Police Sgt. Jason Halifax said Bolinger had earlier pulled up beside the squad car of an officer who was conducting an unrelated traffic stop, parking his 2000 Lincoln sedan so close that he blocked the police cruiser's driver's side door. Bolinger then left his vehicle and danced around before getting back in and driving away.

Officer Vanessa Miller, a seven-year veteran of the force, gave pursuit, following Bolinger in a low-speed chase that hovered around the 35 miles-per-hour limit, officials said. The Des Moines Register reports that Officer Ian Lawler, who had earlier been boxed in by Bolinger, radioed that he was joining Miller in the pursuit. He also suggested that they may be dealing with a drunk or mentally ill suspect.

About two minutes into the chase, Miller cut Bolinger off as he attempted to make a U-turn, forcing his car to a stop. Bolinger exited his vehicle and approached Miller's squad car "walking with a purpose," Halifax said. As he advanced, Miller, who is white, fired a single bullet through her rolled up driver's side window, shattering the glass and striking Bolinger in the torso. He later died from the gunshot wound at a local hospital.

Halifax has said Bolinger was unarmed, and the Register reports that he had no criminal record. It remains unclear why he was behaving erratically. Halifax said he expects the case will eventually be considered by a grand jury, though in the meantime, the Des Moines Police Department is conducting its own investigation. While Miller was equipped with a microphone that should have picked up audio of the confrontation, her vehicle's dashboard camera didn't record the shooting, Halifax said. His officers are not yet equipped with body cameras, though in Miller's case, such a camera may not have provided useful footage, depending on her position at the time of the shooting.

The incident comes as much of the nation's attention remains focused on the issue of police killings and accountability, especially since the fatal shooting of black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August. Bolinger's death was one of a string of officer-involved shootings this week that brought the total number of people killed by police nationwide to more than 500 so far this year, according to data compiled by The Guardian. At least two more people have been killed since Bolinger died.
Much of the grassroots outcry around the issue of police violence has been organized under the Black Lives Matter umbrella, as protests surrounding the killings of black men and women -- and the subsequent decisions not to charge, much less convict, the officers responsible for those deaths -- have arisen around the nation. Data shows that black Americans, particularly young black men, face a higher likelihood of being killed by police than their non-black peers. The Guardian's reporting supports that finding, showing that 28.2 percent of all people killed by police this year have been black, despite making up just 13.2 percent of the population.

So how do white people in Iowa respond when police kill a white person under questionable circumstances in a heavily white neighborhood? If Des Moines is any example, they don't: A single protester showed up outside the police press conference on Wednesday, according to the Register. There was no wall-to-wall media coverage of large-scale demonstrations, because there were no demonstrations to cover.

The city's apparent apathy is about more than racial demographics. Iowa generally has little experience with fatal police shootings. Bolinger is only the third person killed by police in the state in 2015, according to The Guardian. One was an armed robbery suspect killed after allegedly pointing a gun at police following a car chase. The other was a woman reportedly killed by an errant bullet fired by an officer who slipped while attempting to shoot a dog that had jumped on him. Both were white. (For comparison, the Los Angeles Police Department alone has killed more than three times Iowa's total so far this year, which speaks to longstanding concerns about the LAPD's use of force.)

Unlike New York or Ferguson, sites of protests following decisions not to charge police officers in killings of black men, Des Moines is more than 76 percent white, according to Census data. And the state of Iowa as a whole is 92.5 percent white, nearly 30 percentage points higher than U.S. population, which is 62.6 percent white. But so was Bolinger, for that matter, and so were nearly 50 percent of all people killed by police this year, according to The Guardian.

Bolinger's death didn't happen against a backdrop of tension between law enforcement and the community -- a tension that, in other places, forms an essential part of the Black Lives Matter message. But the outcome of his shooting is ultimately the same: an unarmed person is dead under circumstances that appear unnecessary and perhaps even avoidable.

While Black Lives Matter indeed focuses on the black experience, Bolinger's death underscores that many of the issues at the movement's core apply to people of all races. Many of the changes activists are championing would benefit all communities.
This point is all too often lost on white critics of the Black Lives Matter movement. But it's time for all people, in any community touched by a police killing, to wake up.

Though Des Moines has not felt the impact of police violence in the way many cities have, it hasn't been completely insulated from the ongoing debate over policing, nor from the racial narratives that have rightfully accompanied it. In May, a group of protesters gathered under the Black Lives Matter mantle in Des Moines, calling for police reform and increased accountability. Photos from the event show that a number of the attendees were white.

Amid the push for police reform and the broader reining in of the use of force, Bolinger's death is a reminder that while these issues affect some communities disproportionately, they can also affect any community at any time.

 

And this is why people call you racist. I can'teven with you Lippy.

 

a white guy got shot...he wasn't armed...he was killed by police...if that had been a black man there would be hell to pay...a white guy acts a fool and gets shot and you know what i say...he brought it on himself

if you can't handle a gown up conversation dark king then please excuse yourself from the conversation...

I am not a racist but this is very interesting if you break down what this guy did to get himself shot...i don't see any white people protesting his death...no fires...no store windows being broken...no cars turned over...we aren't calling in the national guard...it won't be on the national news...

 

So basically what you're saying in the instances when it was an unarmed bm they brought it on themselves? Also you're saying that protests and riots that happened is the result of a single individual acting the fool?
Have you ever had a conversation with a black person Lippy?
Seriously wtf

 

It's the same reason people don't get upset when we hear about a woman raping a man.


Do you really not understand the difference???

Anyway, most people acknowledge the use of excessive force by law enforcement is becoming a bigger problem for ALL Americans.

Somewhere along the way POs stopped being 'peace keepers' whose goal was to deescalate situations, to becoming militarized law enforcement officers, whose mission is to neutralize the enemy on the battlefield.

There's a endemic racial bias in most police departments across the country towards people of color.

One hundred White men could be shot tomorrow by cops and it wouldn't change this basic fact.

 

did READ the article? no you didn't...you are off on your own agenda...get a life dude...

 

I quoted your words. I didn't make that shit up homie.
You seriously don't see the bias

 

You know why nobody cares, because nobody feels like reading that fucking wall of text you just posted. Rip to the victim

 

I understand the difference...white people do not actively get involved in this type of an injustice...even though i am white i feel no connection to this person...even if it had been a woman i don't know if I would feel different...the only reason this made the news was because it became clear no one cared that he was shot by police...

 

too many words for you? stick to the pictures north

 

I read the entire article. I don't live there so I can't speak to what happened there. I can tell you here people will protest over police brutality no matter what the color of the victim's skin.

I have a problem with the comment of "act a fool and get themselves killed".

I don't think any of the cases that stirred protest were a matter of someone "act(ing) a fool and get(ting) themselves killed".

Given that, I'm not sure it's really possible to have a real conversation about protesting.

 

this guy pulled up so close to a police car that he couldn't open his door and then got out and danced on the street...after he took off the police pursued him...he got out of his car after trying to make a U turn and walked up to the police car...she shot him through her window and he didn't have a gun

if that isn't acting a fool then i don't know what is?

I have never heard of a protest in Sacramento...maybe the LA area...

 

Um yah I'm going to take issue with that. I'm white (depending on who you ask) and I've been directly involved in protests, changing laws, etc. and know many other (white, brown, black, etc) people who feel a strong connection and definitely do something about it.

 

You may not have heard of them...they definitely happened. Freeways blocked, etc. Not just Sacramento (several areas in Sac too btw - the Capital building, a main area freeway, etc), San Francisco, Oakland, etc. Davis, Berkeley and many of the other "college towns" did as well.

Whether or not they acted a fool...that doesn't mean "they got themselves killed". Nothing that happened justified the cop shooting them. And what I said was "I don't think any of the cases that stirred protest were a matter of someone "act(ing) a fool and get(ting) themselves killed".

 

Why do you keep saying that?
Do you think that all the black people killed by the cops were asking for it?

 

You really need it spelled out for you?
White people don't need to get involved in protests regarding racial bias against white people because that shit doesn't happen.

 

True, but we do need to get involved in protests regarding racial bias against ANYONE and also against police brutality. And in some areas we do!

The thing that I find so completely ignorant about that type of thinking is the whole "us and them" mentality. People are so ignorant to think that it can't turn on them at any given moment.

 

So it's okay to kill white people for dancing in the street...good to know...do you have any idea how crazy that sounds

 

Why are you stuck trying to make what I say anything more than about this idiot that basically taunted the cops until they shot him...he didn't run from them...he ran to them...he really didn't do anything illegal he was just displaying unusual behavior...