Three NYPD Police Detectives - two black and one white - were recently cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the shooting death of an unarmed black man outside a Queens nightclub in 2006. The detectives may still face disciplinary action and a civil lawsuit, however. You can read the NY Post piece and decide for yourself if justice was served.
In briefly reviewing the events of that night I can understand how the officers might have feared for their safety. I wasn't there and I'd like to think that I would have handled things much differently. Clearly, mistakes were made. However, mistakes and poor tactics do not equal murder, manslaughter, racial profiling or hate crimes.
Naturally, that's not how Al Sharpton sees it.
He crawled out of his hole this weekend to stir up racial tension and get his ugly mug plastered on every TV and newspaper in the nation by threatening to close down New York and encouraging violence against police officers.
"We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians," Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. "This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell."
[snip]
The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!"
Fifty of the marchers carried white placards bearing big black numbers for each of the police bullets fired at Bell and his friends.
Sharpton urged people to return for a meeting this coming week "to plan the day that we will close this city down" with the kind of "massive civil disobedience" once led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"They never accused Sean Bell of doing anything. Then why is he dead?" Sharpton asked, his voice roaring with anger. Authorities "have shown now that they will not hold police accountable. Well, guess what? If you won't, we will!"
As usual, it's all about Al. He wants to make this about race, even though there isn't a shred of evidence that points to that. And if you don't do what Al wants, he will rant and rave, close your city down, demand that people be fired and incite people to violence. That's what Al does for a living. And if you don't agree with him, you're a racist.
Why do Liberals continue to kowtow to this thug? Are they afraid of the "racist" label? Afraid of losing the support of those that Sharpton might incite? Afraid of losing donations? Yes.
It amazes me that may of those who are so quick to denounce hatred, racism and inequality are the ones often bent on stirring it up. Where are the true leaders of the black community? Please step forward, we need you.
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Good post. Al Sharpton gets to address high profile events all the time. How did he become respectable? He's a windbag.
I got really pissed at his threats to NYC. That's one city that just doesn't need Sharpton's drama. There are millions of people living there that just want to go about their daily lives, and Sharpton is threatening them all.
I learned one aggravating thing from this post, too. NYC has a Malcolm X Blvd. Who's friggin bright idea was that?
Posted by: Lyn | April 28, 2008 at 12:16 PM
I think that if nobody listened to him, then he would be just a "windbag." But the scary thing is that people do listen to him and sometimes act upon on it. And that's a very dangerous thing, indeed.
Posted by: Mike | April 28, 2008 at 01:59 PM