MPR News spoke with Taye Clinton, the 10-year-old boy who was infamously maced, apparently by a Minneapolis cop, at a “Black Lives Matter” protest last week.
Frontmatter: Now, since this city is clogged with people whose purpose in “life” is to find little political incorrectnesses with which to invalidate all dissent, let me establish a few things.
Too many cops see the world as “cops vs. potential criminals”; if you’re not a cop you’re a potential criminal. There are bad cops, and plenty of just-not-very-good cops (I’ve encountered more than my fair share of the latter in Saint Paul, along with some excellent ones); more importantly, until good cops start turning in bad cops, it’s going to be hard for any citizens who cares about civil liberty to trust cops. And I’m white – which I say not to disqualify my opinion (as some will take, or put, it) so much as to say “you think I’ve got cop problems…”.
15:00 And Counting: Anway – Susan Montgomery brought little Taye to another protest this past Thursday. Riham Feshir and Peter Cox report (and I add emphasis):
On Wednesday night Taye and his mother were part of a Black Lives Matter and the Black Liberation Project march down Seventh Street to protest Wisconsin authorities’ decision not to charge a white Madison officer in the killing of a 19-year-old biracial man.
Taye, who’s also biracial, says he was frightened.
“At least I got Maced and not shot,” he said.
Now, let’s be clear; Taye is 10. Perhaps he’s an incredibly sharp, precocious kid – a Mozart-like prodigy of juvenile perception of the world around him. I’ll just say it could be.
It could also be that that’s what the adults in his life, including his mom, Susan Montgomery – who dragged the lad to a protest at 10PM on a school night (not that being out on the street watching people protest is any bigger a waste of time than a day in the Minneapolis public schools) have told him to think about the issue.
The idea that a kid – coached or not – would say such a thing is, itself, a tragedy.
But I’m at a loss to remember any 10-year-old victims of police shootings in any of the Twin Cities, much less Minneapolis.
Now, there’s been a long butcher’s bill of kids Taye’s age killed, crippled, maimed and injured by people waving guns around the cities. I remember the first gang shooting I encountered in Minneapolis, 30 years ago this fall, when 16 year old Christine Kreitz was executed by the gang bangers she’d been hanging around with in King Park in South Minneapolis. I remember the first such story I was involved in as a reporter, when a grade-school-aged boy in North Minneapolis was paralyzed by a stray bullet from a Bloods/Crips throwdown a block away (the boy was a solid 60º off the line of fire, in a second-floor apartment – which is, statistically, vastly more dangerous a place to be than an actual participant).
The Question: So young Taye Clinton is thankful that he’s not the first 10-year-old biracial boy to be shot by a Minneapolis cop. I can’t argue.
Just curious; has Susan Montgomery warned young Taye about the dangers posed by, to pick a random example, teenage high school dropouts who loiter about the neighborhood and get into random fights with other guys like themselves?
The ones who, statistically and tragedy, have killed a lot more little Tayes than every police department in the Upper Midwest combined?
And did anyone from MPR ask her?
I’m just curious.
Those people were burning American flags, jumping on occupied cars, and trying to open the doors of those cars to pull the people out. If my car would have gotten surrounded and the nutjobs would have been pulling on my car door, little Taye would have been a speed bump. I would just make sure I only ran over his white half. And if the flag burners would have been in front of me……I’d be willing to go to jail to protect our flag.
My favorite one is the Nation of Islam inviting three street gangs into Baltimore…..when the reality is that street gangs kill as many black people annually as the Klan and related nutjobs killed in a century.
And regarding Taye, his mother took a mildly autistic child into that scene to develop his social conscience…..presumably scarring him for life. it just boggles the mind.
” . . . when the reality is that street gangs kill as many black people annually as the Klan and related nutjobs killed in a century. ”
Don’t look for common sense, Bikebubba.
The street gangs have nothing the protesters want.
You’d kill Americans to save a flag. You’ve got your priorities WAY screwed up.
No, not kill. But fight them.
If you meant fight why didn’t you say fight instead of saying dot dot dot [wink wink wink]
Grand Inquisitor DMA has detected a thought crime.
What the protesters want is federal control of local police departments, especially the police departments of cities with large minority populations.
That ought to increase white flight.
Yes, ruminating about murder is a thought crime.
Who is ruminating about murder?
Mitch:
I don’t think the kid is as smart as you think. A smart kid will say well I haven’t been shot at by a drug gang member yet!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Mingo, Chuck was talking about killing people who got between him and his flag. Did you read the thread before you blundered in?
“If my car would have gotten surrounded and the nutjobs would have been pulling on my car door, little Taye would have been a speed bump. I would just make sure I only ran over his white half. And if the flag burners would have been in front of me……I’d be willing to go to jail to protect our flag.”
Sounds like self defense to me.
The thought beneath the ellipsis is perfectly clear and unambiguous.
OK, DMA. Let’s turn this around.
You’re driving through a demonstration. Your car is surrounded – and, before very long at all, covered – by people who seem to dislike you.
You may, possibly, feel that your life and safety are in immediate danger.
What do you do?
Where was ten-yr-old Taye’s father during this ‘event’? I would hate to think he has only one irresponsible parent.
Yes, Emery. The issue shouldn’t be anything that has appeared in this blog, but what the heck was the mother doing with a ten year old at a demonstration that she knew might turn violent? If I saw something like that going on, my first instinct would be to get the kid out of there. Kids are not like adults. There lungs are more sensitive to irritants.
“Taye and his mother said they weren’t involved in any of the property damage activities. He said he didn’t want to get hurt by burning flags or standing in the middle of traffic.”
The child is in danger from his mother’s actions. He is not in danger from anything Chuck wrote.
“Jess Banks, a St. Paul mother of a 12- and a 9-year-old, brought one of her sons to Thursday’s protest. She said she wanted to use her “privilege as a white person” to stand up for Taye.’
I feel sorry for that kid.
“Some motorists shared their frustration with marchers. One said he was late to work when one protester laid on the ground to stop him from driving across the street. He told the group he was OK with people marching, but didn’t like that they completely blocked traffic.”
One protester laid down on the street. What would have happened if another protester had put the driver in fear of his safety? Remember Reginald Denny?
All to protest the shooting the of a guy who got drugged up, began assaulting strangers, and punched a cop in the head.
A few weeks ago I read a review of a book about the revolutionary groups of the 60s and early 70s. The guy who wrote the review said that the book wasn’t very good — it was mostly a rehash of new stories and police reports from the time — and that he learned only one thing from it: that there weren’t actually many of these revolutionaries. The number of Bill Ayres types who actually plotted murder and mayhem was about a dozen. Some of them seem to have been insane. Their goals, if not their actions, however, were popular with the press.
I think that there may be something similar going on here. People don’t naturally take the side of crazees like Michael Brown of Tony Robinson.
It isn’t that the people who are behind these protests are so smart, it’s that the media is so dumb.
Read the MPR story. We know why the cops were there (“Taye and his mother said they weren’t involved in any of the property damage activities”). We know who the police are, and who supervises the cops and gives them direction. Who runs Black Lives Matter and the Black Liberation Project? Why don’t Feshir and Cox care who runs Black Lives Matter and the Black Liberation Project? Seems like there might be a story there.
Well said on Taye’s father. Where was he? That is the answer to our gang problem, really.
And regarding “they were not involved in any property damage activities”….well, yes, and Deming’s Law comes to mind: In God we trust, all others must provide data. First thing riot police seem to need these days is good cameras to provide footage. Get a problem? Roll tape, problem solved.
And that, in turn, is a key thing that anyone concerned about police use of force (that would include me) needs to attend to. Violent protests where property is being damaged? Great way to tell the Crips and Bloods that Murderapolis is open for business, folks. What about spending that $50 you planned to use to get to the MOA to protest on a body camera for a cop instead?
Got a problem? Roll tape. Problem solved.
And DMA? I’m sorry, but implied threats from words don’t bother me quite the way that very real property damage and personal threats to police and others do.
Mitch Berg – I’ll defend my family, I’ll defend myself, I’ll defend my property.
I won’t risk my life or anyone elses to save a flag from flag burners.
This has been making the rounds:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/18/duke-professor-attacked-for-noxious-racial-comments-refuses-to-back-downversial-comments/?tid=pm_national_pop_b
“King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.”
Not all of them did. But the Blacks the media is sympathetic to did. Even the author of the Wapo piece uses anonymous student ratings to attack the prof. The prof must be made to know that he crossed the line, and others must be made to know that he crossed the line.
The Black activists and their allies who champion the “right” of criminals to assault people without repercussions are the enemies of democracy. This is obvious, a few questions from a journalist would expose this. They want the federal JD — a department of the most distant level of government with very little accountability to the people — to manage local cops. They want the 20% to run the lives of the 80%, to tell them what is and what is not acceptable behavior and acceptable speech.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists drew The Prophet and thereby insulted Muslim fundamentalists. There is no free speech right to do that. They deserved to die.
The Black Lives Matter protesters burned the flag and thereby insulted patriotic fundamentalists. There is no free speech right to do that. They deserve to die.
Hey, moral equivalence is fun!
if you read this you’re a racist:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-perspective/051915-753335-african-americans-suffer-from-too-much-welfare-state-dependency.htm?p=full
Perhaps the Police or at least the officer putatively involved can resurrect Warren v District of Columbia “[t]he duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists.”