R.E.A.D Book Club

Autopsy Shows African-American Teen Kendrec McDade Was Shot Seven Times By Police

str8nochaser:

andyhutchins:

marshmallowmegamama:

occupyallstreets:

Autopsy Shows African-American Teen Kendrec McDade Was Shot Seven Times By Police

Last March, police received a report that a taco truck in Pasadena, California had just been robbed. According to a recently released autopsy report, the two officers who arrived to investigate this report ran down and eventually shot a young black suspect seven times:

Nineteen-year-old Kendrec McDade was shot at point-blank range by one Pasadena police officer and handcuffed after being struck by a total of seven bullets, according to the autopsy report released Friday by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office… . Three of the wounds — two in his abdomen and one in his right arm — are considered potentially fatal because they lacerated arteries, according to Pasadena police. One bullet entered through the back of the right arm and another the back of the right forearm.

McDade, of Azusa, was killed when Pasadena officers Jeff Newlen and Mathew Griffin responded to a report of an armed robbery at a taco truck in northwest Pasadena. One of the officers pursued him on foot and the other from his police cruiser.

The first officer who fired did so while seated in the patrol car as McDade approached with his hand at his waistband. McDade and the officer were “within a foot” of each other, according to the autopsy report.

It is not yet clear whether McDade was actually involved in the taco truck robbery or if he was merely a bystander. It is clear, however, that the police who shot McDade did so under a cloud of false information. McDade was not armed, and the alleged theft victim later admitted that he lied about his assailants having weapons in order to provoke a faster response by police.

McDade also does not fit the profile of the kind of person who would normally commit armed robbery. He has no gang ties or prior arrests, was a star football player in high school, and was a student at Citrus College at the time of his death.

Source

i get the point of showing that this was a kid who did not fit the profile. but i have to say, even if somebody DOES fit the profile, does that make it ok to shoot and kill him? are tacos really that important to us? or the small amounts of money that a taco truck might bring in? i’m beyond tired of the idea that war criminals like bush/cheney need to be “brought to justice” but some kid stealing the register at a dollar store or from a taco truck—fuck it, just kill him. saves on the paperwork.

if bush/cheney get to be recognized as human beings who deserve the human right to a trail no matter what atrocities they’ve committed? then the most criminal people of color who ‘fit the profile’ to a tee get to have the same thing. and if that takes up more space in the bureaucracy of the prison industrial complex? or that makes a cop have to train harder so he can keep up with a running suspect instead of just shooting the jesus out of him? so fucking be it.

A thing that happened in Crash actually happened in real life, sort of, except way worse, and this happens all the time. I’m gonna go be sad now.

Dear God-

Please do not place any little brown boys in my womb. They may be borne and yet die before their mother and father.  Slaughtered for the crime of being born a black boy. I can’t live with that kind of pain. 

(via theafrosistuh)

(Source: pedaltothemetal, via uptownjust)

kwesiabbensetts:

yanghi:

Yanghi Butterfly top and pleated skirt. #Qualia #Mashallah

Shot by Danielle Bella.
Muse Sonnie Daze.

Beauty unabashed Kabb

thethirdmind:

Tuli Kupferberg. 1001 Ways to Live Without Working. Grove Press.

(via waitful)

(Source: doxandthegreyhound, via thechocolatebrigade)