In my last post about the shooting of Emantic “EJ” Bradford Jr. at the Riverchase Galleria Mall in Hoover, I posted a piece from CBS news and missed and important detail.
In a statement issued Monday, police said Bradford had a gun in his hand “during the seconds following the gunshots, which instantly heightened the sense of threat to approaching police officers.”
Ben Crump, a lawyer representing the Bradford family, said there was a presumption that Bradford was the criminal because he was a black man. The officer who opened fire hasn’t yet been identified.
Bradford’s family has said he had a permit to carry a weapon legally, and their attorney has said witnesses reported that Bradford was trying to help after the shooting.
I didn’t put two and two together on the name Ben Crump. Miguel did in the comments.
I wrote about Crump before, recently in my coverage of the propaganda documentary series Trevyon Martin: Rest in Power.
Boy, what a piece of shit Crump is. He’s what happens when Al Sharpton and the skeeziest of ambulance chasers have a baby.
There was another detail that I left out because, again, I didn’t think about it at the time.
McClure said Bradford attended his church, and McClure will officiate at funeral services on Saturday which will include a eulogy by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The Reverend Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson, the pastor of choice for radical Left wing anti-American Progressive bigots.
Here is what we know about Bradford. He had a CCW and was trying to help other people in the mall. He was active duty military on leave at the time of the shooting.
I’m not going to say that Bradford was a conservative Republican because he was a solider with a CCW permit, but so far what we know about him seems to reflect the kinds of values the we support. Service to our country, concealed carry, and risking (and ultimately losing) his life to help others in a crises.
Letting Ben Crump and Jesse Jackson force their way into this tragedy and turn it into an anti-cop, “see, gun rights are not for black men,” and presumably anti-Trump (why not, it’s what happened at Aretha Franklin’s funeral) radicalized circus is going to overly politicize this and turn it into a travesty.
Without the release of further information I am going to take the Hanlon’s Razor approach to this. As the British say, “cockup before conspiracy.”
I’m guessing the police were told “active shooter at the mall” and simply shot and killed the first guy they saw in the area of the shooter with a gun in his hand. Add to it that the suspect and Bradford were both black and I get the feeling that this was just a tragedy of misidentification and quick response as opposed to a murder motivated by racism.
I really want the NRA to make a statment in support of Bradford as a hero, a soldier and CCW permit holder who unfortunately died while trying to help other during a shooting.
I have a feeling that Crump and Jackson are going to make Bradford a martyr to American racism and implicit bias in police and all that crap we saw after the Michael Brown shooting.
What really worries me is there will be a backlash against this that causes the people to oppose Crump and Jackson’s horrendous political shitshow by sullying Bradford’s name.
That cannot be allowed to happen.
We lost a solider and a hero in a tragedy. We must remember him as such.
Whatever Crump and Jackson say, we cannot respond by tearing Bradford down.
We, at this moment must support Bradford’s memory and his family, and show them respect.
Let Crump and Jackson come off looking like assholes. We must be impeccable.
That is how we win.
Update: apparently Bradford was not active duty military. That was the official news that I read as of the time of writing this post.
That has been redacted.
Further changes may happen as more information becomes available.
There needs to be a correction regarding the misinformation that this guy was in the military. He entered the service, could NOT do basic training so he was ‘generally discharged’ and never completed the requirements to be a soldier.
So he was a failed soldier at best, did not serve. The army has already come out to inform everyone that this guy was NOT in the Army and was never an active duty Army member.
He also did not follow police commands regarding his gun, which then became a ‘reasonable threat of death’ to the responding officers. HE did not follow lawful commands, and thus the officers had no choice but to consider him as a real perceived authentic threat to their lives.
And from what accounts I’ve read he did not stop when asked to stop either. And last time I checked, it’s against the law to walk through a shopping mall brandishing a pistol, while disregarding lawful police orders to ‘Stop…Drop the Gun Now” …and he continues to disobey the police.
He was shot for being non-compliant, holding a pistol, and attempting to walk away, acting just like a real criminal would act. He’s a fool at the very least.
There’s two words missing from your post.
“Officers claimed”. Unless there’s bodycam or mall security cam videos of the shooting, or a stack of eyewitnesses who all back up each other’s stories, “Officers claimed”. Officers have claimed the same kind of thing far too many times on far too many sketchy shoots for me to take them at their words any more.
The same officers, BTW, who originally claimed that Mr. Bradford was the shooter in the first place; and who have a vested interest in NOT admitting they lit a dude up because they panicked.
I’m with you, but the fact that his gun was out—or why did they shoot to begin with, I mean the percentage of police who are inept at their responsibilities to follow protocol are very minimal at best–and upon seeing police responding he did not do any action which conveyed to the officers that he was giving up, not a threat, and complying with police, was obviously not done.
I will side with police in all instances UNTIL there is evidence otherwise, to change my mind–odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the stand I take.
The main reason for my post was the incorrect information what he was an Army soldier, when in fact the Army provided a statement to the contrary–being generally discharged due to failure to complete basic training.
Police have the same rights as you and me in this situation. If you perceive that you are in a credible threat of death or great bodily harm, you can take self-defensive action to save yourself from death or harm by using deadly force—to meet the threat of a man brandishing a weapon while not complying with orders to drop the gun..
The odds that the officers shot a non-threat because they were incompetent and the gun-toting person was just shot for being…..what? Black? I doubt it. This guy was not able to complete basic training, so too in this life or death situation he was unable to be responsible with his firearm when criminal action was in play.
Was he trying to help as a responsible gun owner, being law abiding? Probably, most likely. However he clearly messed this up, and confused the responding police right when there was NO ROOM to assume he was not a threat to officers.
A bad situation at best, and perhaps, he was just another black man who would NOT comply with lawful orders because he was a…….racist against cops.
As you said but in the opposite direction of logic, I’ve seen too many black people fleeing police when told not to, or not complying with lawful commands, resulting in their deaths. For every black person killed by police in this nation, there are 17 officers killed by a black criminal, not complying.
He should have acted as police instructed him to do, as their protocol and training instructed them to implement in cases of threats of death.
Did the police order him to drop the gun?
—– I have not seen any evidence they did. I have heard otherwise in news reports. Maybe they did, I will believe it when I see evidence.
Do the police unquestioningly deserve to be believed?
—– I used to believe that. I have seen too damned many incidents where they lied. The latest was the Justine Damond shooting. The officer shot across his partners face in a squad car to kill an unarmed woman in her PJs. (I used to believe the FBI too.)