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Unarmed Man in His Backyard Shot From Behind 7 Times By Cops
The World Socialist Web Site reports
On Friday [March 30], the results of an independent autopsy requested by Stephon Clark's family were released to the public, confirming that police shot the unarmed 22-year-old African-American man seven times in the back and side amid a volley of gunfire in his grandparents' backyard.
The incident began when two police officers responding to a report of someone breaking car windows confronted Clark on March 18. Body camera footage shows that, without identifying themselves, police demanded Clark put his hands up and chased him into his grandparents' backyard. At that point, one of the officers yelled "Gun!" and the two fired 20 shots at Clark, who was holding his cell phone in one hand.
The officers, identified as Terrence Mercadel and Jared Robinet, stood pointing their guns at Clark's corpse for several minutes until backup arrived, then handcuffed his body and made a perfunctory attempt to resuscitate Clark before pronouncing him dead. The officers then turned off their microphones for several minutes, presumably to get their stories straight off the record.
Autopsy results released by a private medical examiner hired by the family's attorney show that [the bullets of] Mercadel and Robinet [hit] Clark a total of eight times. Dr. Bennet Omalu's analysis found that Clark was shot four times in the lower back, twice in the neck, once under an armpit, and once in the front of his thigh.
"You could reasonably conclude that he received seven gunshot wounds from his back", Dr. Omalu told a press conference Friday adding that any one of those would have been fatal on its own. The doctor described extensive damage to Clark's body from the torrent of bullets, which resulted in a collapsed lung and a shattered vertebra.
Dr. Omalu also told reporters that Clark did not die immediately from his injuries but lived another three to 10 minutes after he was shot. He noted that, while it is impossible to say whether Clark would have survived had he received medical attention sooner, "every minute you wait decreases probability of survival." According to video released by the Sacramento Police Department, six minutes elapsed between the firing of the final bullet and the time CPR was administered to Clark's dead body.
The results further discredit the police narrative that Mercadel and Robinet believed Clark posed a danger to their safety and was moving in a menacing manner toward the officers when they gunned him down. In a statement, Clark family attorney Benjamin Crump wrote: "These findings from the independent autopsy contradict the police narrative that we've been told. This independent autopsy affirms that Stephon was not a threat to police and was slain in another senseless police killing under increasingly questionable circumstances."
Body Cam Video of Alton Sterling Killing Released; Officer Sacked
The videos, released Friday as Baton Rouge's police chief announced the firing of the white officer who shot Sterling six times, came days after the state attorney general declined to bring criminal charges against the two officers involved in the incident.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @05:59PM (2 children)
... I want to live in a world that isn't based on theft.
I oppose anti-capitalism, because I don't want to live in a world that is based on theft.
It's unlikely I'll ever be a millionaire, or even particularly wealthy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:26PM (1 child)
The core idea of anti-capitalist thought is that capitalism is also based on theft. Specifically, it involves the appropriation of the fruits of labor by people who didn't do the work.
Consider the following scenario: Acme Agriculture, Inc buys up a bunch of farmland and farming equipment, and hires Bob to farm it. Bob does his job, grows and harvests $450,000 worth of crops. Bob is reasonably well-paid and gets $150,000 for his efforts, while Acme keeps the remaining $300,000. This is all perfectly legal under current law in most capitalist nations.
The capitalist interpretation of what happened goes something like this: "Acme supplied necessary capital, and thus created $300K worth of value for their shareholders and $450K worth of goods that weren't there before. We should make sure they all keep the fruits of their labors to keep everyone motivated to . What a good thing!"
The anti-capitalist interpretation of what happened goes something like this: "Acme didn't do any farming, all they did was move some numbers around in a computer database and shuffle some sheets of paper. Therefor, it was Bob, not Acme, that created basically all of the $450K worth of value, and therefor Bob was effectively robbed by Acme of 2/3 of the value of his work. What a terrible thing!"
There are further defenses on both sides of this (e.g. "Bob agreed to the arrangement" "But Bob's alternative to this agreement involved him starving"). But what it boils down to, as one quip put it: "Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way around."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 05 2018, @12:15AM
In your scenario, how much did the farm land and equipment and seed and water and property taxes cost? Then, what rate of return does the $300,000 operating income represent? And then how do you account for the seasons when crops fail? Or equipment breaks down. Or some other random loss of revenue?
If the capital to buy the land and equipment was borrowed and crops fail, then Acme still has to repay the loan with interest or go bankrupt. If Acme had sufficient cash on hand so as to not require leverage, then there's opportunity cost of maybe investing the money elsewhere instead that does not involve the risk of corp failure and consequently does not involve feeding the world.
Likely that operating profit is a reasonable rate of return, considering the risk.