Kajieme Powell Shooting: Doesn't the St. Louis Police Department have Tasers?

A video was released today of the shooting of 25-year-old African-American Kajieme Powell by St. Louis police officers which occurred yesterday a few miles from where Michael Brown was killed August 9th:


Last night I posted a blog with my take concerning the shooting of 'Big' Mike Brown, which strikes me as a case of suicide-by-cop by a young man uneasy about his upcoming college challenges.  I believe Officer Darren Wilson was justified in using lethal force when he was (most likely) charged by the 6' 4", 290-pound seemingly irrational youth.  Of course, the better response for Officer Wilson would have been to use a Taser, but I think he was caught off-guard and already had his gun drawn from a struggle that had occurred in the police vehicle.
While Officer Wilson's use of lethal force may have been warranted, what one sees in the video above seems plain wrong.  Kajieme Powell is clearly a mentally disturbed individual seeking to commit suicide-by-cop. He is brandishing what looks like a minimal knife while yelling, "Shoot me!" Why were these officers so willing to fulfill Kajieme's irrational pursuit of death?  
What might be important here is what the dispatcher communicated to the officers sent to the crime which, in this case, was the petty theft of two cans of soda.  
 
I have to presume information was relayed to alert the officers about the mental health background of Kajieme.  (Although that he was mentally disturbed should have been obvious enough by his seemingly suicidal actions.) Why not prepare to taser him rather than shoot him dead upon arriving at the scene?  Doesn't the St. Louis police department have Tasers?
Seriously....what we witness in the video above is wrong.  Police officers are supposed to train for and enforce "public safety", not public endangerment.   
I guess I may be a little more sympathetic to the rage of Ferguson protesters now, although I think they are focused on the wrong incident.
Meanwhile, President Obama is playing golf in Martha's Vineyard...

BREAKING NEWS: Dorian Johnson recants - Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson will be cleared in the shooting of Michael Brown

“On my side of town, When the sun go down, You in trouble now.” -Big Mike Brown

Tonight, on the Facebook page for the radio station "The Viper" 100.7 FM in St. Louis, the above image was posted along with the following text:

***BREAKING NEWS***Remember, you saw it and heard it here first. We have heard (from a VERY connected national media source) that Ferguson officer Darren Wilson will be cleared in the shooting of Michael Brown. The key: Dorian Johnson has now admitted that Michael Brown attacked Officer Wilson and attempted to take his gun. OFFICER WILSON WILL NOT BE CHARGED! This is scary. When this news is made official, we all have reason to be concerned about the reaction.

To substantiate the claim, the poster notes:

For the record....WE broke the autopsy results ON SATURDAY NIGHT, RIGHT HERE. Every detail that WE reported, (6 shots, none in the back, marijuana etc) were all confirmed on Monday.Our info has been right on, and I have no reason to doubt this. Is it a guarantee? No. That would be silly.

Is this true?

If not yet, it likely soon will be.

Here is the eyewitness testimony of Dorian Johnson from the day of Michael Brown's shooting:

Did Darian tell the truth?  Unfortunately, the emerging evidence suggests otherwise.
First off, given the release of autopsy results, it's clear that Michael Brown was never shot in the back as the gunshot wounds are in the front of his body.
Furthermore, Officer Wilson reportedly suffered an “orbital blowout fracture to his eye socket” during his scuffle with Mike Brown in his police vehicle.  That requires the the shooting victim must have punched Officer Wilson when he was in the police vehicle.
Finally, other witnesses saw Michael Brown charge Officer Wilson as he discharged his weapon:

So how did Mike Brown's shooting really unfold?  The following explanation by a friend of Officer Wilson's wife is most likely the truth about what happened:

On Sunday, St. Louis Post-Dispatch crime reporter Christine Byers tweeted:  “Police sources tell me more than a dozen witnesses have corroborated cop’s version of events in shooting Ferguson.” Given what most likely really happened, why did Dorian Johnson make such an inflammatory false testimony about how his friend was killed?  I think the problem was that he was interviewed in the midst of a very racially charged situation where his peers were looking for him to answer in a way that would paint the police in a negative light.  After all, his dead friend couldn't be the bad guy, especially when everyone around him knows the police are.  Hence, he relented to the peer pressure and said what he thought those around him wanted to hear.
However, now that there's forensic evidence and other eyewitness testimonies going against Dorian's testimony, along with proof of his involvement with a strong-armed robbery just before the shooting, it would come as no surprise if Michael Brown's friend has recanted his earlier testimony to law enforcement authorities.  
The problem is, how can the now widely believed false narrative, embodied in the protesters' slogan,  "Hands up! Don't shoot!", be undone?
What's more, how can Officer Wilson be acquitted for justifiably shooting "Big Mike" after being attacked in his police vehicle and then bum rushed by the 6' 4", 290 pound youth?
The reality is that the "justice" Michael Brown's mother and much of the Ferguson, and even nationwide, black community are seeking, i.e., the arrest of Officer Wilson, would be an injustice.

If justice is to be served in the memory of Michael Brown, then people should consider what truly went wrong for him.
Michael had done right by his family in graduating from high school and getting into college .

The day he died, he was two days from starting college.  Undoubtedly he was stressing out about the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood approaching him.  I think "Big Mike" was torn between the idea of hanging back with his friends 'in the hood' and making his way as a "real n****r" (from his lyrics) hip hop artist versus going to college and making something of himself as his family was expecting.  ("Proud graduate for Mom and Dad / proved everybody wrong / wishing hoping and praying I can bring my n****s along.") 
That this tug-of-war was going on in his mind is suggested by how, in the weeks prior to his shooting, Michael posted his rap music on the internet.  One lyric set seems particularly telling, "Til I die / rise and grind / gotta get mine / no nine to five / 'til I die".
With that philosophy in mind, Big Mike - who had pretty much been a good-natured soul up to that point in life - smoked some dope with his buddy Dorian, headed off to the local convenience store and committed a strong-armed robbery of, of all things, a package of cigars to smoke more pot with.  A few minutes later he ran into Officer Wilson and, once word filtered through about the recent local theft, a violent altercation took place where young Mike effectively committed suicide-by-cop in his torn state-of-mind.

So to truly honor the life and loss of Big Mike Brown, I think it's time for America's black community to step up to the plate and denounce the oppressive, thuggish, depraved hip-hop culture that drew this good young man away from making something respectable of himself and into a volley of gun shots fired by a white police officer more upset by what happened than anything these foolish protesters in Ferguson would like to know.
JMHO

Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez declares he is Jesus Christ

Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, the Idaho man charged with shooting the White House and attempting to assassinate President Obama, declares he is Jesus Christ in a video taped commentary to get on to the Oprah Winfrey show:



And I thought I had issues?!

The silly fool has the wrong world misleader pegged as the Antichrist. Obama is just a sub-character in Satan's plot IMHO.

Christina Taylor Green: Maybe God's Trying To Show Us Something

How does one make sense of the seemingly senseless tragedy of the Tucson shooting on Saturday that took the lives of six people and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in critical condition?

I believe an opportunity has emerged for Americans to do some serious soul-searching, and this appears to be underway:



But will we find the right meaning?

I believe something that is important to notice are the "coincidences" surrounding what happened.

First off, there's the issue of Sarah Palin's target list and map that including a gun sight over Congresswoman Giffords' name and congressional district as examined in my prior blog. Incredibly, the Arizona representative commented in an interview with MSNBC in March 2010: "We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is that the way she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district, and when people do that they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."



As more facts have come to light, it appears that the shooter, Jared Loughlin, was utterly deranged and, rather than being politically motivated, may have acted based upon a perceived slight from Rep. Giffords because, at a town hall meeting in 2007 similar to that of the shooting, she failed to answer his bizarre question: 'What is government if words have no meaning?'



So even though all this is seemingly an unrelated coincidence, Sarah Palin has come under extreme criticism by the political "Left" that has the "Right" crying foul. It seems to me that our nation's bipolar insanity is becoming clear to all who are willing to see.

On a harmonious note, the most innocent victim of the shooting, 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, was one of 50 children born on 9/11/01 that was featured in the book, Faces Of Hope:



On the page that followed her baby picture in the book the following appears:

"I hope you know all of the words of the national anthem and sing it with a hand over your heart."

Think about that.



Recently I've been considering the notion of God's will and recently came across an intriguing writing by St. Augustine, dubbed "The Triumph of God’s Sovereign Good Will", that seeks to argue that God's will is good and man's ill will is used toward God's good purposes. Maybe we can see this here in a tragedy that took the life of an innocent child named CHRISTina.

As with the tragedy that occurred on the day Christina was born, God is presenting us with a challenge to see our own ill will toward one another to bring forth His good will through us to help resolve division and animosity.

Can we rise to the occasion?

Will America pin its hopes on the irresponsible insanity of this?



Or will America find hope in the responsibility and sanity of this?



Might and intimidation do not make right, and neither of America's political poles represent God.

Pray that our Creator somehow uses the ill will of creatures on all sides toward the greater good of our redemption.

I believe there's a reason the tragedy in Tucson occurred. I believe there's a reason America's "Liberty Bell" cracked (~ three times).



Finally, and most tragically, I believe there's a reason America's enemies operate under the banner
of 'submitting to God's will' (Islam) to 'share for the common good' (Communism).

America has been led into temptation and is being delivered into Evil IMHO:



The most crucial issue of the day is how to undo the fate man is making,
and on this score the Tucson tragedy can help us to see the truth if people are willing take off their self-important blinders and look.

We need to learn to love one another.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." [John 13:34]

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Warned About Sarah Palin's Hit List & Cross Hairs Map

UPDATE: Palin spokeswoman: 'Nothing irresponsible about our graphic'

Sarah Palin decided it was fair politics to create a "hit list" of healthcare opponents including the use of maps with cross hair targets on congressional districts like that of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona:




Congresswoman Giffords warned in an interview with MSNBC last March that such tactics are unacceptable in this day and age:

"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list but, the thing is that the way she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gunsight over our district, and when people do that they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."

(@2:20 into video)





God comfort Congresswoman Giffords and the other victims of the senseless shooting by Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson today. While Sarah Palin is not directly to blame for the tragedy, she clearly showed bad judgment that could have helped to stoke the murderous insanity that occurred. As for just how disturbed Jared Loughner had become, here's the final message that was captured from his MySpace page:

"Goodbye friends. Please don't be mad at me. The literacy rate is below 5%. I haven't talked to one person who is literate. I want to make it out alive. The longest war in the history of the United States. Goodbye. I'm saddened with the current currency and job employment. I had a bully at school. Thank you. P.S. --plead the fifth!"

UPDATE: Sarah Palin responded on Facebook to the the tragedy in Arizona:

My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona.

On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.

- Sarah Palin

Note that, while Palin's political sites have been scrubbed of her target map in the wake of the Tucson shooting tragedy, it still appears on her Facebook page.



God is neither Right nor Left but rather a synthesis of what's true from both sides of the table IMHO. Nevertheless, there's a serious problem with those who seek to take over the table and establish who's "right" through armed force or threats thereof....even if only implied for intimidation.

Finally, maybe it's telling that the 9-year-old girl murdered in the Tuscon shooting today, CHRISTina Green, was born on 9/11/01, the day of a tragedy that briefly had Americans seeing beyond their differences to come together for the common good. Let's hope this spirit returns in the face of this newest trial.