July 10, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
35:28
3342 The Truth About The Alton Sterling and Philando Castile Shootings
Within the span of a single week, two black men were killed during encounters with police sparking massive public outrage. The Alton Sterling and Philando Castile shootings were both featured in very graphic and disconcerting viral videos – leading to additional Black Lives Matter protests and nationwide violence against police officers. What are the facts about these shootings? Stefan Molyneux aims to separate the media narrative from reality – what is the truth about the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile shootings?Sources: http://www.fdrurl.com/castile-sterling-shootingsRecommended Websiteshttps://theconservativetreehouse.comhttp://www.gotnews.comFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Hi everybody, this is Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
Well, we are back at the same place again.
We are going to talk about two shootings of black men that led, domino-like perhaps, to many more shootings in Dallas where ten cops were shot, five of whom died of their wounds.
I just want to say up front, it's been quite a few years I've been doing these videos.
I'm getting pretty sick of it.
But as long as the media continues to push this race-baiting, one-sided narrative of innocent victim, racist evil cops, facts must be set up like spears against the charging cavalry of leftist indoctrination, and we must push back with a more rounded view of the altercations.
I'm tired of doing these videos, but my conscience compels me to do it.
Facts matter.
Innocent until proven guilty matters.
Pausing and reflecting and taking a full evaluation of the situation matters.
Now, I'm going to talk about criminal histories here, and there's going to be a lot of people who are watching this or listening to this who are going to say, Ah, well, it doesn't matter if so-and-so did X. They didn't deserve to die for X. You know, like, Mike Brown didn't deserve to die for stealing cigars.
But of course the reality is that Mike Brown did not die because he stole cigars.
Mike Brown died because he chose to attack a cop.
And that is suicidal in most situations.
So people don't die for acts in their criminal histories.
They die for failure to comply with police instructions.
That's what the police have the right to do, to order you.
And if you fail to comply with their instructions, they escalate until you comply or die.
That is the reality of dealing with the police.
But it's rare, to be fair.
In 2012, there were just under 12.2 million arrests in the United States.
Yeah, that's quite a lot.
But hey, there's a big and highly successful war on drugs going on.
But that's the way it shakes out.
12.2 million arrests.
Out of these 12.2 million arrests, there were 410 uses of deadly force.
That is tiny.
What is that?
Three one-thousandths of one percent.
It is a tiny thing.
Now, if you spend your whole life watching shark attack videos, you're going to be nervous getting into the ocean, even though you're more likely to be stung by a bee and die than be bitten by a shark.
If you are on a steady diet of police brutality videos, you're going to get a skewed view of the actual odds or chances of dying from a police bullet.
Remember, what you consume will also consume you.
Now, before we dive in, just wanted to put a shout-out to two diligent and well-researched websites, conservativetreehouse.com and gotnews.com, where I got some of this information.
We'll put links to all the sources below.
Now, strap yourself in.
We're going to go for a ride.
Let's start.
We'll start with the truth about Alton Sterling.
So Tuesday, July 5th, 2016, 37-year-old Alton Sterling was fatally shot by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Multiple graphic videos of the altercation were released online, which triggered massive media attention.
Was that to draw attention away from the fact that Hillary Clinton had been called pretty much an outright liar by James Comey, head of the FBI? I'll let you decide.
Baton Rouge police said, Uniformed officers responded to a disturbance call from a complainant who stated that a black male who was selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt threatened him with a gun.
An altercation between Sterling and the officers ensued.
Sterling was shot during the altercation and died at the scene.
One source has reported that a homeless man was asking for money and Sterling threatened him with his weapon, leading to a 911 call and the police response.
But that remains unconfirmed.
Baton Rouge police officers Blaine Salamone and Howie Lake approached Sterling outside a SSS food mart and one of them yelled, Get on the ground!
Get on the ground now!
But Sterling didn't comply.
Audio and witness testimony suggest that Sterling was hit with a taser, but remained standing.
He was a big fella, about three bills in weight, I would guess.
The officers then wrestled Sterling to the ground, attempting to pin him down, despite resistance, and after several seconds, one of the officers yelled, He's got a gun!
The officer towards Sterling's head then drew his weapon and yelled, If you fucking move, I swear to God!
As Sterling's right hand continued to fish around both his own waist and the rear officer's belt, the officer then screamed something unintelligible, which has been reported as, going for the gun, and he's going for the taser!
In response, the officer, towards Sterling's head, discharged his weapon.
After Sterling is fatally shot, one of the officers made a shots-fired call over his radio and the other removed a gun from Sterling's right pocket.
Now, just a note, the videos and the photos which I'll be referencing to, I'm not putting into this presentation.
I'll put links to them below.
You can consume them as you see fit.
I will describe them, but I'm not going to show them directly.
According to Sterling's Aunt Sandra Sterling, quote, All I want is justice for my child.
I want the same treatment y'all are giving that person in Marksville that killed that little white baby.
I want the same kind of justice.
Alton never had a gun.
I know my child.
My take is that when they moved him, when they pulled him up so the public could no longer see him, that gun was put in his pocket.
Now, his mom was dead.
Sterling's mom was dead and he was raised by his aunt.
That's why she was referring to him as her child.
Now, you can watch the video and you can see where the gun comes from.
It does not appear that the police planted it.
Now, Louisiana, of course, is an open-carry state, but Sterling was on probation, and thus it was illegal for him to be carrying a firearm.
Thus, by liberal logic, he was a personal gun-free zone, and therefore no gun could have been on him.
Sandra Sterling also reported that Alton was a, quote, generous giant who, quote, gave away more CDs than he sold, despite struggling to get his life back on track after being released from prison.
So, his job...
It was bootlegging.
It was stealing other people's music, copying it, and selling those CDs.
Sandra Sun, Elliot Sterling, said, quote, He was really good at selling those CDs.
If somebody asked for blues or country music, he'd know it all.
He couldn't make it in a regular job, but he could make it selling CDs.
He could converse with everybody.
He had a hard life.
He didn't have no mama, no daddy.
He wasn't stable at all.
He lived day to day based on what he made.
Sterling's widower, Quinetta McMillan, said, quote, He, her son Cameron Sterling, had to watch as this was put all over the outlets.
Sterling actually had five children.
As a mother, I have now been forced to raise a son who is going to remember what happened to his father.
The individuals involved in his murder took away a man with children who depended upon their daddy on a daily basis.
We'll get to that in a sec.
Sterling's cousin, Nico Sterling, said, quote, I don't think they would have did that to a white person.
Sterling's sister, Mignon Chambers, quote, I really want to know more about what happened, about the whole situation, because my brother didn't deserve it.
He didn't deserve it at all.
Sterling's cousin, Charita Sterling, quote, he would have never fought the police.
He wouldn't have pulled a gun.
He would have been too scared.
Owner of the SSS food mart, Abdullah Muflahi said, quote, he just wanted to know what was going on.
Why are they coming to arrest him?
He was asking them, what did I do wrong?
What's going on?
What did I do wrong?
Why are you messing with me?
I don't think there was any way that he would have reached for his gun.
If he would have reached for it, his hand would have been still in his pocket.
Or the gun would have been in his hand after they had killed him.
His hand was nowhere near his pocket.
They were really aggressive with him from the start.
Sterling family attorney Edmund Jordan said, If you look at the video, it certainly speaks for itself.
Mr.
Sterling was not reaching for a weapon.
He looks like a man who is trying to get his head up, who is actually fighting for his life.
A life that ended immediately thereafter, almost as if he knew what was about to happen.
Baton Rouge NAACP President Michael McClanahan said, What I'm calling for today is that the chief law enforcement officer to fire the police chief.
He must step down.
We cannot have anybody who allows this type of action to take place.
This must be answered for.
It should not take national attention for us to get an answer about a man being murdered by police officers.
Murdered.
See, that's called jumping to conclusions before the facts are in.
The reality is that Sterling would most likely have gone back to prison because he had a gun on him while he was on probation, in direct violation of being on probation.
Calling it a murder is jumping the facts.
See, the NAACP in the past, rightfully, argued that jumping to conclusions about legal matters without going through due process, kind of like a lynching, huh, I wonder.
But of course, when these kinds of incidents occur, a lot of times a pretty well-oiled machine springs into action, portrays the victim as wonderful, and portrays the cop as terrible, and it's just a narrative that's being solved.
Baton Rouge police chief Carl de Beatty said, quote, We want to know what happened.
We want to know the truth.
At this point, like you, I am demanding answers, like you all.
My prayers are with this community and the family and loved ones of Mistress Sterling.
So, District Attorney Hiller Moore said, This is potentially a state-authorized killing.
It gives law enforcement officers the authority and mandates them to kill when in defense of themselves or others.
Yes, that as far as I understand it, those are the rules.
And if you've had lots of interactions with the police, as we will look at with regards to Alton Sterling, you kind of know this, right?
Now, Officer Howie Lake had been previously suspended during the investigation into another police-involved shooting of a black man.
Of course, people are saying this is somehow proof of guilt, but this is standard law enforcement policy when police shootings are being investigated.
Previously suspended, while things are investigated, that happens to you no matter what your race is.
Now, this was not precisely the first time that Alton Sterling wrestled with police while in the possession of a firearm.
According to the website Heavy, quote, In 2009, the affidavit of probable cause contends that a police officer tried to pat down Sterling when Sterling resisted arrest, and the officer ended up wrestling with the defendant on the ground, at which time a black semi-auto gun fell from his waistband.
The officer grabbed the back of Sterling's shirt during the incident and he was able to arrest him without further incident.
So 2009, the gun fell from his waistband and he was just arrested without being shot.
I'm guessing because he wasn't grabbing in the vicinity of a gun.
According to Louisiana court records, Alton Sterling had a criminal record going back to 1996 that included aggravated battery, domestic abuse, possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute, illegally carrying a weapon and a controlled, dangerous substance, failing to register as a sex offender, failure to notify authorities of his change of address, and much, much more.
The links are below.
On August 25th, 1996, the 16-year-old Sterling was arrested for trespassing, damage to property, criminal mischief, and illegally possessing a weapon.
Two, count them two days later, he was arrested again on an aggravated burglary charge.
On November 24th, 1996, Sterling was charged with simple battery, but the case was dismissed.
On October 28th, 1997, Sterling was charged with simple battery again, but the charge was dismissed.
Perhaps due to his youth.
Don't know.
On April 24, 2000, 20-year-old Sterling was arrested on two counts of public intimidation and later convicted of carnal knowledge of a juvenile after he impregnated a 14-year-old girl and her mother filed charges.
Sterling was originally sentenced to five years in prison but was released on October 3, 2004.
So there's that.
This guy who's great dad.
In 2005, Sterling was charged with simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling, felony theft, and simple burglary.
He pled guilty to illegal possession of stolen things and received six months in prison, but the sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation.
In 2006, Sterling was charged with aggravated battery, simple criminal damage to property, misrepresentation during booking, possession of marijuana, and unauthorized entry to an uninhabited dwelling.
He took a plea deal and was sentenced to six months in prison.
See, you know, when the family starts coming out and saying, oh, he was a great guy, we loved him so much, he was so wonderful, he would never do anything like this.
Where were you all when he was going through all of this?
Maybe when he was growing up and the damage was done early.
Who knows?
In 2008, Sterling was convicted of domestic battery against a member of his own household and sentenced to 90 days in jail.
The probable cause statement says that Sterling and his girlfriend were involved in a heated verbal argument that turned physical, with him choking and striking her.
On May 29, 2009, Sterling was charged with weapon possession, marijuana possession, resisting an officer by force, possession of stolen things, possession of firearm with drugs, and simple assault.
Felon in possession of a firearm and later contempt of court.
Ultimately, Sterling was sentenced to another five years in prison for a situation which was very similar to the police encounter which led to his death.
He was not unversed in the ways of being arrested.
And this did not come, dare I say it, out of the blue.
In 2015, Sterling was charged with failure to comply with sex offender registration.
See, you know, if you have carnal knowledge of a 14-year-old when you're 20, you're a sex offender and he did not comply.
On April 5th, 2016, Sterling was charged with possession of a Schedule 1 drug, ecstasy, and possession of marijuana, first defense.
And I do sometimes have to wonder, when people make really, really bad decisions, like fighting back against cops and reaching for their gun, whether they might not be entirely in their least high mind when they make these kinds of decisions.
Perhaps time will tell.
According to Charles Johnson from Got News, quote, at the time of his death, Sterling was a deadbeat dad who owed over $25,000 in child support, according to court records from the state of Louisiana.
So you might not want to be giving away a lot of CDs if you owe $25,000 large in child support.
And see, this is the mother saying, oh, they took a father away from his children and so on.
What kind of father?
Not paying for his kids.
He's got five kids with no particularly strong means of support.
Excellent job, welfare state.
And he is in and out of prison quite a bit.
And he's the fine father who, what, chokes out his girlfriend and gets arrested.
So, and this is just what he was caught for.
And the job that he had is illegal, I believe.
So, let's go from the really grim to the considerably less grim and talk about Philando Castile.
On Saturday, July 2nd, 2016, at 7.36pm, two black males with handguns entered a Super USA convenience store in Lauderdale, Minnesota, and stole cash from the register, in addition to several cartons of Newport cigarettes.
On Tuesday, July 5th, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension posted photos from the robbery and asked for help in identifying and locating the two suspects.
A BOLO alert was also issued for individuals fitting the description of the suspects.
And again, the links are below.
You can look at the pictures.
Nobody can confirm if it's the same guy as who was shot, Philando and the thief, but they're not exactly polar opposites when it comes to looks.
So, again, you can look at that and decide for yourself.
On July 6th, 2016, Philando Castile and his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, were pulled over by police officers Geronimo Yanez and Joseph Couser in St.
Anthony, Minnesota.
The vehicle also contained Reynolds' four-year-old daughter, From another relationship.
Officer Geronimo Yenez on police radio said, Castile was in...
The possession of a handgun at the time of the stop and in the following minutes, police officer Geronimo Yanez shot Philando Castile four times, killing him.
So, it's important to understand, there is a robbery.
The suspects are caught on video, and the reason why the cops pulled over the car with Philando Castile in it was because he looked like one of the suspects in the robbery.
So, that's very, very important.
And why, in Dallas, the shooter was angry at white people?
Well, the police officer, Geronimo Yanez, not Scottish, not Scottish, his lawyer and his longtime friend have both described him as Latino.
Well, a Latino shot this black man, but I'm sure he's a white Latino, just like George Zimmerman, so that you can get a wide net of anti-white hatred going.
After the shooting, Diamond Reynolds began live streaming video to Facebook.
Now, this was a little confusing for people.
It showed a mirrored image, leading to many people incorrectly believing that Reynolds was driving and Castile was in the passenger seat.
No, Castile was driving.
Castile was hunched over, unconscious and bleeding, while Reynolds calmly noted that they were pulled over for a broken taillight and that her boyfriend told the officer he was carrying a firearm for which he had a concealed carry permit.
Now, what's interesting is that pictures seem to show that there's no broken taillight.
Now, that doesn't mean that this woman is lying.
It could be, of course, that the officer came and said, you have a broken taillight in order to evaluate the situation without raising the alarm or the suspicions of the people in the car, the potential suspect.
Now, the attorney for the officer, Geronimo Alvarez, Yanez has said that Yanez was reacting to the presence of that gun and the display of that gun, not race when he shot Philando Castile.
The Ramsey County Sheriff Later, commented on Twitter, noting that, quote, Mr.
Castile never applied for a permit to carry with our office.
Therefore, we did not issue his permit.
This does not mean that Castile did not have a permit, but it was not through the local Ramsey County Sheriff.
Right?
So, if there's a gun in the car, of course, one way you could buy time is saying, no, no, no, I've got a permit for this gun.
And again, we don't know for sure that he didn't, but certainly didn't come through the local County Sheriff time.
Right?
We'll tell whether or not there was a permit or not.
The Star Tribune is reporting that a source has confirmed to them that Castile did have a valid permit, but that has not been independently verified by other media outlets.
It remains an open question.
However, if the COP is coming up, Concerned that there is somebody who committed an armed robbery a few days ago in the car, he's going to be nervous about a gun more so than if it's just a broken taillight.
And the pictures do seem to show that there was a gun under the hip, in the seat of Castile, Philando Castile.
In the video, you can also hear a clearly panicked Officer Yanez yelling, I told him not to reach for it!
I told him to get his hands off it!
And instructing Reynolds to keep her hands visible due to a weapon being within the vehicle.
And look, going for or brandishing a gun when an officer has a gun trained on you, It's death by cop.
That's suicidal.
Anyone does that.
They're almost certain to get shot.
That's my understanding of the training that the officers have.
I mean, the moment he gets that gun, you can shoot the officer through the door and the leg.
I don't know.
Neither does the officer.
Reynolds, the woman, continued her commentary in an eerily calm fashion, saying,"'Please don't tell me that he's gone.
Please, officer, don't tell me that you just did this to him.
You shot four bullets into him, sir.
He was just getting his license and registration, sir.'" After being removed from the vehicle, Reynolds commented, Now, I don't mean to sound like all kinds of a prude, but...
To me, if you've got a four-year-old kid in the car, I don't really think you should have weed in the car as well.
Maybe that's a minor note, but that speaks to character to me.
Now, we don't know exactly how much time elapsed between the shooting and the video being streamed to Facebook, but Reynolds' young daughter had already been removed from the vehicle at the time she began broadcasting.
So we don't have any video record, at least from this woman, of the actual altercation and what led up to the shooting.
But, if an officer has a gun on you and says, don't reach for anything, don't go for that gun, and you try to go for it, you're going to get shot.
Again, we don't know.
But, that is not just some random racist incident.
The video, of course, is incredibly graphic.
And the media, mainstream media, predictably ran with the narrative of racist police officer shoots innocent black men, despite very little being known about the encounter other than the video posted...
by Reynolds and of course you want to ask yourself how credible is the witness in this situation and this narrative hits people right in the solar plexus it hits them right in the lizard brain ah racist terrible innocent black shot And this hits people, brands into their brain, and by the time the truth comes out, which can be six months or 12 months or 18 months later, they've just moved on to the next thing.
Remember Freddie Gray?
How terrible all that was?
Has the media been strongly reporting that three of the officers accused or implicated in the death of Freddie Gray have all been acquitted?
It doesn't matter.
You're moving on to the next disaster, poking the next hornet's nest of race-baiting without circling back, as the old saying goes.
While the truth is still tying its shoes, a lie can go twice around the world.
Castile's mother, Valerie Castile, said, They killed my son.
They took a good man, a hard-working man.
He worked since he was 18 years old.
He lived by the law, and he died by the law.
Castile's uncle Clarence Castile said, Cousin Damien Pickett Quote, he was stopped because they think every African American does crime, but it doesn't happen like that.
He was DWB, driving while black.
They think that of everybody, especially guys with dreads.
You cannot label one person just off a few people because every black person is not that.
A lot of people seem to do it with cops, but hey.
As of press time, as of this recording, various fundraising accounts have collected over $200,000 due to To the incident.
Now, Castile, Philando Castile, worked as a cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori School in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
And was in a car with a kid and weed.
Minnesota court system records show that Castile had at least 55 traffic offenses in Minnesota, including things like driving without a muffler, operating after revocation, and driving without insurance.
The most recent conviction occurred in January, where Castile was charged twice with leaving his vehicle abandoned on, quote, public-private property without consent.
Castile was previously convicted for public nuisance, interfere, obstruct, render, which is defined as anyone who, quote, interferes with, obstructs, or renders dangerous for passage any public highway or right-of-way or waters used by the public.
Castile had also been arrested for possession of marijuana in motor vehicle and possession of over 1.4 grams of marijuana in motor vehicle, but both charges were ultimately dismissed.
Charles Johnson from gotnews.com has also captured interesting images and video from the social media accounts of both Philando Castile and Diamond Reynolds.
And again, they are linked below.
In 2011, Philando Castile posted Merry Cripmas and Happy Blue Year to Facebook.
Crips, of course, is a criminal gang.
He was also a member of a Crips Facebook group and is posed next to an individual wearing all blue, making C gestures indicating that he was involved or associated with the Crips gang in some form.
Great guy to be working with kids.
Now the woman, Reynolds, also posted a meme on her Facebook page on July 1st with a black man wearing blue, making Crip gang signs and the text, On Crip, it's Friday!
Reynolds also posted videos of her smoking marijuana in front of her young daughter, including one while she's driving a vehicle and many other social media posts about getting high and drinking alcohol.
Johnson also reports that Castile's Facebook state is a single while Reynolds is married, despite the fact that she has written about being a single mother and there are no references to Reynolds on Castile's Facebook page despite their heavy activity.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton said, Would this have happened if the passengers were white?
I don't think it would have.
All of us in Minnesota are forced to confront that this kind of racism exists.
Well, first of all, whites get shot by police in higher numbers than blacks.
Just a fact.
President Barack Obama rushing in to heal and provide clarity and avoid a rush to judgment.
Oh wait, sorry.
That's President Obama in opposite world.
He said, when incidents like this occur, there's a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same.
And that hurts.
That should trouble all of us.
So those are the facts.
This guy, Philando Castile, is driving with some woman who is smoking drugs in front of her kids, seemingly obsessed with getting high and drinking all the time.
He's floating around and fans of gang activity posts and people and so on.
I'm just giving you the facts.
Who knows?
Who knows?
Is there a concealed carry permit?
No evidence as yet.
Could be.
We'll find out.
Does it really matter?
Well, if he did not have a concealed carry permit and he had a gun in the car, he's in trouble.
If he was the guy in the convenience store theft, well, he's in trouble.
And all of this points to why he might have overreacted to a cop pulling him over.
Maybe he was high.
Maybe there was a lot of drugs in the car.
I don't know.
We don't know.
Maybe he was a great guy and all of this can be explained away.
I don't know.
That's the whole point.
Stop rushing to judgment!
That's called lynching.
Look, it is not fair.
It is not fair.
The cops are stymied.
They can't talk because everything that they say is going to be used against them in a court of law should they be charged with murder.
I mean...
Whereas the people who are on the other side, the friends, the victims, family and so on, they can say whatever they want, virtually without repercussions.
Mike Brown's friend, was it Dorian Johnson, lied directly about how Brown was killed.
He said, oh, he was killed execution style, with his hands in the air, saying, hands up, don't shoot!
Lied about it.
Created a narrative that gave birth to a somewhat questionable organization.
It was not true.
Michael Brown was shot in the front while he was charging the police officer.
Did he face any negative repercussions for basically starting riots?
No.
All the people who lie to the media and misrepresent things to create a race-baiting narrative, who provoke riots and injuries and sometimes even deaths or outright assassinations as in Dallas, does anything happen to them?
No.
So it's not fair.
The police can't say anything.
And everyone on the other side of the narrative can say whatever they want without repercussions.
So you need to...
I don't want to keep doing these damn videos.
You need to look in the mirror.
When something like this occurs, do you say, we need to wait for judgment.
We cannot rush to judgment.
Let us wait and find until the facts are in.
We don't know yet.
Do you push back against this mob?
This pitchfork and torch-bearing mob looking for a scapegoat?
Do you push back?
Or do you virtue signal and get behind it and believe all of the narrative?
No matter how many times...
It has been disproven in the past.
No matter how many lies have been spoken before, no matter how much oversimplification and lack of nuance has been presented to you before, do you still buy all of this hook, line and sinker and spread it around like a virus, causing untold escalation of hatred and contempt and violence in this world?
Do you push back against the mob, as a reasonable, moral, decent human being must always do, if you were unjustly accused of something?
Or if you were accused of something and you had your side to tell, would you want your side to be heard?
Would you want people to push back against the mob that was charging you down?
When you were running for the mob, would you like reasonable people to stand and say, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We have a process.
We have a system.
We have fact-finding.
Everybody.
Deep breath.
Put down your pitchforks.
Go home.
The facts will come out.
Wouldn't you want someone or a group of people to do that if you were being chased by a mob?
Of course you would.
So I want you to look in the mirror.
Did you share all of this information?
Did you escalate it?
Did you pump it?
Did you virtue signal?
Did you tell everyone what a great person you were because you believed everything that the media said?
Did you enjoy stewing in the dopamines of joining the mob and inciting the mob?
If you did, if you did any of that, my friend, you need to look in the mirror.
And then you need to look down because you have blood on your hands.
This stuff, this escalation, this lack of pushing back against the mob gets people killed.
And I'm not just talking about the police officers in Dallas or the people who might be injured or who die in riots.
I'm talking, my friends, also about getting black people killed.
Because when you push this narrative, police get paralyzed.
The Ferguson effect drives up crime in black neighborhoods.
The media throws all of these aspersions and moves on.
Keep moving.
Get the next one out.
Poke!
Poke!
Goad!
They don't want you to circle back.
Hey, I've done lots of these videos.
We'll link to them below.
You can circle back on me.
Walter Scott, Trayvon Martin, you name them.
You can circle back and you can look at what I said.
Freddie Gray.
You can circle back.
And you can look at what I say.
I welcome that.
I'm tired of being right.
Now, I'm not defending cops in particular.
I'm defending fact.
I'm defending the truth.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Thou shalt not rush to judgment.
Thou shalt oppose the mob.
That is the foundational values and virtues of being a halfway decent human being, which you need to be in these troubled and troubling times.
Calm, reasonable voices need to push back against hysteria so people can slow down, take deep breaths, and think.
And the reason why thou shalt not bear false witness is because these dominoes lead to gravestones.
These escalations lead to gunshots.
The reason we do not bear false witness, the reason we do not rush to judgment, the reason the assumption of innocence is sacred, is because when we bear false witness, we participate in the greatest violation of the greatest commandment,
