Police Exonerated by Body Camera, Family Still Want Charges
Minneapolis Police have released body camera footage exonerating police of claims that they had shot an unarmed man. The footage shows the man was armed and fled from the police. it contradicts witness testimony and family testimony. But even with the footage the family is still calling for the officers to be prosecuted and fired. What causes people to believe these narratives and why don't outlets report on the conclusions and proof about what really happened? Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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On June 23rd, police in Minneapolis were responding to a call that someone was firing a handgun in a residential neighborhood.
Upon arriving at the scene, they saw a man sitting on a curb with a woman, and they believed he had a gun.
They got out of the car, told him not to move and to drop the weapon, but he got up and fled.
They chased after him, saying, drop it or we'll shoot you, but the man continued to run.
Audio was released, where you can hear the man yelling, please don't shoot me, and saying something to the effect that he didn't do anything wrong.
But eventually, this man, he was killed.
And neighbors, residents, and family members were furious and called for these police officers to be charged.
But now, body camera footage has been released, and it is totally raw.
And you can see that the man did actually have a gun.
And after he is killed, police come up and kick the gun away.
Even after this, activists and family members are still calling for the police to be charged.
So today, the question I have is, how does a narrative like this persist?
Is it faulty reporting that makes people believe these police were guilty before any evidence had come to light?
And how have activists responded in the wake of evidence proving the man did, in fact, have a gun?
And not only that, but he was actually pulling it out of his waist when he was killed.
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First, the most updated version of the story from CBS News.
Minneapolis police release body camera videos in fatal shooting of black man.
In a photo, it says, body camera footage released Sunday 29th by Minneapolis Police Department of the fatal shooting of Thurman Blevins on June 23rd.
In this photo, you can see one officer is pointing his weapon.
Another officer is further back.
You can see the officer here.
And in this analyzed video, you can see a red circle around some kind of image.
Now, I can't tell what that is.
But apparently, this is showing the gun in his hand.
Authorities in Minneapolis released body camera video Sunday from two police officers in the fatal shooting of a 31-year-old black man.
The graphic footage shows Thurman Blevins shot from behind after a frenetic foot chase and what appeared to be a gun in his hand.
Officers Justin Schmidt and Ryan Kelly were responding to a 911 call of a man firing a gun into the air on the city's north side, June 23rd.
The video shows them pulling their cruiser up and a man, Blevins, seated on a curb near a woman with a child in a stroller, and the officers pull up once as he's got a gun.
Blevins jumps up and runs as the officers yell, stop, stop, put your hands up, I will effing shoot you.
In a chase that takes less than a minute, Blevins yells back, I didn't do nothing, bro.
Please don't shoot and leave me alone.
An enhanced version of the video has a red circle drawn around Blevins' hand to highlight what appears to be a gun.
After the chase turns down an alley, Blevins is shot still running.
Community members have been calling for the release of body camera footage since Blevin's death, CBS Minnesota reports.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey promised to release the footage once the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension completed interviews with all key witnesses.
After the shooting, activists and witnesses were questioning what actually happened.
Some people said he was holding a bottle, he was holding a cup.
That he wasn't armed and the police shot him.
Some activists insinuated that the audio release, where you can hear the police saying, drop the gun, was an attempt by police officers to protect themselves in the event of an investigation.
The idea being that they knew the man wasn't armed, but by yelling, drop the gun, they would somehow provide evidence as to the police officer's innocent or justification in the shooting.
But with the release of body camera footage, we now know the man was in fact armed, fled from police, and did have his hand on his weapon when he was shot and killed.
Now, there is raw footage of this.
I'm not gonna play that because it's extremely graphic and YouTube will probably punish me for it.
But I will include a link to the official source you can watch if you so choose, and I will include the source from CBS, which has censored some of the more graphic depictions in the video.
The city also released an enhanced video that slows down the images and highlights a gun in Blevins pocket at the beginning of the encounter and in his hand at the end.
In the raw footage, you can see police officers walk up and actually secure a gun.
There was a gun reported on scene by police, and in the raw and unedited footage, you can see them kicking a gun away.
It would appear that this man, Blevins, did have a gun in his pocket, presumably, or in his waistband, and when police were giving chase, he gripped it and was holding it in his hand before he was shot and killed, dropping it.
The police then came and kicked that gun away.
Stories like this happen, unfortunately, all too often.
Someone flees from the police, they're armed, and they end up being killed because of it.
There are many stories of innocent people who have a legal right to carry a gun being shot and killed by police, and there are many other stories of unarmed people being shot and killed by police.
But what I want to look at here is how actually good reporting Still helped to misinterpret what happened and drive activists toward a narrative that this man was unjustly killed.
Now, I don't think the man should have been killed at all.
But you are presented with a problem.
When police are giving chase, a man is armed and is holding a gun and refuses to stop.
It's a tough situation and I don't know what the right answer is.
It's unfortunate the man died, absolutely.
But calling for protests and the prosecution of the officers probably isn't the right move in this instance.
According to ABC News, when slowed down, the video shows Blevins pulled out a gun in his waistband just before being shot by both officers.
But it is unclear if Blevins fired the weapon.
Family members saw the video for the first time on Sunday as well, according to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
Sydney Brown, Blevins' cousin, who has served as a spokesperson for the family, continued calls for Kelly and Schmidt to be charged in the shooting after seeing the video.
Officers Ryan Kelly and Justin Schmidt should be fired without pay and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, Brown told Minneapolis ABC affiliate KSTP.
So even after we see this man was armed, did have his hand on the gun, family members still want these officers prosecuted.
They say the lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can strap on his boots.
But something else to be considered.
A sensational story, speculation, and anger will travel halfway around the world, Before the calm, rational explanation has a chance to strap on its boots.
In this instance, the media wasn't lying, but the story and witness testimony was sensational, was appealing, and it was a mystery.
So people wanted answers, and they demanded answers, and that was newsworthy.
But now that we know the truth, many of these more activist-y news organizations haven't reported on it.
Unicorn Riot is a left-wing activist news organization.
And full disclosure, I know one of the founders.
We've actually worked together at Vice and at Fusion.
They ran this story.
Witnesses claim Thurman John Blevins was unarmed when killed by Minneapolis PD.
And although this is incorrect, the reporting is actually very good.
The news crew from Unicorn Riot went to the scene, went to the protest, and talked to witnesses to try and better understand what happened.
And what they were told was incorrect.
But they did their work and they got statements.
In the story, they say nearly all of the witnesses we spoke with said the same thing.
That Blevins was sitting on the curb with his girlfriend, baby, and dog when the police pulled up.
They all said that Blevins stood with his hands up when the police got out of the vehicle, with their guns drawn, and he was tased.
He then ran and was shot several times.
The only thing that's true here is that Blevins was sitting on the curb with his girlfriend, baby, and dog.
When the police pulled up, he did not put his hands up, he did not get tased, and he immediately ran away and defied the orders of the police.
They say, the narrative that Blevins was armed was inserted into the story from the beginning of the tragic incident based on two 911 calls of a man with a gun in the neighborhood.
Some news reports go as far as saying that Blevins was firing his gun while running away.
Now, interestingly, Unicorn Riot is framing the narrative in this way.
We don't actually know what happened.
There was no evidence.
But they were basing it off of witness statements, so I don't fault them for actually including this, and as I mentioned earlier, I actually think they did a pretty good job in reporting the story.
Witnesses and family members say Blevins was unarmed, innocently targeted by police, and was scared, so he ran.
The whole situation is said to have been a very fast encounter that lasted no longer than two minutes.
But unfortunately, witness testimony is not too reliable.
They claimed the man was tased.
As we saw from the footage, he wasn't.
They claimed he put his hands up.
He wasn't.
It's entirely possible that people in this community are biased and want to support members of their own community against police, in which case the reporters who are going down and trying to do their best are going to get bad information.
But what do you do?
Do you choose to trust the police, or do you choose to trust the family members and other community members?
Two groups that are at odds with each other over someone being killed.
It's really hard to know what exactly happened.
And Unicorn Riot does include an update.
On Sunday night, we heard from our first witness to say that Blevins was shot in the alley a house away from him, and that he saw a black handgun close to Blevins' body before the police came and kicked it away.
The mayor of Minneapolis said that as soon as the BCA is done with its interviews, they will release the body camera videos from Justin Schmidt and Ryan Kelly, the officers who shot Blevins.
Splinter wrote this story just after the shooting.
Witnesses dispute police account of Minneapolis shooting that left one dead.
And once again, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with the reporting.
Witnesses did absolutely dispute the police account of what happened.
But as we saw from body camera footage, the witnesses were wrong.
In the Splinter article, we can see one comment, And I'm not gonna go through every comment, but know that's incorrect.
And I do think we have issues in this country with officers killing people.
This is just another effing murderer with a badge.
And I'm not gonna go through every comment, but know that's incorrect.
You are innocent until proven guilty.
And I do think we have issues in this country with officers killing people.
It's hard to know how these situations should be handled, and I'm not the expert, so I'm not gonna get into that.
But in this instance, the footage did exonerate the officer.
And I wouldn't call it a miracle, I would call it waiting for evidence before we jumped the gun and rushed to conclusions.
And these kinds of stories, these kinds of attitudes, are what drive some of these massive protests.
Now, the shooting of Thurman Blevins didn't result in massive rioting like we saw with many people who were killed.
But it's important to point out how the media functions in these instances.
Local news reporting gets it right, and they follow up.
But activist-y digital outlets will frame the narrative from a certain perspective because of who they trust and don't trust.
And that's fine.
Getting witness statements is absolutely the right thing to do.
But people are going to make assumptions about who is right and who is wrong before there is even any evidence.
And then many of these outlets won't update the story and tell people what happened.
And even if they do, many of these people won't bother to read the update and they'll continue believing nonsense.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
This is just one story and it doesn't mean that I'm always in defense of police.
It doesn't mean the police haven't killed unarmed people or that police shootings are always justified.
That should not be the conclusion you draw here.
All you should know is that here are the facts.
The raw footage is out, and we can see the man did have a gun, and we can look at how news reporting is done that kind of frames a narrative and drives people into this tribalism.
But again, comment below and let me know what you think.
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