The U.S. Justice Department is about to close the investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, and clear the white police officer involved of any civil rights charges as I write this, the New York Times reported on Wednesday....
This revelation comes as no surprise to this diarist.
In a street conversation between a Black man acquaintance and I were having while standing on a city corner on a Sunday, a day before Martin Luther King`s birthday we were discussing the football game scheduled in a few hours between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks.
That discussion changed as we turned the conversation into the relentless police killings of young unarmed Black men by white police officers. We both felt real sad about what Mr. King would have said about that if he were still alive. Then I asked him the question that prompted this diary.
"What do you think of these modern day Bonnie & Clyde teenagers who the media are making out to be just kids in love who ran amuck across the country committing crimes and were not killed by the police?"
"MOTHERFUCKERS ARE GOING TO BE IN THE MOVIES!!. ANGELINA JOLIE AND BRAT PITT WILL PLAY THAT SHIT" he screamed, as I cracked up in agreement. I agreed because it appears the kids are being groomed and tagged with the names so early of the famous outlaws of the 1930`s . Dalton Hayes and Cheyenne Phillips indeed appear in this picture to be deeply in love, just like the real Clyde and Bonnie on the left.
"It ain't like we were killing cops and robbing stores," unlike the real Bonnie and Clyde , notorious outlaws to whom the teens were compared, Hayes said. "We just went on a few high-speed chases."
Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, Today
Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker yesterday
Dalton Hayes, 18, and his 13-year-old girlfriend Cheyenne Phillips were reported missing Jan. 3. They are accused of stealing a neighbor's red Toyota pickup, then ditching it in Georgia. Both captured alive as they slept in a stolen silver Toyota Tundra that had .45 and .38 caliber hand guns in the back seat. Or so the story goes.
The owner of the stolen Tundra, according to press releases claim that the gun in the back seat is true. Not sure about the other gun though. It sounds to be the safest place to keep the guns away from the likes of Bonnie and Clyde, so thinks this diarist.
The real Bonnie and Clyde of the 1930`s.
Feast your eyes on possibly the most famous and most romanticized criminals in American history, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were two young Texans whose early 1930s crime spree forever imprinted them upon the national consciousness. Their names have become synonymous with an image of Depression-era chic, a world where women chomped cigars and brandished automatic rifles, men robbed banks, killed cops and Gmen and drove away in squealing stolen fast automobiles, and life was lived fast because it would be so short.
These two kids, Cheyenne Phillips and Dalton Hayes/Bonnie and Clyde in Kentucky came that close of killing a cop or two - and possibly innocent bystanders.
Hayes and Phillips stole three pickup trucks during the spree — and the last two, a 2006 Toyota Tacoma and a 2001 Toyota Tundra, had guns inside, police said. Whether the guns were actually inside the Tundra when it was stolen we will never know. That part of this story is now fact, according to the police.
Bonnie and Clyde were finally caught early Sunday, just after midnight. They were sleeping in the Tundra, which was parked behind a Florida panhandle IHOP restaurant, cops said. Two guns "in the back seat" visibly to the trained eye of the police went unnoticed. Or perhaps their webcams were turned off...no need here, nothing to see.
I cannot find a video showing the arrest which was without incident according to police. At night, with two guns laying on the back seat clearly visible to the trained eye of the police while the car was swarmed by officers. I guess they alread knew the kids were white - not dangerous like the video below.
Two Black men are stopped by police at night. The trained eye of the police here is like that of a hawk of prey.
One cop obviously panics seeing two black men and screams that he sees a gun in the glove compartment, and fucking shot the man to death.
Video and audio released by the Bridgeton Police Department on Tuesday shows officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley ordering Jerame Reid not to move before Reid appears to push his way out of the passenger side door. The video appears to show Reid with his hands in front of him as he stands to get out of the car and is shot and killed by the officers
The dead man never went for a gun. He clearly had his hands in front of him for the trained eye of the police. I don`t think the video cam was pointed to record a gun in the glove compartment. This does not mean that there was none. What this means is that a Black man is dead, and the questions arise anew. Was there actually a gun? Will one be planted by the police.
These questions have made the rounds repeated before.
So the modern day Bonnie and Clyde were spared. One has to wonder if we will soon be seeing their stories in store tabloids, a Televison series of how Bonnie and Clyde were so cleverly resurrected by the media and hollywood, eventually filming a movie to capitalize on yet another pair of young criminals.
I cannot help but wonder if my conversation with that black guy on that city street and his reponse to my question about these two modern day Bonnie and Clyde was a prophetic omen.
Yeah, like the real Bonnie and Clyde of the 1930`s that became a classic. Now who would not take a shot at that? Should we forever imprinted them upon the national consciousness. Their names to become synonymous with an image of a new beauty chic, a world where women in love homped fake idenity and brandished not automatic rifles, but young clean sexual favors to their Clyde.
Personally I think that would be too sexist for women today. And I agree completely. But Hollywood don`t give a fuck, we have seen a lot of that too. We can easily see how the media chose the photo of Bonnie in this story to sell beauty and sexism and stereotyping for what`s to come.
Realistically though, looking at the beauty that is Cheyenne Phillips, thirteen years of age going on nineteen, even I would gladly become and play Clyde by her side.
I too still can dream thankfully.
It is difficult not to imaging a continuing media reporting about these two kids.
What is happening today in situations like these kid`s story is heart wrenching in that others not like them, are slain cold blooded by the police. Of course I would had never condoned the idea that these kids should had been killed the night they were arrested while guns were in plain sight for the police to see.
Situations like this one do not change as we move forward. I assert nothing, nor do I make judgments in this diary - only what I see with my eye on the internet.