Two days, two separate shooters, Officer Jeronimo Yanez of the St. Anthony Police in Minnesota, and US Army veteran Micah Xavier Johnson in Dallas, one now home with his family, one dead.
Anyone around the world following the story knows that Johnson allegedly said that he wanted to kill “white police officers”, and after killing five, was himself killed by the first use of a land drone by police on US soil.
During the negotiations, the suspect “said he was upset about the recent police shootings. The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,” Chief Brown said at the morning news conference.
Yet a negligible number of people have heard the statements made by Yanez before he summarily killed Philando Castile, after which he has been placed on administrative leave. Additionally, of course, Castile’s girlfriend was handcuffed and detained, and separated from her four year old daughter precisely at the moment when both had witnessed the most traumatic possible thing, the killing of Mr. Castile. Apart from Gawker.com, no national media outlet has covered his comments, reported by a Minnesota TV station yesterday:
A KARE 11 viewer, who gave us audio clips of police radio traffic, claims they captured the moments just before Philando Castile and his girlfriend were stopped by St. Anthony police – which ended in police shooting that killed Castile.
KARE 11 has attempted to confirm the authenticity of the recording with police officials, but so far they have not responded.
….
“I’m going to stop a car,” the officer tells dispatchers on the recording. “I’m going to check IDs. I have reason to pull it over.”
“The two occupants just look like people that were involved in a robbery,” the officer says. “The driver looks more like one of our suspects, just ‘cause of the wide set nose,” the officer continues.
A minute and a half later, the recording captures the first report that there was a shooting.
(The link at Gawker has a video of the news report with the alleged police scanner recording)
So many questions! Where the hell is the national media on this?
The description of “robbery suspects” said one of them had “a wide set nose”? Is that just racist profiling code for “Black person”? Yanez saw a car on the road and determined that the driver had a “wide set nose” matching a supposed description of a robbery suspect?