#patrick harmon

POLICE SHOOT AN UNARMED BLACK MAN IN THE BACK AS HE IS RUNNING AWAY, SHOOTING CALLED “JUSTIFIED”

PATRICK HARMON was shot three times in the back….over a traffic stop for an alleged bicycle “infraction.”

This was another case of police racially profiling a black person (driving while black is risky enough, but in most cities, black people riding bicycles are also stopped more than anyone else). Officer Fox said Harmon lunged at him, but bodycam video proves officer Fox was lying. Fox clearly was not in imminent danger, but he said that “it was the scariest moment of his life,” and he used the magic words every police officer knows by rote: “I feared for my life”…from an innocent and unarmed black man who was running AWAY from him. (video)

Unsurprisingly, Patrick Harmon’s murder has already been ruled “justifiable” by Salt Lake County’s District Attorney Sim Gill. And as usual, we’ve already heard far more about Patrick Harmon’s “criminal past” than we have about his lifelong struggle with mental illness.

I literally do not take the police at their word for anything, but even IF Patrick Harmon really did have a small pocket knife on him, Utah is an open carry state, and it’s not illegal to have a pocket knife or a gun in public. And what good are bodycams when District Attorneys and the criminal “justice” system just keeps on ignoring the evidence whenever the victims are black?

In America, if you’re white and you stab two people and then eat someone’s face, there’s a high probability that the police will take you in alive. And if you’re white and murder 9 black churchgoers in Charleston, the police might even take you to Burger King before they take you in alive. And when a white man guns down more than 58 people in Las Vegas, it’s the white mass murderer who is instantly humanized and called mentally ill. But when an innocent black person is executed by the police, it’s the black victim who is immediately criminalized and blamed for their own murder. That’s two Americas af.

This is just one more example, in hundreds of years worth of examples, of why Colin Kaepernick and others take a knee instead of standing for the national anthem. Police brutality and their constant over-policing in our communities, and systematic racism that targets black people, is why Black Lives Matter protests are still needed.

We.

Demand.

just for a minute imagine yourself in the shoes of a black man. you've seen all the videos of police officers shooting unarmed men. a man who was just driving around with his family. a boy playing in the park with a toy. you followed the stories on the news. officer placed on administrative leave. officer claimed "he feared for his life" or "thought he saw a weapon". soon you watch as they, somehow, get away unpunished. with a big bag of cash raised by hundreds if not thousands of supportive people on the internet. sometimes they even start working again at another department.

you're outraged and you're hurt. but the media, the public, they don't have your back. they aren't outraged. they aren't disgusted by the gross injustice. you're scared this will happen again. you look at the pictures of those who have been killed and you wonder.. "could that have been me?"

now imagine being around 3 police officers. you wonder if they are afraid because you know damn well what happens when a police officer is afraid and that makes you afraid of them.

people do 3 things when they are afraid for their lives. their actions are often uncontrollable. they freeze, they fight or they run. patrick harmon ran away while the police were trying to cuff him. even though resisting arrest is a crime, the penality for it isn't death.

you could argue that the police officer was afraid, his instinct was "fight" and because his action was uncontrollable he can't be held accountable for it. i would accept this if the cause of his fear was reasonable. but it isn't. his fear. their fear. is rooted in racist stereotypes. the idea that all black men are aggressive and a threat by default is racist. for three police officers to feel threatened by an unarmed, non-violent black man is racist.

WARNING: The second part this video depicts the murder of Patrick Harmon by Salt Lake City police.

This was a murder of a black man by police. Shot in the back three times while running away. I will point out that running is not a capital offense. Unless, of course, you are a black man and you’re running from police. 

The police defense that he threatened them is laughable. Look at his hands the whole time -- they were empty when he took his backpack off, empty when he put them behind his back, and his t-shirt covered his pockets making it impossible to pull a supposed knife out while running. So when exactly did the police fear for their lives? Why was this a ‘justifiable’ shooting?

This happens on a daily basis in the US. It almost doesn't even rise to newsworthy. But black people know all too well about it. This is why Colin Kaepernick took a knee, and this is why Black Lives Matter. 

If you look at this video and see nothing wrong, you are the problem. You're racist, pure and simple. This has happened so often you began to accept it as normal. You ask “why did he run?”. I ask “why did they shoot?” 

Sister of Murdered Black Man on "Executioner" Cops

Body-Cam Footage From Patrick Harmon Shooting Continues To Raise Questions

Salt Lake City police body-cam captured white officers shooting a black man who they say threatened them, but evidence of this remains unclear in footage of Patrick Harmon running away. Police say they stopped Patrick Harmon, 50, on State Street near downtown Salt Lake City because he was riding his bicycle erratically and did not have a red rear light. The district attorney of Salt Lake County,…