Triple S convenience store in Baton Rouge Louisiana is looking more like the acronym for Shame, Shame, Shame right about now as the 558th senseless act of violence involving a police officer is remarked.
Reportedly, 37 year-old Alton Sterling was standing out in front of the store selling CD’s when some sort of altercation interruption ensued (and caught on tape) in which two officers are seen tackling the man onto a car whereby they landed on top of him.
Isn’t it ironic? Part of Jesse Williams’ same BETAwards speech got him dragged for the 10th day in a row now and before the smoke could even clear on the speech-in walks a cop proving the point–shooting the guy dead.
One officer is seen holding Sterling’s hands behind his back and the other seen pressing down on the man’s face like he was kneading bread.
The point at which (someone) yelled: “he’s got a gun!” the police officer who was seen applying pressure to Sterling’s face, immediately reacted by reaching for his gun-shooting Sterling at point blank range…………………………..6x. Wow.
https://youtu.be/vCucbiudVCs
This can't be happening anywhere in the world.This is total EXECUTION #AltonSterling https://t.co/BeoVlDinoF
— Arsenal religion (@Dominic777775) July 6, 2016
So what about this?
Katy Perry and Bruno Mars said it best:
You can't just go on with your day, you must watch this & we must face this continual outrageousness #ALTONSTERLING https://t.co/NqW3aVSZ1j
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 6, 2016
"They Murdered that man. We just saw it." Thank you @Rosenbergradio https://t.co/PyDmLY52ld
— Bruno Mars (@BrunoMars) July 6, 2016
…That’s right, we saw it.
This shooting has obviously sparked outrage and ironically, has elements of both Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner.
While in Martin’s case, (no eye, but rather, ear witnesses) the 911 tape visibly recorded a male screaming for help. The unfortunate part was (although we could tell it 
was the voice of Martin yelling for help), when Zimmerman played the “no, that was me” card, that left reasonable doubt that it could have been Martin (seeing as though the 911 tape only recorded voices and no persons were actually seen to help determine just who was screaming).
With the victim being deceased and unable to speak for himself, that left it up to Zimmerman to claim he was the one screaming for help—and so the rest is history.
And like Eric Garner (who, although didn’t die from police officer’s gunshot wounds); he did die from suffocating while being handled by officers—outside a convenience store selling cigarettes like this man-outside a convenience store selling CD’s—two of many common hood hustles and alternatives to selling drugs and getting involved in other street crimes.
What’s a man to do? He can’t hustle illegally and he can’t hustle independently.
Seeing how the officers forcefully subdued Sterling in such manner; it’s plain to see how one could indeed be suffocated, especially given Garner (and Sterling’s weight).
The unfortunate part about this Alton Sterling case is that-that few seconds turn/jolt of the camera will probably be a major discrepancy (to play on)-determining who yelled “he’s got a gun!”
- Was it officer 1 (the one atop Sterling subduing his hands behind his back?)
- Was it officer 2 (which totally looks like it wasn’t-he just reacted after hearing “he’s got a gun!”)–and totally just shot the (allegedly) armed man who (with two large men subduing him with his hands behind his back and smothering his face), wasn’t able to reach for a gun if he had one on him anyways.
- Or was it somebody in the crowd (who they’ll claim alarmed the officer and forced him to “protect himself”)
This is sad, disturbing and exhausting
