Chiming In On Both Sides
The Article below is from Channel Five Eyewitness News out of Minnesota.
I read this article this morning and felt compelled to chime in on a few points I found to be the very center of why our youth are being gunned down.
First: Law Enforcement is trained to look at crime from a single dimension. In their eyes he was trying to commit a crime and now they are only seeing the criminal past of this young man and not the young man himself as a whole person. This is necessary for the survival of Police Officers who cannot afford to reveal their human side when dealing with life and death situations, that being said we also must consider that the death of Jamar Clark, like all the others happen in the blink of an eye and in the blink of an eye no one has time to think only time to act.
Sometimes these horrific incidences are 'Kill or be Killed" and we must first put ourselves in the shoes of every person involved before we make any judgments. But that doesn't mean that a person's past is a green light to gun them down, especially when they have paid their debt to society.
Second: Our Constitution dictates Innocent until proven guilty, so does this mean that Law Enforcement have the right to be judge and jury at the scene of a crime?
After reading the article below I was struck by the statement made by this young man's former girlfriend. she said that Jamar did not possess the skills needed to cope with loss and rejection. I was struck because in her one simple statement she summed up the entire reason why America is at war with itself. We are a nation of people who have no coping skills and no way to learn them.
Is this because of demographics, emotional, phsycological, mental or social oppression or all of these?
The areas in which these needless tragedies are taking place are communities of people America has swept under the rug. They are poor communities with unacceptable public educational systems and poverty due to no viable economy to raise them up. They are cities with shit for housing and a medical structure that is nothing less than an insult. So how then can youth grow up with healthy emotional skills if we corral them into inner city slums and ignore their needs?
Schools need to get their heads out of thier asses about some six year old bringing a purple lunch box to class and address why they are so freaked out about that purple lunch box; because schools are failing our students in teaching them life skills and healthy ways to deal with the bad things in life.
They are busy teaching Algebra when they should be teaching how to deal with the death of a parent, not having enough money and what options to take that don't involve stealing. How to stand up to gangs and not become a member. And now some school districts such as Hastings, Mn. have now removed writing and spelling from thier curriculum because all of our devices have auto correct. Pitiful.
Third: All mental health care should be free to all Americans! If mental health care was free to all including crisis intervention don't you think people would run to them like refugees to an embassy?
Free to all including kids so anytime they feel themselves falling or scared or in need of answers I think many would actaully seek out help.
It is for our nations youth that we must fight, because it is our youth that are being gunned down, misunderstood and ignored. It takes everyone in a community not just a couple of good people. We can preach love and peace all we want but if we do not make the survival of our youth our number on priority then we are failing not only them but America. If a disenfranchised young man is not being supported and raised up by his own familial nation then he may very well look elsewhere and elswhere is gangs and terrorist organizations.
Jamar Clark is not only a victim and a loss for his family, but he is a loss for all of us because he defines how our nation as a whole would rather make excuses than overcome its' profound ignorance.
The troubled past that Jamar Clark struggled for years to escape now hangs over the investigation into his death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
Family members and friends say the 24-year-old was on the right track in the months leading up to the shooting early Sunday. He cared deeply about his parents - biological and adoptive - and his 14 siblings, and had a job and hopes of going to college.
But police union representatives point to Clark's criminal history as proof that he was a bad actor, and they contend he was reaching for an officer's gun when he was shot. Beyond the domestic assault call alleging Clark had hurt his girlfriend that brought police to the north Minneapolis neighborhood, he spent three years in and out of prison for a robbery conviction. More recently, he was on probation for threatening to burn down an ex-girlfriend's house after a bitter break-up and was awaiting trial for a July arrest for fleeing police in a high-speed chase.
Black Lives Matter protesters outside the police precinct insist Clark was handcuffed before he was shot, which police dispute. His death laid bare the tension between Minneapolis' black community and law enforcement and, the protesters say, exposed deeply embedded societal problems that made Clark's history impossible to move past.
"None of our children deserve to be shot and killed, and then talked about like they are animals," said Bettie Smith, who joined protesters Monday to discuss her son's death in a 2008 officer-involved shooting.
Amid federal and state investigations into Clark's death, several family members declined to talk with The Associated Press and 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. Wilma and James Clark, who adopted Jamar Clark when he was 4, acknowledged his legal trouble in an interview with MPR News but said he was fixing it.
"He was trying to do right. He was trying to turn his life around," James Clark said.
Clark spent much of his 20s in and out of prison, serving a three-year sentence for a first-degree robbery conviction in 2010. He had been convicted of a petty misdemeanor for possessing a small amount of marijuana in 2009.
In a letter on behalf of one of the officers involved in the shooting, an attorney and Minneapolis police union president Bob Kroll listed some of his past crimes, saying Clark was "not a peaceful, law-abiding citizen."
But when Tim Hoag and his wife hired Clark earlier this year - first to help out with painting and cleanup at their rental homes, then at Hoag's moving and trucking company - Hoag said they found an energetic yet polite young man, a hard and trustworthy worker with a bright personality and a "million-dollar smile."
Hoag also saw that Clark couldn't escape the trouble from his past: the familiar signs of a felon recently released from prison, struggling to get his footing. At times he couldn't afford bus fare for work and struggled with stable housing. Hoag put him up at a motel for a few days to help out, and gave him as many hours of work at Copeland Trucking as he could, helping in the warehouse or on moves.
Clark was ashamed of his past, he said. Hoag was sure he could move past it, maybe to become a full-time truck driver for the company.
"Jamar was a troubled youth that was put into the correction system. The system failed miserably," Hoag said. "He didn't know what he wanted to do. He needed to earn money,"
Tiffany Truitt saw two sides of Clark in the few months last winter they dated. When things were going well, he was a nurturing, loving man who was drawn to her four children, giving them advice and helping them sell candy for school.
"He was always talking about family. He wanted a family," Truitt said. "He cared about his family being connected with each other. He cared about having somebody care about him."
But when their relationship soured, she saw a man who snapped while gathering his things from her house after the breakup. He threw a brick through Truitt's window and threatened to burn her apartment unit down - leaving behind a trail of lighter fluid to prove it, according to court documents. Clark pleaded guilty to terroristic threats for the March incident, getting a probation sentence and an order not to contact Truitt.
Despite the order, Clark eventually reached out through Facebook to apologize - and Truitt accepted. He was going to sign up for community college, he told her.
He had a good heart but he didn't have the structure to be the person he wanted to be, Truitt said.
"He was trying to learn," she said. "He was looking for direction."
As pictures of Clark circulated online after his death, Hoag saw Clark's sly grin in a selfie, wearing his Copeland Trucking hat. Hoag let out a sigh pierced with pain.
"It makes me feel like a failure," he said of that photo. "I'm sitting here wishing I had done more. I wish I had made one more phone call. I wish we would have been able to give him a few more hours."
(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
Family members and friends say the 24-year-old was on the right track in the months leading up to the shooting early Sunday. He cared deeply about his parents - biological and adoptive - and his 14 siblings, and had a job and hopes of going to college.
But police union representatives point to Clark's criminal history as proof that he was a bad actor, and they contend he was reaching for an officer's gun when he was shot. Beyond the domestic assault call alleging Clark had hurt his girlfriend that brought police to the north Minneapolis neighborhood, he spent three years in and out of prison for a robbery conviction. More recently, he was on probation for threatening to burn down an ex-girlfriend's house after a bitter break-up and was awaiting trial for a July arrest for fleeing police in a high-speed chase.
Black Lives Matter protesters outside the police precinct insist Clark was handcuffed before he was shot, which police dispute. His death laid bare the tension between Minneapolis' black community and law enforcement and, the protesters say, exposed deeply embedded societal problems that made Clark's history impossible to move past.
"None of our children deserve to be shot and killed, and then talked about like they are animals," said Bettie Smith, who joined protesters Monday to discuss her son's death in a 2008 officer-involved shooting.
Amid federal and state investigations into Clark's death, several family members declined to talk with The Associated Press and 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. Wilma and James Clark, who adopted Jamar Clark when he was 4, acknowledged his legal trouble in an interview with MPR News but said he was fixing it.
"He was trying to do right. He was trying to turn his life around," James Clark said.
Clark spent much of his 20s in and out of prison, serving a three-year sentence for a first-degree robbery conviction in 2010. He had been convicted of a petty misdemeanor for possessing a small amount of marijuana in 2009.
In a letter on behalf of one of the officers involved in the shooting, an attorney and Minneapolis police union president Bob Kroll listed some of his past crimes, saying Clark was "not a peaceful, law-abiding citizen."
But when Tim Hoag and his wife hired Clark earlier this year - first to help out with painting and cleanup at their rental homes, then at Hoag's moving and trucking company - Hoag said they found an energetic yet polite young man, a hard and trustworthy worker with a bright personality and a "million-dollar smile."
Hoag also saw that Clark couldn't escape the trouble from his past: the familiar signs of a felon recently released from prison, struggling to get his footing. At times he couldn't afford bus fare for work and struggled with stable housing. Hoag put him up at a motel for a few days to help out, and gave him as many hours of work at Copeland Trucking as he could, helping in the warehouse or on moves.
Clark was ashamed of his past, he said. Hoag was sure he could move past it, maybe to become a full-time truck driver for the company.
"Jamar was a troubled youth that was put into the correction system. The system failed miserably," Hoag said. "He didn't know what he wanted to do. He needed to earn money,"
Tiffany Truitt saw two sides of Clark in the few months last winter they dated. When things were going well, he was a nurturing, loving man who was drawn to her four children, giving them advice and helping them sell candy for school.
"He was always talking about family. He wanted a family," Truitt said. "He cared about his family being connected with each other. He cared about having somebody care about him."
But when their relationship soured, she saw a man who snapped while gathering his things from her house after the breakup. He threw a brick through Truitt's window and threatened to burn her apartment unit down - leaving behind a trail of lighter fluid to prove it, according to court documents. Clark pleaded guilty to terroristic threats for the March incident, getting a probation sentence and an order not to contact Truitt.
Despite the order, Clark eventually reached out through Facebook to apologize - and Truitt accepted. He was going to sign up for community college, he told her.
He had a good heart but he didn't have the structure to be the person he wanted to be, Truitt said.
"He was trying to learn," she said. "He was looking for direction."
As pictures of Clark circulated online after his death, Hoag saw Clark's sly grin in a selfie, wearing his Copeland Trucking hat. Hoag let out a sigh pierced with pain.
"It makes me feel like a failure," he said of that photo. "I'm sitting here wishing I had done more. I wish I had made one more phone call. I wish we would have been able to give him a few more hours."
(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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