April 2024. Blues Vol 40 No. 4

GUEST COMENTARY police

GUEST COMENTARY police law news Daniel Carr Officer Involved: Jaheim McMillian The race of a suspect and an officer are literally the least important part of any police interaction. If two humans treat each other with respect: the eye color, hair color, fingernail length, or skin color have no relevancy. That should not be controversial - that should be boring common sense. But it clearly isn’t. 20 The Blues - April ‘24 THE GRIFT There was an Officer-Involved-Shooting (OIS) on October 6, 2022 in Gulfport, Mississippi. A police officer killed a teenager. The police dash camera footage of the incident was recently released. During the four months in between the incident and the video becoming public: the media “race-baited” for ratings, the family of the deceased tried to profit from the tragedy, people who don’t know any better (or who don’t care) protested in the streets, a police officer who was not involved in this incident received death threats, and the police officers who were involved were forced into bureaucratic silence. This story was covered by local and national news outlets and exploited by anti-police activists. Many of the headlines of the stories produced by The Guardian, Mother Jones, Daily Kos, The Huffington Post and others highlighted the race of the ‘victim’ while conveniently leaving out that he was armed with a gun. Ever wonder why municipalities cannot recruit or retain decent cops? WHAT HAPPENED? Multiple individuals called into police dispatch to report that a car full of people were wearing masks and pointing guns at random drivers. A location and description of the vehicle was provided to police. Officers responded to the area and actually located the offender vehicle (good job!). A traffic stop was conducted and the vehicle stopped in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store. Once the vehicle stopped, two young men exited the vehicle. Both were armed with handguns. THE USE OF FORCE Jaheim McMillian exited the rear passenger door of the vehicle - while holding a handgun. He initially ran away from the officer and towards the front door of the store. Mr. McMillian ran left and then when he reached the end of the building he reversed course and ran to the right. During this time the handgun was visible and the officer did not utilize any force. Then (for some reason) Mr. McMillian ran around another parked car and turned towards the officer - while holding the gun. In this instant Mr. McMillian went from an armed fleeing felon to an armed felon who was rushing towards the police officer. It was at that point that the officer fired his weapon - killing Mr. McMillian.

This is an example of the involved police officer demonstrating great restraint. Two people who had reportedly committed felonies (by pointing guns at random drivers) and eluded police while armed with handguns. The officer did not use any level of force as the two young men ran away and the officer did not chase after either individual. The officer stood by his patrol car. However, once Mr. McMillian changed course and ran towards the officer with the handgun - only then did the officer fire his weapon. This indicates that the officer had no interest in using deadly force (or any force for that matter) until his life was in immediate danger. The other teenager who kept running away from the officer was arrested later, without incident, and no force was utilized against him - as he posed no immediate threat to police officers. According to a Grand Jury report - there was no criminal action by any police officer. The District Attorney will not be filing any charges against the officer. In essence, this OIS was found to have been within the law. MONTHS OF PROTESTS OVER THIS OIS CONTROVERSY The description of this incident that I provided is not simply my opinion, but objective fact as seen on police dash camera footage. The problem is that there was a four month gap in between the OIS and the release of the police video footage. During those four months, Mr. McMillian’s mother (Katrina Mateen) started a gofundme account with a stated goal to raise 0k. The fundraiser was started on October 7, 2022 (the day after her son died). The description of the gofundme states that Mr. McMillian was “unarmed” and had his “hands up” and was shot “in the back of the head” while holding a bag of “McDonald’s and keys.” The fundraiser states that the police had no reason to utilize force against him. The description of the fundraiser also names the officer who was supposedly the one who shot Mr. McMillian. The officer’s name and rank are in the description for the fundraiser. The officer subsequently received months of death threats to himself and his family. However, the officer listed was not involved in this case. In fact, he was not even on scene, he was not working that day, and was out of state on vacation on the day that the OIS occurred. The chief of police was forced to make a public statement about this issue. As of the writing of this article - the description still remains - despite the public video evidence. However, that dishonest description of this tragedy did help to raise over k for Ms. Mateen. BEN CRUMP DESCENDS ON THE COMMUNITY - RELEASE THE VIDEO Ben Crump was retained by Mr. McMillian’s family in this case. In a public statement on October 13, 2022 Mr. Crump said, “This child had his whole life ahead of him, but bullets from those officers took all possibility of that away in an instant. While much remains unknown about this case, we fully intend to put pressure on officials in Mississippi until this family gets the answers they need and deserve. We are calling for officials to release any and all video footage of the incident so that we can see with our own eyes what transpired on that tragic night.” Here is how we know that there is overwhelming evidence that this was a lawful, justified, and objectively reasonable OIS. Mr. Crump demanded the release of the police video footage. The footage was released. Since the release - Mr. Crump has not commented, complained, or made any statement about the use of deadly force by police. We all know that if there was even the slightest whisper of the police officer making any error - Mr. Crump would not have been shy about creating a media carnival to expose the wrongdoing by police. The silence by Mr. Crump is blaring to those who pay attention to the playbook of anti-police activists. JAHEIM MCMILLIAN Mr. McMillian was only fifteenyears-old. We should all be angry about the end result. But who should we be mad at? The police officer who responded to a call in reference to a car full of people pointing guns at random citizens - who utilized deadly force only after an immediate deadly threat was posed? or, The parents, guardians, teachers, coaches, and/or other adults in his life who failed to provide The Blues - April ‘24 21