21st Century Wire says…
This unfortunate event mirrors the Michael Brown robbery and police shooting back in August in nearby Ferguson, with the same predictable outcome…
An 18 year old black man, Antonio Martin, was shot by police in Berkeley, Missouri near St Louis, following a shopkeeper making a 911 shoplifting call, according to local police reports.
Local residents quickly gathered at the Mobil gas station, but it’s believed that this group soon transformed into reactionary mobs when word-of-mouth false rumors began circulating among residents that a white police officer had shot a ‘unarmed’ black man – the only problem being that the assailant had indeed pulled a gun on police just before he was shot and killed. See event chatter here.
Luckily, the entire incident was caught on CCTV camera. Watch:
Immediately following the shooting, a local mob of approximately 100 black residents quickly gathered and began letting off fireworks next to gas pumps, and began cursing local law enforcement officers, and from footage show on CNN today, other black youths could be seen trying to set fire to the gas station.
Aside from smashing up a St Louis Police vehicle, angry protesters proceeded to vandalize and loot a nearby Quik Trip convenience store…
Damn. #AntonioMartin pic.twitter.com/GL85zv5ail
— Charles Wade (@akacharleswade) December 24, 2014
So far at least four arrests have been made by Berkeley Police.
Some members of the mob could be heard shouting “No justice, no peace”.
“This was not the same as Ferguson,” said Berkeley’s Mayor, Theodore Hoskins.
NBC reports, “He took pains to say that the shooting could not be compared to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson or to the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York. The mayor, who is black, pointed out that the Berkeley police department is majority-black.”
Crowd is gathering, smashing Hazelwood PD car. #berkeley pic.twitter.com/YomOV1ga06
— John Henry (@JohnHenryKSDK) December 24, 2014
The fact that the shooting was caught on camera was a stroke of luck which ultimately saved city officials, who quickly released the footage which ultimately staved-off the White House dispatching both street agitator Al Sharpton and AG Eric Holder to Berkeley, MO, among other things, maybe to conduct another ‘civil rights’ investigation and stir up even more racial strife in a city which had already suffered a similar fate over the last 5 months.
Sharpton reacted to last Sunday’s revenge double cop killing by shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, and appeared to be more concerned that somehow hurt his National Action Network’s ‘No Justice, No Peace’ publicity campaign may have been damaged because the shooter had attached himself to the #EricGarner and #ICantBreathe social media movements. He stated, “Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases.”
Keen to avoid any threats, mob reprisals, or possible harassment from Sharpton, St Louis Chief Jon Belmar announced they would not be releasing the officer’s name who was a whit,e six-year veteran. The officer has been placed on administrative leave.
During his press conference, Mayor Hoskins did not lose the opportunity to further the Ferguson lie however, claiming that Officer Darrin Wilson had ‘initiated’ the deadly altercation with Michael Brown – a conspiracy theory which was refuted by multiple Grand Jury witness testimonies (but not by the witnesses who lied to the Grand Jury). Keen to win points with the mobs and Sharpton, Hoskins sneaked in this divisive qualification to last night’s event:
“Everybody don’t die the same,” he told reporters. “Some people die because the policeman initiated. Some people die because they initiated it. And at this point, our review indicates that the police did not initiate this, like Ferguson.”
This woman says she’s the victim’s mother. She said he had just left the house to see his girlfriend. #KSDK #berkeley pic.twitter.com/kU037H4XLg
— John Henry (@JohnHenryKSDK) December 24, 2014
Chief Belmar, defended the officer’s actions, explaining, “”We had somebody pointing a gun at a police officer. There’s not a lot of time” to think about using pepper spray or a stun gun.”
Regardless of the facts of the case, and believing that the White House now has their back on the emotive race narrative, a number of black ‘spokespersons’ condemned the event, as they seem to be advocating for some type of universal amnesty for all black men in America – regardless of whether or not they are armed or threatening police. One of those voices is Jason Keith Coleman, a black Baptist minister and ‘activist’, who stated, “Call it what it is: A police officer has killed another black man and this has got to stop.”
Orlando Brown, 36, St. from Charles, Mo., also echoed Coleman’s view, stating, “I understand police officers have a job and have an obligation to go home to their families at the end of the night. But do you have to treat every situation with lethal force? It’s not a racial issue, or black or white. It’s wrong or right.”
Toni Martin-Green, the mother of Antonio Martin’s mother claimed that her son was not “a violent person.”
She spoke to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“This doesn’t make any sense for them to kill my son like this,” Toni Martin-Green said early Wednesday from her home located near the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus. “I am trying to be calm.”
“In the last year, he was really trying to find who he was. He was ready to take the world on,” the father said. “He knew he had parents who loved him. He had that support.”
“He was not a violent person, to our knowledge,” he added. “Around us there weren’t any pistols. It’s hard to believe that.”
Police recovered Martin’s handgun at the scene.
Camera Controversy
Aside from the CCTV footage which clearly depicted the incident, US media are now fixated on other cameras which many politicians are inferring, including President Obama and AG Holder, would prevent such deadly police incidents from taking place.
According to police, the officer involved was assigned a body camera at roll call at the start of his shift on Tuesday, but was not wearing it at the time of the incident.
In addition, the police car was equipped with a dashboard camera, but it may not have been activated, as dashboard cams are normally activated when the car’s police lights are switched on.
Stay tuned for further developments
READ MORE FERGUSON NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Ferguson Files
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