As the Toll Mounts

Very strange. I went on an expedition yesterday to collect enough cat food to hold us for a week or so. I usually buy it at the Walmart in the next town over because they have the large bags (when they aren't sold out) and the kind of canned food the house cats like. But yesterday I got to the parking lot and turned around. The place was mobbed -- after weeks of lower than normal traffic through the store. So much lower that sometimes kids were skateboarding in the aisles.

What happened? I dunno. New Mexico is still on semi-lockdown, Gallup is shut completely. Most people have been unhappy about the restrictions, but they're unhappier about the virus, especially now in Indian Country where the virus seems to have free rein.

So I came back to our little town and pulled into the Dollar General parking lot. I can get cat food in smaller quantities there, and usually there's not a crowd. On the way, I passed the hardware store, and its parking lot was full -- the first time I'd ever seen that. There was a social-distancing line out the door. My doG, what's going on?

At the Dollar General, the parking lot wasn't full, but there were few carts outside, and when I went in, there were more people inside than I think I've ever seen. Only one was wearing a mask, and it was nearly impossible to "social distance." There was plenty of cat food, so I loaded up and waited interminably to check out. There were so many people. Most were buying just a few things but some had full carts of groceries and sundries -- as if they'd finally run out or hadn't bought much for weeks. Maybe that's what had happened. We and folks we know have mostly been getting groceries and supplies once a week, sometimes once every two weeks if we don't need anything fresh. But this was a case where people, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in groups (saw one group of teens numbering five or six) just out for a lark, picking up soda or sweet rolls, were jamming the store.

Very few wore masks or kept their distance.

So. We know that this thing is far from done and that the restrictions on businesses and social life have slowed the infection rate significantly. But still. Tens of thousands are dead -- officially up around 70,000; likely double or triple that given the deficiencies in testing and reporting. And the numbers are not declining. Expectations are for another spike as states "open up." And our rulers don't seem to care as long as the illness and deaths are confined to the old folks' homes, the prisons and jails, the Indian reservations, immigrants, the working class schlubs and so on. Herd culling. As they say.

We like to think of what's going on as some sort of accident, act of God, or what have you, but in fact deliberate policies are being implemented, though often badly. Some observers have pointed out that because of those policies, the ultimate death toll a year or two from the start of the Outbreak is liable to be in the million plus range in the US alone.

Given the way things have been going, that is widespread policy. "Let them die." The activity and business restrictions were put in place to control the spread of the virus, and they've pretty much worked. But if you listen carefully to R pols, they're nearly of one voice: "You can't stop the virus. You've got to learn to live with it." And studies have apparently shown that 80% or so of those who get it do "live" with it. Only 20% die, you see. And the deaths have been concentrated within the Lower Orders. As long as that's the case, what's the problem? Right?

It's interesting that the rightist activists clamoring for the re-opening of business are a relatively small bunch of loudmouths -- almost all white, some strutting around with their guns and camo -- and practically everywhere they appear, summoned by rightist media and organizations, states "re-open" almost immediately, or at least parts of the business and recreation sectors do. Yet over the years we've seen massive popular movements and demonstrations, literally millions in the streets over and over, be ignored (ie: anti-war, women's marches, March for Our Lives, etc) and/or be violently suppressed (ie: Occupy, Black Lives Matter, etc,)  by our rulers. Get the picture yet?

In December of 2000, the Supreme Court yielded the presidency to the same radicals who are out yelling at capitols today.

The rightist demonstrators are not our rulers, but our rulers inevitably yield to them, no matter what they want.

So in effect, their demands are policy, while the people's righteous demands, no matter what they are, are routinely ignored or denied.

That in a nutshell is how this nation operates.

Clarifying, no?

An Automatic Death Sentence From Which There Is No Appeal

I can't tell for sure what all is going on here, but a man is dead after being shot by police in Los Angeles, that much is clear.

Yet another execution on the streets of LA. Happens all the time.

The man is seen in the video disobeying and struggling with the po-po. He should have known that would be a death sentence. Many of those commenting on the video say as much. Po-po seem to believe it without question: disobedience and struggling with the police is justification for use of lethal force in most jurisdictions, most especially in places like the meaner streets of Los Angeles where this incident took place.

The police claim that the man they shot and killed was "going for the gun" of one of the officers. This is the justification police use almost as often as the "reaching for his waistband" justification. They are often false justifications, but you can see for yourself that it is difficult/impossible to tell whether the man they shot and killed in this video was "going for" a gun or anything else. It looks like he's simply trying to ward off the blows raining down on him, but it's too dark and the distance is too great to be sure.

Po-po lie routinely and they are routinely allowed to get away with it, so I would not take their word without question.

On the other hand, video isn't necessarily conclusive. This one certainly isn't, but it will have to do until something more definitive shows up.

The point here, obvious as sin, is that the man who was shot and killed was disobedient and struggled with police, and whenever that happens, it seems that the police have full authority to kill at will.

Just as they have the authority to kill any Negro they see with a gun -- or who they think has a gun. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not. All that matters is their perception.

At any rate, another man is dead on the streets of LA, killed by police. He was black and homeless and possibly mentally ill or impaired, but all that really matters in the eyes of the police is that he was disobedient and struggled with the police.

Doing so is in their eyes justification for summary execution.

They are cowards, every one of them.

911-Death Squad

Armand Martin, killed by APD SWAT team sniper, May 3, 2014

Calling 911 when a loved one is having a psychological or emotional crisis is too often a death sentence.

When you call 911, certain protocols are operating, and when you call seeking assistance because a loved one is in crisis, those protocols include dispatching police or a SWAT team if your loved one is deemed to be a "threat" -- to him/herself or others -- by virtue of what you have to say to the 911 operator. For example, if you say your loved one is behaving violently or is armed, EMTs will not be dispatched until your loved one is "compliant" which often means until your loved one is dead.

"Compliant" means that either your loved one can and immediately does follow barked commands which often seem incomprehensible or contradictory even to people who are not in crisis or, failing immediate compliance to such commands, "compliant" means "neutralized," ie: severely injured enough to no longer be a "threat." Often the desired compliance is obtained through mortal injury to the subject "(as your loved one will be referred to).

Back in May, soon after one of Albuquerque's numerous protests against the epidemic of police killings in the city, Gail Martin, wife of retired Air Force Lt. Col. Armand Martin, approached a police officer in a park near her home in the nice suburb of Ventana Ranch and announce that he husband had threatened her with a gun.

That was all that was necessary to dispatch a SWAT team to the house and begin operations to force compliance from the erstwhile gunman or know the reason why.

Mrs. Martin did not seem to think her husband was a danger to her or anyone else, she just didn't want him to be waving a gun around. He suffered from depression and PTSD, in fact was retired on disability because of his condition.

The SWAT team had a crisis intervention negotiator on hand. Apparently the "negotiations" consisted of shouting over a bullhorn to Martin to come out with his hands up, and when that didn't produce compliance quickly enough, the next phase of the "negotiations" consisted of bombarding the house with flash bang and tear gas grenades. Oh, and commanding Martin to surrender forthwith. Not to forget that.

The entire neighborhood was terrorized. SWAT assigned a sniper to "neutralize the threat" -- apparently to kill Martin on sight.

Meanwhile, Martin was on the phone with 911 operators, his brother and apparently with one of the television stations in town as well, basically asking what (the fuck) was going on, why was there so much hubbub, saying he hadn't done anything wrong, and yesterday, it was revealed that said he'd taken sleeping medication to calm himself down and he just wanted to sleep. BAM! SWAT could not allow that. Oh no. He had to be forced into compliance at all costs. He could not be allowed to sleep.

His wife apparently had no idea that her pleas for assistance to help her husband would lead to this. How many wives and loved ones have thought the same? It's routine. Calls for help are answered by domestic death squads.

The standoff with Martin went on for several hours, with SWAT demanding compliance and using violence (grenades, you know?) to achieve it, Martin wondering "what the fuck," and telling his brother on the phone he was afraid the police would kill him if he came out of the house.

Guess what? That's exactly what they did.

BAM!

Someone, perhaps Martin's brother, convinced him to come out of the house, and as soon as he did, a SWAT sniper named Daniel Hughes shot him. He fell. Police say he was armed, and two pistols were shown on video next to his body, but whether he shot at officers or "aimed" at them (often claimed by police as justification for killing subjects) is in dispute. Police handcuffed him and left him to bleed out on the driveway of his house for fifteen minutes or so before calling paramedics to tend to his corpse.

It was deemed a "good shoot" -- as they almost always are.

Martin's family was and is in shock. Yes, well...

Once you call or approach a police officer in cases like this, you have ordered up a death squad, whether you intend to or not. And once that death squad arrives, you have no control over what will happen next. Be prepared. They are there to kill, and if the opportunity presents itself, they will kill without a qualm for that is what they are trained and expected to do.

I pointed out that the Killer Kop Kompetition that will be held in Albuquerque this weekend simulates endless scenarios in which police are conditioned to fire their weapons to "neutralize threats." They are conditioned to see threats everywhere, and to react to them as if on automatic pilot. Oh, they get a demerit if they happen to misperceive a bystander as a threat. But I kind of doubt they are disqualified for doing so.

When someone like Armand Martin -- an armed black man -- is the the subject, there is practically no way and nothing he can do that will prevent him from being killed. He is by definition a prime target.

The family has no say in it. The subject has no say. As for the officers, they can't seem to say "no" to killing.

Once the 911-death squad is dispatched, there can be little hope that your loved one will survive the encounter.