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PASADENA POLICE MURDER BLACK TEEN
Published On 03-31-2012 , 8:21 PM
Kendrec McDade, suspected of armed robbery, was shot dead by Pasadena police officers last Saturday night as he was, it is reported, running from them.
Two officers opened fire on the young man from Azusa, one from his squad car and the other while engaged in a foot pursuit. The officers claim to have felt threatened when, they allege, McDade reached into his waistband.
No weapon was found on McDade, nor has a weapon been found at the crime scene on Sunset Avenue near Orange Grove Boulevard in Northwest Pasadena - the 'hood.
Maybe the officers felt threatened, as a 911 call reported that a person fitting McDade's description and a 17-year-old partner in crime brandished a gun while robbing the victim who placed the call.
But most surely, in our supposedly civilized society, the penalty for such an act isn't death on the street but instead an arrest, a trial, and, if found guilty, a prison sentence.
Is shoot-to-kill the kind of skilled training our police officers receive? Or is shoot-to-kill supposed to be an acceptable practice in Northwest Pasadena?
When McDade told his family he was headed out to Pasadena that fateful Saturday, it was just to be another weekend night in the 'hood.
Like any other young person his age, he probably had plans for the next day. As for those who loved him most, his family, they certainly had no plans for receiving that dreadful middle-of-the-night call every black family with a young male in the household knows might come their way.
But McDade may well have been up to no good. And furthermore, he shouldn't have been running when the officer was pursuing him on foot and must have surely yelled for him to halt.
Ah, so many of our young people are up to no good when they're out on Saturday night — or any other night, for that matter.
And so many of our young people don't do what we tell them to do and so often seem to think they can get away with, well, whatever.
But the price of doing wrong, being young, being foolish and being a black male shouldn't be a death sentence at the hands of those who are sworn to protect and to serve.
“This had nothing to do with his color,” a friend, who doesn't look like me, proclaimed about this Pasadena incident as he and I talked about the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida.
In the eyes and thought patterns of those of us who dwell in the vicinity of the killing — Northwest Pasadena — just about every incident of this magnitude is racial, and it doesn't much matter how much good the various Pasadena police programs do in the community.
This shooting is every black family's nightmare: a late-night call, a drive to an emergency room, disbelief, tears, a talk with the coroner's office, a death certificate and funeral arrangements.
This is any community's nightmare: a victim who lied about a suspect brandishing a weapon, the police responding like they're in a war zone, and the local folks pretty much fed up.
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Comment
| | 1. | I live very close to this intersection so I well know it's a troubled area .
Nevertheless , the PPD has a long history of " attack first & question later " %28remember Michael ZinZun ?%29 whenever it comes to non - Whites . this is _UNACCEPTABLE_ in America .
I have a mixed race son who luckily survived growing up here , largely because I explained to him that LIFE ISN'T FAIR so beware non White Youngsters as -YOU- may be killed by the Police next no matter what you're doing .
I hope all Parents here read this and take it to heart ~ we don't need any more ' dead right ' kids ! .
I'da prolly ran from the PPD when I was a Teenager too .
-Nathan Hall , Sr.
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- by Nathan Hall, 04-03-2012, 12:56 PM
| | 2. | “To believe this had nothing to do with color is to bury your head in the sand. But this is not to say the officers are prejudiced, either. That is not for me to say. However – and I say this guardedly and without statistics to back me up, and based on newscasts over the years – it seems that a high percentage of violence is associated with young males of Latino and African-American heritage. Please don't think me racist because I'm not. Appearances speak a lot and in this case, there was the report of a crime committed by two black youths, falsely with a gun, occurring in a high-crime area, and young McDade ran when ordered to stop, and, I might add, even if totally innocent, with good reason to fear for his own life and freedom had he not.
It’s worse than unfortunate that too often, innocent people are abused by men charged with protecting innocent people; men %28seldom women%29 who use this charge as their privileged weapon for exercising, covering up, or justifying their own cruel prejudices. I think, whether innocent or guilty, McDade had reason to fear being taken into custody. Whether in this case there was in fact reason is something else. As it turned out, by making the mistake of running %28and it could have also been a mistake not to run%29, it became a fatal confrontation. I’m not passing judgment on either McDade or the officers involved – not at this time.
It's a sad commentary on our society that every young black and Latino male is automatically suspected of being violent criminals just because some are, but many are not, all the while young white males are most often considered non-violent even though some are.
It's also a sad commentary that our de facto segregation- some by choice, some by economics - impairs our ability to mix, learn about, and integrate each of these cultures so we wouldn't fear nor envy each other in the way our society now dictates.”
Regarding Trayvon Martin, he was being followed – by Zimmerman’s own admission – and surely felt threatened. And was in danger. Who’s to say had it been that Zimmerman was killed instead of Martin, Martin could also have made the same defense. And it would have been far, far more plausible. I think Zimmerman’s “defense” stinks to high heaven. Failure to arrest him certainly casts doubt and shame on the local police and prosecutors. It isn’t for one or three law enforcement officials to decide justice; that, by our own constitution, is the duty of a fair and impartial jury. Martin, so far, is being denied his constitutional guarantee. I know that I would fear, even walking down any main street in Beverly Hills or Malibu, if I detected someone following me, I would fear for my safety, even my life. Day OR night!
- by Weston, 04-01-2012, 5:04 PM
| | 3. | I am still waiting for the Barnes Video that Melekiam promised back in 2009. If I read the paper correctly the officers never called out for McDade to stop.
- by Thomas F. Grose, 04-01-2012, 4:13 PM
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