U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- On 10 July, 2020, at about 12:30 p.m., in Detroit, there was another police shooting. A young black man, Hakeem Littleton, 20, was shot and killed by Detroit police. Agitators quickly organized a protest, and gathered, claiming the shooting was not justified and Hakeem was unarmed.
The police were making an arrest in conjunction with a homicide which took place on 5 July. Hakeem Littleton was a bystander, who tried to prevent the arrest.
One of the protest organizers admitted it did not matter to her that Hakeem fired at police first. From mlive.com:
“They killed a man today,” Scorpio said, ” I don’t give a f**what happened, they shouldn’t have killed a man today…
“We are fighting for a system where the police shouldn’t have been there to begin with, the police shouldn’t be putting people in positions where they feel like they have to protect their lives because they see a badge.”
In the video, the action happens very rapidly. Hakeem reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a Beretta .25 auto. He fires two shots at an officer’s head, but misses from a few feet away. Another six shots were fired very quickly, four from an officer, and two more from Hakeem. The last two may have been fired when Hakeem was on the ground.
Chief Craig was quick to release the body camera video, only a few hours after the incident happened.
The clearest view of the incident in the video clips is that of the officer who fired the shots which struck and killed Hakeem Littleton. You see, from the officer’s viewpoint, the initial shots. You see him obtain a flash sight picture with a two-handed hold, and fire, very quickly.
The Detroit police are following the model of the San Diego police, who successfully released video of a shooting that occurred on June 28, 2020, in downtown San Diego.
The important thing is to get the information out before the false narrative has a chance to be embedded in the media and culture.
The opposite happened in the George Floyd case. In Minneapolis, the Mayor and Police Chief have fought to keep the body camera video from the public. The attorneys for the police have been fighting to have it released. A transcript was released on 7 July.
Police Chief Craig is one of the new breed of Police Chiefs who have embraced concealed carry by the population. He was able to do so because of previous experience in Maine, and because Detroit was undergoing bankruptcy, which freed him from control by the Mayor and City Council. This is a model that should be followed in other major cities.
Police in large metropolitan areas have historically been political tools of the City politicians.
It appears to be a better system if the police chief is independent, much as a county sheriff is. That allows the voters to hold the Chief directly responsible.
Combat the lies with facts quickly enough, with evidence, and the false narratives used by those who want to destroy the United States, can be combated effectively.
We are entering an age where there will be video of nearly everything that happens. The old era of being able to lie about what happened is rapidly going away.
Video clips can be misleading, of course. Knowing how to make videos and place them on the Internet, is becoming as important a skill in preserving liberty as knowing how to load and shoot firearms.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.