First of all I do not believe that all cops are incompetent bastards.  However, I do believe that they need to get back to community policing and being involved with their neighbors.  They also need better training which doesn't come with de-funding. I know several retired officers and respect them greatly.  I normally don't have any interactions with police unless I'm driving over the speed limit - such as my Wyoming adventure and the excellent officer "Homer" who ticketed me for 10-15 over the speed limit - what can I say Wyoming has some very sweet roads, it's a good thing I was driving a Nissan and not the awesome Dodge Challenger that I've rented in the past or it would most likely have been 20+over. 

My white dad raised me that if I was pulled over I was to immediately turn off my loud music, roll down my window and put my hands on the steering wheel.  Don't reach in the glove box for insurance and registration.  Don't dig in your purse for your license.  Just sit there with your hands on the steering wheel and wait.  He had experienced a lot of issues with the police when he was younger and being profiled for his missing arm.  Apparently missing limbs back then made you a threat or incompetent to drive, maybe even both.

 

This post isn't about my perceived white privilege though.  This post is about my future son-in-law and the father to be of my future grand children.  FYI he is a POC or a young black man who had a really bright future until May of 2020.

 

I should title this post #howtofckupablackmanslife Here is a bit of an update on the kids - as well as Koda, Theo and even Mina  #meetthedogs

T is out on bond with the requirement that he not be in Wayne county except to remove items from the house. The house is on the market - for way less than the kids had planned - due to this. They've found another place to purchase when the house sale goes through but until then they are spending the summer camping with the dogs. Any rental place that would take Theo (pittie mix) wont take Koda because he's too big (somewhere over 90 pounds). Even if they found a place that would take the dogs there is the matter of T's felony charges (which again eliminate a number of rental opportunities).

The kid has discovered that making deliveries pays more than saving peoples lives so for now that is what she is doing. T is finding it impossible to find a job in the industries that he was working in or progressing to because of these charges.

If you look back over the years you will see how glad I was that the neighborhood she chose to call home was so welcoming. I don't like to mention race (because it shouldn't matter) but she was the only white person in the neighborhood when she first moved there. She bought the house sight unseen for $1000 (less than a months rent in the Portland OR area) with the dream to make it her forever home and base of operations to restore more homes in the area. Her plan on the restored homes was to keep them affordable for people to buy or single parents to rent at reasonable rates.

The lady behind her house was a retired police sergeant. Her family came over with cold lemonade and a lamp when she realized it would help the kid out. The lady across the street had been in the neighborhood since the early 60s and raised her kids there as well as many foster kids. We talked a bit about the 12th Street Riots because she had witnessed them.  I had the privilege of attending her birthday party while I was there and meeting several members of her family. Again they were extremely welcoming. The retired navy guy kitty corner helped in so many ways though I found it weird that he wouldn't even come up on the porch - he didn't want to create any perception of impropriety since it was just the kid and I (and the dogs) at the house.

She met T while they were both training to become EMTs and serve their communities further. T was in the process for applying and interviewing for law enforcement positions when this all went down.

It seems that the white couple that moved in across the street from her decided to paint her and T as anti-community and anti-police when they started spouting their bs. The old lady of the couple decided to tell the police that they wouldn't talk to the police and would actively avoid them. She also told them that the dogs were aggressive.

The upshot of this is that because he went over to talk - and find out what their problem was - to the black woman and her guy who had threatened to shoot KC and Koda when they were on the porch one day for "not belonging in the neighborhood and needing to learn her place" their lives are currently in limbo with the potential of his being permanently f'd.  How many years does it take for someone to belong in a neighborhood? 

As someone with a licensed conceal carry permit, his weapon was in the car, when a large group of people started charging at him he did what anyone in their right mind would do and that is to secure his weapon so that no one else gained control of it.

Do you know what pisses me off the most about this is that I had considered gifting them with a https://www.uslawshield.com membership at Christmas and I didn't do it. It would have been the best $240 I had spent last year. FYI so far legal costs are $12k and rising. That is not an affiliate link and I do not receive any commission or anything else for sharing it. U.S. & Texas LawShield, their program is something I will definitely be adding to my arsenal of legal protections though.

Mina is in the picture above, this was taken while we were waiting for the vet to do another laser treatment on her rear foot.  The police in Detroit's 10th District shot her while she was sitting in front of the puppies kennel - apparently because she was aggressive?  Bullets travel in a straight line so with the fur burn where the bullet skimmed her front shoulder and the wound in the paw - as well as the bullet embedded in the floor she was sitting when they shot her.  Any other position would not have resulted in that bullet trajectory and final location.  We haven't seen any bodycam footage from that though we've seen plenty of other body cam footage - which The more research I do about Detroit Police's tendency to shoot dogs for any reason the more I'm glad that I still have Mina.  The vet bills were about $2500 and no matter what the officer that I spoke to on the phonce said it's not "just a toe".  She used to love to play with the kids and their squirt guns, catching the water in her mouth.  Now she is so terrified of them (even the space ray ones) that she hides behind someone if they are playing with them.  

My heart is breaking for the family of the latest dog shooting by police in Detroit's 9th District.  When I read that one police officer that apparently floats among the different districts has shot 80+ dogs in the course of their career that tells me that Detroit Police really need to work on their training.  

Did you know that since 1776 there have only been 6 officer deaths reported due to dog bites?  The last of those was in 1936 and his name was Jackson Pinkett Bennet.  The dogs didn't maul them or bite out their throats each of those six dogs was infected with rabies which the officers caught and did not survive. 

I will be doing a live gemstone/jewelry sale on Zoom Sunday.  Follow facebook.com/heliopolisrocks to get the details.  I will be setting aside 40% of sales to go towards their legal fund and another 10% to a gofundme account for Makiaa Slade - a young 9 year old North Carolina girl killed by bullets from an unknown assailat that hit her mom's car.  For me money is only as important as the good that it can do for people.  If I can help just a bit I will do that.