CNN has just reported that Al Sharpton has been arrested during the Sean Bell protest today in New York City. At the moment, sources are still somewhat limited, but CNN is linking to WABC, which reports that the protests have caused several disruptions:

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So I'm reviewing GTA4 for someone, and was taking the car around for spin to see just how well they did the New York City layout in the game. Overall, it's rather well done. Except for some unknown reason, the Manhattan Bridge now goes to Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Since I was close to Queens anyway, I decided to take a spin up to the Long Island City.

It was nice, I was playing well with others, even avoiding mowing people down because I was sight seeing and didn't want the cops busting my balls.

Then I decided head east, check Corona Park and Flushing Meadows. I was hoping there really was space ships at the top of the old world's fair towers.

So I wasn't really paying attention because I watching how well the clouds were rendered into the sunset and accidentially ran into a van. Liking prestine cars in the game, I decided to get out and get a new one.

It was then I got Sean Belled.

I was totally unarmed, just a basic fender bender, but 10 cops appeared out of nowhere and shot me down like a dog in the street. I never stood a chance because I didn't have a baseball bat, much less a gun. The NYPD came down on me like a immigrant from Africa.

So I guess GTA4 is really true to life, you can get Sean Belled in Queens.

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In the Sean Bell case in New York, the police couldn't get an all-white jury in New York City, so instead they got an all-white judge.    Brilliant!

Not for nothing has the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association forsworn jury trials for cops indicted in the Bronx. Two decades ago when Officer         Stephen Sullivan went on trial for fatally shooting Eleanor Bumpers, a black grandmother, he did not appear before a jury. [In the Bronx juries are predominantly black and Hispanic.] Instead, he was tried before a specially selected white judge, who acquitted him. NYPDConfidential

But, this case demonstrates something else much more subtle and useful that I've been saying about color-aroused behavior.  One of the police officers who killed Sean Bell was Black, and he's the one whom the Police Benevolent Association put before the cameras after the acquittals.  Why?  Because the PBA knows that Blacks believe that "only whites can be 'racist' ", as a matter of doctrine.   So, once we learn that one of the police officer culprits was Black, that will take much of the wind out of our angry sails.  The New York Times reports:

In Harlem, Willie Rainey, 60, a Vietnam veteran and retired airport worker, said that he believed the detectives should have been found guilty, but that he saw the case through a prism not of race, but of police conduct. "It's a lack of police training," Mr. Rainey said. "It's not about race when you have black killing black. We overplay the black card as an issue." NYTIMES

The fact is that when society does not value Blacks as much as it values whites, this affects everyone's behavior, regardless of their skin color - both Blacks and whites.  When a Black police officer considers employing lethal and unnecessary force force against a Black person, OF COURSE he considers the fact that he knows there will ultimately be no consequences for doing so.  He acts in the knowledge that if he shot a white person 50 times, he might well be executed in some states.

The New York Times says,

Sean Bell has become a symbol of what they describe as police aggression and racial profiling in black neighborhoods. Had Mr. Bell and his friends been white, they said, the police would have responded less aggressively, and Mr. Bell might still be alive.  NYTIMES

But that NEVER happens, police shooting white people as they shot Sean Bell, because everyone knows that even a police officer cannot shoot a white person 50 times!  Certainly a Black police officer would not be permitted to do so!    

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