Facts and Black Voices Lead Me Right

June 20, 2020Shadow Bard Leave a comment

Part 1: Just the Facts Please

Okay, to the surprise of probably no one, the bard is not Black. To the surprise of all the White boys telling me I have a tiny penis for siding with facts and the Black voices who have also sided with the facts: I actually have no penis. And I was born that way.

So now that little secret is out in the open. I still plan to keep the logo, even if 2020 side armed me into breaking the illusion before four months have passed. Plus, I still don’t like the idea of any unnecessary information being out there to lead people to me due to my family and job, not until I know I can do it safely anyway. If you’ve seen any of the videos going up on Twitter, completely ignored by the news, you’ll understand why even in my relatively red state I’m not about to take any chances.

For a bit more information, I also technically fall into that dreaded Millennial category: or at least I think I do, the qualifications keep changing depending on who is trying to get themselves out of the label. Therefore, despite being raised conservatively and finding myself leaning that way in many things, I still had that moment–like everyone in my generation has been programmed to–where I see the crowd, hear their cries and see their passion, and I stop. I think on all the movies of the good guys overcoming the bad regime and I wonder: am I in the wrong? Because I know what I call personal responsibility seems harsh. What I call accountability seems cruel. And the news is a constant inundation of terror and pain.

That’s when I turn to facts. That’s when I listen to voices that have been silenced. And I can now say with confidence, that my beliefs passed that test. In this article, I’ll be covering the police conundrum and systemic racism issue that is linked to it. This blew up into a massive piece so I’ll be breaking it at least in half. This is the fact half and in a few days I’ll post the voices and news half. If I’m not hiding in a bunker burning through my extra padding as we fight for survival, that is.

The Facts

Let’s get two final things straight as we dive into this discussion. First, I’m not doing this to give anyone an excuse to be terrible to anyone else. This is not about pointing fingers, it’s not about revenge or calls to action. It’s about finding the truth about where our real problems lie as a nation so we can stop fighting and find real ways to move forward.

Second: numbers are numbers. They are not racist, they cannot be appropriated, and two portions of data can’t be held up as accurate and a third called the “statistics of the oppressors.” I’m tired of hearing those pointless arguments. Face the facts and come up with real solutions. That’s the only way we’ll be able to put this to bed once and for all.

So what are the facts? Is there systemic racism in America, especially in our police? Do parents need to worry every time their child leaves the house that they’ll fall to a police man’s bullet? Do Black parents need to fear this the most?

The answer is a resounding no. No, the police are not running around slaughtering people in the streets. No, the police as a whole are not targeting anyone of a certain race. No, the average person “minding their business,” as someone claimed on Twitter, is not going to die just for the hell of it at police hands. And I have evidence, available to everyone if they would stop listening to the same media sources that think a brainless virus, that can’t even reproduce on its own let alone think politically, can magically take two weeks off from infecting people if their cause is “justified” only to reappear when the wrong-think group comes back to hold their own rallies and meetups.

Let’s look at some data, starting with the least controversial we possibly can, and build our way to the real problems and the hard truths so next time we can decide what we can do to work towards a solution for everyone.

Biology and Death

Population

The United States is made up of many different peoples. From all different lands and histories our ancestors, or sometimes we ourselves, came crawling towards Lady Liberty with the hope of a better tomorrow. So it’s a real shame that in the year of Our Lord 2020 we still classify ourselves based on skin color.

Because let’s face it, we don’t separate each other by heritage. We don’t care about Irish or Swedish. We don’t care about Kenyan or Ethiopian. We don’t care about Chile, Mexico, Spain, or Brazil. It’s Black, White, Asian, Native, Latino, and mixed/other. That says next to nothing about who we are. Elon Musk might be from North Africa but no one is going to let him into Black crowd. I’m pretty sure that’s why the term Black became the politically correct one over African American. Not all Africans are Black.

There’s our Problem #1. We’ve let ourselves be divided this way in our politics, our schooling, our advertising, and our social lives. I’ll leave out medicine because, like biological gender, different peoples can have different health concerns based on their country of origin and skin color.

Problematic as it is, that’s how all of our information is sorted so that’s what we’ll have to stick with. Using the 2010 census information we can see that roughly 64% of Americans are classified as White, around 12% are classified as Black, 16% are Latino, 0.7% and 0.15% are Native and Pacific Islanders, 5% are Asian of some kind, and around 2% are classified as biracial and other. These are the numbers I’m using, even though I’ve seen 13 and 14% be thrown around for the Black population.

I will warn you, in a few places I have to get creative with number interpretation. The reason? The FBI and other crime units in the US consider Hispanic/Latino an ethnicity not a race. So while this census data has them as their own separate group, in much of the crime information Hispanics are split up and divided depending on their skin color. Hispanic data is included as a separate statistic in most, and I’ve done my best to represent it when possible, but there is usually a bit of a disconnect in the numbers because it’s overlapping data.

Cause of Death

The next thing we need to ask is: are Black individuals more likely to die by homicide than other races. Looking at the CDC’s listing of common deaths I’ve found that, yes actually, they are. Black Americans are the most likely to die to homicide at 3% with Hispanics and Native populations coming in second at half that. White and Asian Americans both bring up the close though White’s higher overall population count brings their percentage number down the lowest. On the other hand, Blacks have the lowest suicide rate by a whole percentage point and if you know someone who is a Native American, please hug them and tell them it’s going to be okay because they leave the rest of us in the dust when it comes to rate of suicide. They also have almost twice the accidental deaths which looks a bit suspicious with that suicide rate.

If we’re being honest, I’d argue that suicide is a much bigger topic than police brutality or even murder. In not a single case does the number of police killings outnumber the number of suicides: it’s a big problem for everyone. So hug your white male friends too because that number is outrageous no matter the percentages. [Note: I split the ‘other’ category for murders between Natives and Asians because the FBI does not distinguish, neither does WaPo in their counts for deaths by police which is also split in half for this purpose. Also, as stated before, the Hispanic overlaps with the other counts due to how the FBI tracks race and ethnicity separately.]

Though, as we can see, the lowest suicide rates and the highest murders makes Blacks the only case where we see the homicide bar surpass the suicide bars.

Since, we’re still focused on the riots and racism against blacks, we’ll throw the suicide chat to the side. Instead we’ll focus on how, in a few short paragraphs, we have answered one of the biggest talking points: Black Americans are more likely to be killed than any other race. So what next?

Crime and the Police

Blood on the Hands

If we want to see if these murders are a matter of racism and police brutality, we need to look at who is causing them. This is where we start to get into the controversial territory. Because if you look at the facts then the ones most responsible for killing Black Americans are other Black Americans. Just like with Whites, Hispanics, and “Others,” you are more likely to be killed by someone who looks just like you than you are to be killed by anyone else. And it’s not close by any means.

I think that is an important thing to note: you are more likely to be killed by any relative or friend over an argument than you are to be killed as a result of a hate crime. I don’t want to negate the hate crimes, because even with the vast majority of crimes being simple intimidation, Blacks do report the most hate crimes followed by Jews, Whites, then Gays. It is something we need to keep in mind.

There is something else that needs addressing too. It’s another of the controversial things that is often shut down, which I think in part is due to how outlandishly blown out of proportion the graphs that I’ve seen wind up being. I’ve been guilty of spreading a few of these around myself, mostly because I didn’t pay close enough attention to the titles, so I have even more reason to set the record straight.

Blacks kill more White people than Whites kill Black people.

Not just in numbers, but in percentages of crime too. The number is almost double: 8% of Blacks are killed by Whites and 15.5% of Whites are killed by Blacks. So yeah, if you see a table going around that claims more than a 2x higher interracial murder rate, that’s some bull. If it’s violent crime in general… Well, we’ll get to that when we get to it.

Why do these things matter? Because of what we’re fighting about. Black Lives Matter protesters are taking to the streets saying that it is dangerous for Blacks in our nation today and they point the finger at White people and the police as the reasons. Despite no guarantee that they are committed by white people and though the majority of the 2500 hate crimes experienced by Blacks would statistically be intimidation, simple assault, or vandalism, it is more than twice what is reported for whites. That is something that I want to see change and eradicated as much as possible. Though, I’ll go ahead and throw up Problem #2 which is, those 2500 people, even if they are all white, do not make the few hundred million other white folks in America also racist. Just like any assaults or murders by a black man don’t stain all black men.

Problem #3 is not only that common lawlessness is what kills most people, but also that we aren’t allowed to talk about it. If a mother is afraid of her child walking out the door, it shouldn’t be because she thinks a police officer or a member of another race are going to kill them. Ideally, no mother will have any fear for her child’s life but it won’t go away as long as we ignore what the real problem is.

And because we’re tackling the big issues here, Problem #4: though Blacks do record more interracial hate crimes than any other group, they are not immune from targeting people of other races in a more deadly fashion than the hate they receive. Calling this information racist, appropriation of facts, or the “statistics of oppressors” is not going to help anyone get over these deep wounds we have.

Police: Help or Harm

So what about the police? Where do they fit into all of this? And why am I using the 2018 numbers instead of the 2019 numbers? It’s not to make things look better, I promise. I’ll acknowledge right now that 2019 was worse for police fatalities than 2018. But there are two reasons why I chose the year I did. First, at the time of writing this the in depth breakdown charts for 2019 crime had not yet been released meaning I had more accurate data overall from 2018. Second, like in two other cases, I caught a source editing itself after things began to heat up politically.

Yes, after Tucker Carlson praised WaPo for their accurate record keeping on police shootings and used their data to explain the ten deaths of unarmed black individuals at the hand of police in 2019, they found 4 more deaths to add to the count. I admit they also found 6 more White deaths taking that number from 19 to 25 which keeps the general ratio, but I find it particularly hard to accept that between June 3 and June 13 they were able to discover, or reclassify,ten different victims who had no weapons at the time of their death. There does not seem to be any such adjustments to the 2018 data, perhaps due to the number of unarmed deaths being higher anyway.

Let this be a lesson: Problem #5 the media will do anything it can to make the situation look worse than it is. There is nothing so terrible, heinous, or tragic that the media can’t twist it worse to fit their narrative.

Now, back to what the police can and can’t be blamed for. If you look at the chart, you’ll see right away that unarmed or unknown police fatalities are a minority of the total number of fatal confrontations at the hands of police. For Whites, the 30 cases wind up being 6% of overall deadly encounters with police while Blacks wind up with 23 or 10%. There is a small difference of around 4% here. And even if you compare it to total homicide deaths, leaving you with 0.9% of White deaths and 0.7% of Black deaths, I think we should have a look at what is going on here.

And no, I’m not going to say don’t run from or fight the police. Yet. No matter how much of an argument that may be, I think there is something else to look at first.

A group of scientists, eager to know the truth on the question of perceived racial disparities in police encounters, used a different metric to measure that I’m shocked has never been talked about before. In fact, they’ve been discussed so little that some try to argue their invalidity. Why? Because it turns the argument on its head.

How can that be? After all, at 64% of the population Whites are fatally killed by the police 46% of the time while Blacks only represent 12.2% of the population and they were 23% of the deaths in 2018. Between that and the 4% difference in unarmed deaths, it’s a clear case, right? Not when you factor in violent crime and county demographics.

“However, using population as a benchmark makes the strong assumption that White and Black civilians have equal exposure to situations that result in FOIS. If there are racial differences in exposure to these situations, calculations of racial disparity based on population benchmarks will be misleading. Researchers have attempted to avoid this issue by using race-specific violent crime as a benchmark, as the majority of FOIS involve armed civilians. When violent crime is used as a benchmark, anti-Black disparities in FOIS disappear or even reverse.”
David J. Johnson, Trevor Tress, Nicole Burkel, Carley Taylor, and Joseph Cesario

Disappear or even reverse. It’s a big statement, especially since our entire world is in the process of burning down using this as its excuse. We’ll save any speculations on whether or not that’s what’s really going on for later. For now, let’s see how they came up with those numbers.

We already broke down murders, but there are more violent crimes than that. There is rape, aggravated assault, and burglary to name a few. And as you can see, those numbers aren’t pretty. For 2018, while White people committed roughly 59% of violent crime, slightly smaller than their overall representation, Black people committed 37%. That’s three times the size of their share of the population.

If the percentages of overall crime aren’t enough, let’s use this second graph to break it down another way. If you divide population density by the number of violent crimes, it’s one crime per every 682 White people and one crime every 201 Black people.

Not every person is a criminal. The vast majority of both races are loving, peaceful, smart, and non-violent. It’s time to realize all the same, there is a reason police officers are found frequently in Black neighborhoods. And we have to start admitting that it’s not racism.

Just like how White people made up 47% of fatal police encounters in 2018 versus 23% of Blacks, the #1 and #2 spots, respectively, the exact same trend is present among crimes committed. This supersedes the percentage of population because POLICE AREN’T POLICING POPULATIONS, THEY ARE POLICING CRIME.

Simply put, Blacks make up much less of the population but, Problem #6, they act out violent crime proportionately more than any other race leading to increased encounters with the police.

“On the other hand, race-specific violent crime strongly predicted the race of a civilian fatally shot by police, explaining over 40% of the variance in civilian race. These results bolster claims to take into account violent crime rates when examining fatal police shootings.”
David J. Johnson, Trevor Tress, Nicole Burkel, Carley Taylor, and Joseph Cesario

Now for the other part of the study, county demographics. Because I know some of you will be chomping at the bit eager to shout out that “just because some black communities have more crime doesn’t mean they all do!” and that is correct. Luckily for us, those conducting this study also thought of that so they dove into county specifics. They looked into what crimes took place in a certain area and what sorts of people became fatally involved with the police.

What they found is that the more White crime went up, the less likely it was that a Black or Hispanic person would be killed by police. Conversely, they noted that as Black or Hispanic crime went up, more people shot were Black or Hispanic respectively. Black and Hispanic crime rates did not have a major positive or negative effect on the other race.

“Controlling for predictors at the civilian, officer, and county levels, a person fatally shot by police was 6.67 times less likely (OR = 0.15 [0.09, 0.27]) to be Black than White and 3.33 times less likely (OR = 0.30 [0.21, 0.47]) to be Hispanic than White. Thus, in the typical shooting, we did not find evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity.”
David J. Johnson, Trevor Tress, Nicole Burkel, Carley Taylor, and Joseph Cesario

Something that the article pointed out is that disparities and bias are not necessarily the same. A police officer could potentially have a personal negative bias while his actions fall within the realm of excusable disparity. But all of them? Or even most of them?

“We did not find evidence for anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and, if anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime. While racial disparity did vary by type of shooting, no one type of shooting showed significant anti-Black or -Hispanic disparity.”
David J. Johnson, Trevor Tress, Nicole Burkel, Carley Taylor, and Joseph Cesario

How could a systemically, set in its ways, racist to the core, even if on an internal level, police force possibly accidentally only shoot people who fell in line with racial crime so perfectly that it made White people look targeted by comparison?

More Than Murder

Only two more bits for this section and we’ll be through part one.

As I mentioned before, there are two types of graphs floating around the internet right now. The first is specifically about interracial murder, the other is about interracial violent crime as a whole.

We saw that when it comes to murders by the percentages, Blacks are roughly twice as likely to kill Whites. But what about everything else? Are the crazy graphs that show massive disparities between races correct? Well…

There are a few caveats as you can see from the extensive ledger. Specifically, there is an issue with some of the numbers surrounding Asian and Other crime. Either because they couldn’t find enough data on it occurring, or because the data varied so widely, it was hard to pin down an accurate finding. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Asians leave everyone else alone for the most part which is what has caused the issues. Now we know who gets the most disciplined population award.

Taking in the information as a whole, the first thing of note is that White people get beat on. A lot. No other group comes close, not even by half. Like, I don’t know how these numbers can even be publicly available and we are going through the crap we are.

Not only do Whites get targeted more often, according to this White people are twice as likely to target an Asian or Hispanic person than a Black person and a Black person is one and a half times as likely to attack a White person than the other way around. That’s not good, mind you, but it takes all the wind out of the Whites bullying Blacks argument. And to give a visual to the numbers, here’s one more Microsoft chart.

Here we see again the visual reminder that the person most likely to wrong you is someone who looks just like you. Unless you’re Asian then you’re more likely to be wronged by a Black individual. And, if you look closely you’ll see that while percentage-wise Blacks are hurting more Blacks, when it comes down to numbers, they are hurting more Whites.

Other things to note are Hispanics overall receive more violent victimization than Blacks; who victimize them at around the same rate, though overall lower numbers, as they do Whites. And we could all stand to learn a thing or two about not being assholes from the Asian communities in America.

What does this all mean? For one, it means that the chart I’m referring to is accurate, though it leaves out Asians entirely and the intraracial crime bars. I feel that does us an overall disservice, because if there is one thing that we’ve seen and I think deserves to be front and center is the fact that we are hurting ourselves more than we are targeting anyone else. Whites do it, Blacks do it, Hispanics do it, and Asians just want to be left alone. Violence wise anyway.

Problem #7 The injuries we are causing to our neighbors is a result of the pain and turmoil within ourselves, not because of a prejudice against that neighbor.

Why So Trigger Happy?

One more thing for this section. Let’s tackle this last stupid straw man of an argument that I hear thrown around about police. “Why is he a police officer if he’s so afraid of dying?” This is normally said about an officer who kills a subject who is armed and didn’t shoot, a subject who appeared armed but wound up not being so, or a subject who was unarmed but did something else to cause a life or death situation to unfold. Let’s address each one of these.

First: Subject is armed but does not fire first. News flash, you don’t have to wait for someone to kill you to be justified in defending yourself. That’s kind of the entire point of self defense; not dying. And yes, a police officer who is in the process of confronting a criminal who decides to make the encounter about life and death deserves to live more than the criminal who refused to listen to orders. Deescalation is not a magical thing. It’s one thing if you’re in a standoff and no one is directly pointing a live weapon at anyone else. That’s when you get the negotiators on the line and try to deescalate. When weapons are drawn and pointed, it’s time for orders and stern commands. And if you’re running and see someone aim at you, it’s time to fire before you lose your life and your weapon.

Activist critical of police undergoes use of force scenarios https://t.co/a9GZygdtC3 via @YouTube
— Bob Woodson (@BobWoodson) June 15, 2020

Second: Subject appears armed but winds up being unarmed. This is when a cell phone, toy weapon, or in the case of a popular book a hairbrush looks like a weapon in the heat of the moment and due to the escalated situation, the subject gets killed. Sometimes when this happens, it’s a matter of suicide by cop. Other times, it’s a matter of a mental break and darkness. Again, would you risk your life by waiting the extra seconds to see if it’s a handgun or an air soft gun? These cases are tragic, and luckily much less frequent than even unarmed deaths.

Finally, we have the unarmed individuals who still pose a threat. Because that can be the case. They can choke an officer, try to wrestle their gun away, resist tazing and still continue to fight, they might have a history of armed standoffs and claim to have a gun during another standoff, or they could have a gun on hand that they just didn’t have time to reach because the officer stopped them. It’s funny how the only two people charged with murder or manslaughter in these unarmed cases are those whose subjects had guns at hand.

And let’s not pretend that it doesn’t go the other way too. In 2019, 48 police officers were killed on the job. Many were just pulling people over for speeding. Five were killed in unprovoked attacks just for being police officers, two more were ambushed. Three were killed by cars, one died trying to serve a court order. There is not a single part of their job that is safe. Because even when it’s not felonious, cops can be killed on the job. Sixteen were killed by being run over during a car accident. Have you ever seen a police officer rescue someone in the water? Well last year two officers drowned. One was even killed by a rogue tire incident. In total 89 officers died last year.

Doesn’t look like much? Well, that’s because they are the unlucky few. They weren’t the only ones who were on the target block. In 2018, [again, no data for 2019 yet] 58,886 officers were assaulted. That’s roughly ten percent. One in ten officers will be attacked at some point during the year. We also learned that 3 out of 100 officers would be seriously hurt from these assaults or 1 in 33.

The majority of these assaults happen during disturbance calls i.e. domestic violence or bar fights. The second most likely time to be assaulted is when you’re arresting someone and his buddy decides he’s not happy with the situation. The third is when you’re transporting a prisoner. So if the cuffs are a bit tight, maybe think about what happened the last time someone pulled a Houdini on the officer.

Any one of these incidents could have turned from an injury to a death. And for all the times they were assaulted in 2018, less than 2% of that number died at the hands of police. That doesn’t include all the traffic stops and domestic calls and rescues that didn’t result in any fighting or injury. Because that is how most encounters go: you just fess up, or remain calm and lawyer up later, and take the ticket. At worst things will devolve into a screaming fit but hurt feelings don’t hold a light to stitches or a body bag. But across America, every day, roughly 161 police officers get assaulted. And roughly once every four days, a police officer dies. And every day they put on their badge and kiss their families goodbye, they know it could be their turn on the block.

So instead of asking “Why are they police officers if they’re afraid they’ll die?” a better question is “Why are we persecuting those who know today could be their last and choose to head out anyway?”

And no, walking away because their fellow officer was convicted of first degree murder and is now facing the death penalty for doing everything by the book does not mean they’re bad cops or cowards, it means they don’t want to have fewer rights than the average citizen while doing more to protect them.

Summary

We came into this with the story that Black people in America faced monumental discrimination, particularly from White people and the police. For this study, we took a look specifically at crime and the police to see if those who say they feel nervous being pulled over or are afraid to see their children walk out the door were correct to feel that way or if it was all a fabrication. After looking at the different facts, we were able to draw some conclusions about what really ails these communities.

Problem 1: We allow our society to divide us based on skin color, not on anything personal or substantial. This difference wedges a gap early on and has nothing to do with heritage as no “race” has a single nationality or tradition that it stems from.

Problem 2: We are too quick to make numbers personal. No matter how many or few acts are done by someone of a certain appearance, holding the collective responsible is only going to make life worse for everyone.

Problem 3: While it is correctly said that Blacks are the most likely to die violently, we are told time and again that we are not allowed to talk about how 90% of those deaths are caused by other Blacks. This not only inflames ill will among the accused but prevents the real problem from being addressed, meaning the issue will never get better.

Problem 4: Black people kill more White people by number and by percentage than White people kill Black people. Ignoring this or calling it racist to point out only makes you look hypocritical.

Problem 5: The media lies about everything for sensation and political advancement. Always go to direct sources and get the whole picture.

Problem 6: Police come into contact with Black people more often than their population size would suggest because Black people commit more violent crimes than their population size would suggest.

Problem 7: Possibly the biggest one, each race is hurt more by other members of that race than by someone outside of it. We do not have a problem with race relations, we have a problem with lack of morals.

In part two we’ll be putting these observations into practice and see if they hold up by taking a few stories apart. And also we’ll see how people of color are reacting to these same situations on the other side of the spectrum. Until then, don’t use the truth to cause more hurt feelings. And remember: work to be healthy and be happy with the rest.

Confession: #GeorgeFloyd is neither a martyr or a hero. But I hope his family gets justice. https://t.co/Lnxz0usrp5
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) June 3, 2020

The Questions We Shouldn’t Need to Ask

May 13, 2020Shadow Bard 2 Comments

Ahmaud Arbery and Unnecessary Division

Ahmaud Arbery (25) was shot and killed by Travis McMichael (34) who was with his father Gregory McMichael (64) on February 23, 2020. The perpetrators have been arrested and charged with murder for following Arbery, who they claim to have thought was a burglar, down the road and instigating a confrontation with him resulting in his death. As seen on video of the incident, he was not in the act of stealing anything, he was jogging down the road when the men pulled up to him in their truck and accosted him, leading to a situation which ended with him being shot three times by a shotgun.(1)

So that’s that, right? There is no crime happening, the two suspects drive up on him, start a fight, and shoot him three times. Open and shut case of two men overstepping the line and we can arrest them and move on. Easy case, easy guilty.

That’s how it should be, but unfortunately instead of something we can all agree on this has become a mired mess of race politics, media debates, and circular reasoning to defend the indefensible. Why is that? Why are we treating this like its on par with self defense or a police officer acting in the line of duty? Why is there anyone, but especially enough to make a fuss about it on social media, who feels the need to champion on behalf of murderers?

I can’t even begin to guess. They come up with excuses like open carry, self defense, and citizen’s arrest and prop them up like pillars for their arguments. But those pillars are built on sand and I plan to bring them down one by one. I can’t promise everyone will listen, and we will have to wait until the pair are put on trial to see how it all plays out, but for those who are questioning and for those who need a comprehensive resource to look into what has happened and how to argue with facts I will show how the defense of these men is not the hill anyone should be willing to die on.

The All Important Timeline and Cast

So how did this all go down? As details are released, the story starts to write itself. Unfortunately getting all the detail in one place has been a major pain in the ass. But I think I’ve managed.

On May 10th, a new tape was revealed from the February case. This second recording was security camera footage taken moments before the tragic incident. It shows an individual, confirmed by the Arbery family’s lawyer to be Ahmaud, walking down the street and approaching a house under construction. The house was protected by security cameras which caught him entering the property through the door-less frame, looking around, and leaving without any sign of stealing or committing any other act aside from trespassing on a construction site, at most a misdemeanor.(2)

I have seen many speculating that he was casing the location, looking for tools or copper to steal, and more. I won’t be addressing those because they are baseless fluff that are only there to make people feel better about their viewpoint. There is no evidence he was planning something like that in this case and there is evidence he left the property empty handed. With no trial possible, he will have to be considered innocent unless something more substantial than a record and assumptions comes to light as far as I and this report are concerned. And with everything else we’re going to learn about this case, it’s safe to say if that evidence existed, we would have it by now.

After he left empty handed, a man across the street saw him exit the property and resume jogging. This man called the police on a non-emergency line to report the incident. (3)

Non-Emergency Dispatcher: Okay, what is he doing?
Caller: He’s running down the street.
NED: Okay, that’s fine. I’ll get them out there. I just need to know what he was doing wrong.
Caller: (Suspect) … has been caught on the camera a bunch before at night… It’s kind of an ongoing thing out here.
Dialogue from Source 3 Formatting by me

Who made this call? Most of the sources don’t say, and it is redacted in the audio. This caused me endless frustration because it’s kind of important. Especially since the video of Ahmaud looking around the property became the crux of many people’s arguments as to why the McMichaels were justified in instigating this whole mess. They’re wrong, but sometimes to thoroughly defeat someone’s argument, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt then destroy their argument anyway.

So I kept looking for which player we could thank for this, and I think I figured out the answer, and it came from an unlikely source.

Alan Tucker, a defense attorney who has worked with the McMichaels in this case, told First Coast News that the man who recorded the video that brought a renewed attention to this case is the “one who saw Arbery coming out of the house and said ‘that’s him.'” (4) Who is that man? William “Roddy” Bryan (5).

*This is where I have to make it clear that this is only my opinion on the matter.*

Tucker claims he doesn’t know if Bryan made the call to the police(4). However, the person who is calling does not sound like the person who made the 911 call during the altercation, who was Gregory McMichael, a former police detective. Also, whoever called is 100% in on the narrative that Arbery is a thief. (3) That, and the language used by Tucker in the article makes Bryan sound like the caller; the one who made the tape was the one who spotted Arbery leave the house and that’s who called the non-emergency number. (4)

According to the police report, Gregory also spotted Ahmaud running or “hauling ass” down the road and, due to thinking he was responsible for a string of robberies in the area, told his son to grab a gun and get in the truck. (6)

The reason he thought he needed guns? He had seen the victim reach into his pants ‘the other night’ (officer’s quotes) and this made him think he had a gun. (6) Absolutely flawless reasoning to be sure. Guess he’s never had to rearrange the family jewels.

Then they drove after him. Again, because they thought he had committed a string of robberies in the area… and not because they saw him come out of the house. They don’t even mention the house in the police report. (6) Or on the second 911 call. (3) This is another reason I don’t think Gregory was the first caller despite some sites thinking he was. Those sites also seem to merge both calls into one(7), so you can see why I had to hunt down different sources for different parts of this. No one has the whole story straight.

McMichael also told police that Arbery tried to get away by turning around and going the other way when “Roddy” made an unsuccessful attempt to box him in. They moved to follow and this is when the video comes in. (6) A pretty bold move to say the man your son just killed tried to not get shot and to avoid escalating the situation more than you did.

“McMichael stated they saw the unidentified male and shouted “stop stop, we want to talk to you”. McMichael stated they pulled up beside the male and shouted stop again at which time Travis exited the truck with the shotgun. McMichael stated the unidentified male began to violently attack Travis and the two men then started fighting over the shotgun at which point Travis fired a shot and then a second later there was a second shot. McMichael stated the male fell face down on the pavement with his hand under his body. McMichael stated he rolled the man over to see if the male had a weapon.”
Police Report, Source 6

I watched the video. (7) Multiple times. It was shaky, but it shows enough. If you haven’t seen it, I will say that you can’t see blood, but it is the last moments of a man’s life and you can hear the shots and see gunsmoke from at least one blast. Think carefully before you decide to watch it, but it is important to the case.

Travis and Gregory had parked the truck a ways in front of Arbery while William pulls up behind, camera rolling. Travis is outside of the open driver’s door, standing in the middle of the opposite lane with a shotgun in his hand and Gregory is in the truck bed as the victim runs towards them. Ahmaud continues forward until he gets close to the truck, then he changes direction towards the shoulder farthest from the big angry man with a shotgun. (7) So if the report has even a shred of truth to it, this is the second time the victim attempted to avoid this attack, and also goes against their police report claim that Travis was immediately jumped by Ahmaud upon exiting his vehicle. (6)

The camera pans down and we hear yelling. It comes back up in time to see what really matters. Travis has moved. He crossed the road towards the front of the truck, rifle up and his finger on the trigger, likely in an attempt to head off Arbery. At that point, the victim made a sharp left towards the nearing armed threat. That is when the first of three shots was fired. (7)

It was after this shot that Arbery made contact with Travis, pushing into his shoulder and trying to grab the gun, forcing it down and away from himself. They wrestled for the weapon and two more shots were fired. The second shot happened off camera, with a smoke plume being caught on screen, but the third was in frame after Arbery hit Travis several times. He gave a few final tugs before staggering away and collapsing where he slowly bled to death. (7)

Unlike the report, Travis was the aggressor as he closed the distance first. (7)

Unlike the report, there were three shots, not two. (7) Almost like the first one that happened before “the unidentified male began to violently attack Travis” (6) didn’t count.

Unlike their assumptions, Ahmaud was unarmed. (1)

During this incident, just before the shots were fired, the 911 call was made, this time by Gregory. He gave the neighborhood to the dispatcher but couldn’t name the street through his labored breathing. As he was trying to explain that they were attempting to stop a man who was running down the street, something began to happen around him. (3)

In the recording Gregory can then be heard shouting, “G**damn it, c’mon, Travis.” At least according to the article I found. When I listen, I hear either “Stop right there” or “Stop with that” before he says “damn it” a pause then “Travis.” No matter which, the line goes quiet and he becomes unresponsive to the operator. (3)

The police arrive, the case is decided as self defense, and no arrests are made. Later, Tucker, who works with the McMichaels, released the Bryan tape and the public went wild. (4) And now here we are.

TL/DR:

Arbery goes into a house under construction (for unknown reasons because he is dead), takes nothing, leaves empty handed, is spotted by a neighbor jogging (maybe Bryan but we don’t know), who calls the non-emergency line, who doesn’t seem to get why they are being called but promises to send someone, and then…

Men post up in rode to block Ahmaud. Victim tries to avoid a fight. Gregory calls 911 for the first time. Travis crosses towards victim with his finger on the trigger. The first shot is fired before Ahmaud reaches his attacker. Fight for the gun, two more shots, fall to the ground, and a very inaccurate police report that leads to no one getting arrested.

The Issues With the Case

“But Shadow Bard, you already pointed out the disparities between the report and facts!”

Good observation, but we’re not done yet. A whole host of problems are stuck in this narrative that I’ve only touched on so far in the effort to keep the timeline at least partially coherent. Now we’ll go back and sort out the rest.

The first issue: the non-emergency call. What’s wrong with it? For starters not knowing who made the call. Why does it matter? Motive.

**This is the part where I insert a giant asterisks and say this has not yet gone to trial and despite them robbing Arbery of the proper course of justice, maintaining the rule of law and ensuring they get their due process is essential. Therefore, no matter how guilty I think they are, they must be considered innocent until proven otherwise. But there is no rule against processing the information and drawing conclusions. These are mine.**

Citizen Arrest Angle

Tucker stated that “Roddy” is the one who spotted Ahmaud leaving the house. He then corrects himself by saying he doesn’t know if he was the one to call the police, but I’m nearly positive it was him. (4) Why is this important? Because it would mean that only “Roddy” witnessed anything close to an active crime.

OCGA 17-4-60 “A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion.”
Citizen Arrest Laws Source 5

In order to perform a citizens arrest in Georgia, the person making the arrest must have seen the crime or have “reasonable and probable” suspicion that one was committed. (5) So if “Roddy” was the one to witness him leaving and suspected he stole something, that would mean he would have to be the one to perform the citizen’s arrest. Or at the very least not seeing him leave means both McMichaels have no grounds as the most they can have in this case is hearsay.

But let’s say Gregory did see Ahmaud leave the property. What does the law say in that case? “IF the offense is a felony” [my emphasis] a citizen can pull off an arrest. (5) And was a felony committed that day? Not according to the first police call.

Whoever called the police didn’t seem think it was a felony or anything more than a footnote for police to check out since he called the non-emergency line as opposed to calling 911. The dispatcher on the other end didn’t seem to think it was a felony either as she repeatedly asked “what is he doing wrong… is he just not supposed to be there?” (3) The Arbery family attorney is also certain that at most he committed a misdemeanor. (2)

As for the actual shooter, Travis, he’s the only one who we can almost guarantee didn’t see the incident. Not only did Gregory fail to mention a current event in the report, he specifically said, “he then ran inside his house and called to Travis (McMichael) and said ‘Travis the guy is running down the street lets go’.” (6) Now I’ll admit Gregory is lying through his teeth in this report to defend his son, but would he really lie about the one thing necessary to give them a legal motive in the first place?

Because if they don’t have the house sighting, what do they have to justify them confronting him? Some old tapes from security cameras that are totally definitely him you guys? (6) From a string of burglaries in the area that are “kind of an ongoing thing out here”? (3) You know. The ones that didn’t happen. (8)

Yeah that’s right. Between January 1st and the incident only one robbery was reported for the area, and it was on January 1st. The target? A gun from a car parked outside of the McMichaels’ home. Well that certainly clears a few things up, now doesn’t it? Sounds like there might be a little bit of personal interest and prior gun mismanagement. The vehicle wasn’t even locked. (8)

So we’re supposed to believe that after one prior incident, 54 days before the confrontation(8), with the suspect only being spotted on camera at night (3), that Gregory and Travis were able to definitively identify Ahmaud as this robber? Enough to have probable cause? I’m not buying it but I won’t be on their jury, unfortunately.

Jumping the Gun

According to Jason Vaughn, Arbery’s former high school football coach, Ahmaud was well known for running through the area. Even playing basketball with younger children in the neighborhood. (7) So why was he decided on as the thief? Unfortunately, unless either man confesses, we likely won’t know.

There are a few theories as to why Arbery might have been targeted. One involves Gregory, who had only retired from being a police detective about a year previously(5). During his time as an investigator, McMichael and Arbery had a few run ins. Ahmaud’s first offense was taking a weapon to school, which is absolutely a big deal. But it was his first offense and he was given five years probation. His other big crime? Breaking probation by shoplifting. Aaaaand that’s it. The last offense was in 2018. Aside from that, even Barnhill can’t point to more than his brother and cousin being in prison. (9)

That history does not a serial crook make. That, and the details don’t seem to match up with this being the reason. It was supposedly “Roddy” who decided Arbery was the responsible party. (4) On top of that, Gregory never called Ahmaud by name, and resorted to that weak excuse of reaching down his pants that one time to explain why they needed multiple guns to ask Ahmaud if he had taken anything in the neighborhood. (3,6) I feel like a prior weapons conviction would have been a much stronger excuse if he actually knew who Ahmaud was when he started to chase him. (9)

Then why did they think it was him? We can’t say for sure unless they admit it themselves. But… Weeell… “…there’s a black male running down the street.” (3)

I have bi-racial cousins. I’ve seen little old ladies of different races following each other around Wal-mart on their shopping trips as they laugh and gossip together. The majority of people are disgusted by what has happened. America is not a racist country, and I will stand by this fact. But there are absolutely racists in this country. Was racism at the center of this? It seems very likely.

Couple their careless assumption based on appearances with their vigilante ‘citizen’s arrest’ motive and you get a perfect storm of “this black guy is totally guilty and I’m going to do something about it.”

Fast Facts and Inconsistencies

Let’s gather some facts to blow common misunderstandings out of the water.

In spite of claims of multiple break ins: the only reported theft in the past two months was in front of the McMichael house. (8)

Gregory had been retired for around a year from being a detective at the time of the incident. (5)

Travis doesn’t seem to have a job. No one says, but at the very least, he didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps as no one ever talks about ties to him being a problem. (all)

We also know that while the non-emergency line was called before the chase began, 911 wasn’t called until the conflict was underway. (3) Which is really weird if they were planning to hold Arbery for police. If it’s not an emergency, it’s not high on the list. And with roughly 8 minutes passing between calls with no response to a decent neighborhood(3), I think it’s safe to say the police hadn’t rushed over for “snooping black man running down the street.”

Despite him having a gun, Gregory didn’t have his drawn as far as we can see in the video. In fact, he is clearly on the call with 911 until just before the second shot where he drops his phone and reaches for his gun that doesn’t seem to go off. (7)

The detail that struck me the most was Travis’s move during the moment the camera was panned down. Middle of the road to boom: at the front of the truck. And remember, Arbery was putting distance between them. (7)

There were three shots, but only two were reported. (7,6)

Arbery made physical contact with Travis after the first shot. (7)

The McMichaels use the citizen’s arrest defense but a retired cop should have known that without an active felony a citizen’s arrest wouldn’t hold up. (5)

As I go through this, I keep finding more questions that I can’t answer. It’s hard to be patient, especially when the case is moving so slowly. And that’s our last topic.

Why is this taking so long?

Gregory’s former job has had a major impact on the case and its prosecution, if not from the police taking his word verbatim on that day, then absolutely from the debacle with the DA’s office.

The first DA recursed herself because she used to work with Gregory. (1) However, the second one, AG Barnhill waited for at least 3-4 weeks past the time he knew his son worked at the same office as the first DA[and therefore likely with McMichael] to recuse himself(9), which was after the mother of the victim insisted he do so (5).

He writes a letter about it in which he is a passive aggressive creep. He belittles the mother’s concerns, insists it’s all nonsense, then ,despite the fact that this is his recusal letter, he gives his opinion about how he wasn’t planning on prosecuting if he hadn’t been forced to step down. (5)

So for our last step, let’s pick this apart and see why Ahmaud’s mother made the right call, and how the case might actually go once it reaches the courts.

His first point is that he’s a super experienced lawyer man. He’s done SO MANY cases just like this one and that means he knows what he’s talking about. His second point is that the autopsy backs up the other evidence and shows they don’t need to arrest anyone. (5) Are we watching the same videos? Did we read the same report?

His third point is to list the civilian arrest law and that he disagrees with my assessment that it’s a dumb excuse. His reason? They were in their neighborhood, had probable cause, asked him to stop, and “appeared to intend” to hold him for police. (5) Police who were only eventually going to show up because they didn’t call 911 until things got out of hand and he wouldn’t stop for them. (3,7)

Next he tackles the issue of those guns. He claims they were just open carrying in Travis’s truck and therefore compliant with the law.

OCGA 16-11-126 a) Any person who is not prohibited by law from possessing a handgun or long gun may have or carry on his or her person a weapon or long gun on his or her property or inside his or her home, motor vehicle, or place of business without a valid weapons carry license.
(b) Any person who is not prohibited by law from possessing a handgun or long gun may have or carry on his or her person a long gun without a valid weapons carry license, provided that if the long gun is loaded, it shall only be carried in an open and fully exposed manner.”
Open carry law, Source 5

That sounds good, though I don’t know that posed in the street somewhere in your neighborhood counts as on your property. But let’s give them this one for now. They are within their rights to have a gun. I agree with the second amendment, and they didn’t hide the shotgun.

Then the fifth point. OH boy the fifth point. The fifth point is where he walks us through his not at all biased view of events. I’m going to go through them verbatim. (5)

From said video it appears Ahmaud Arbery was running along the right side of the McMichael truck then abruptly turns 90 degrees to the left and attacks Travis McMichael who was standing at the front left corner of the truck.
Barnhill Recusal Letter, Source 5

Hey buddy, you skipped the part where Travis ran from the middle of the other lane of the road to his place in front of the truck. You also forgot to mention that being on the right side was from Arbery moving away from Travis in the first place. (7)

A brief skirmish ensues in which it appears Arbery strikes McMichael and appears to grab the shotgun and pull it from McMichael. The shot is through Arbery’s right hand palm which is consistent with him grabbing and pulling the shotgun at the barrel tip,
Barnhill Recusal Letter, Source 5

Umm… No, it’s not. It is NOT consistent with grabbing and pulling. What it IS consistent with is what we see in the video, him throwing up his hand as he is shot in the first instance before he has even had a chance to reach Travis. (7) Are we actually meant to believe that a man steals a gun by cupping his hand over the barrel opening? No, not even close. This is the autopsy debunking you by showing the first strike was a defensive wound.

…the angle of the 2nd shot with the rear of the buttstock being pushed away and down from the fight are also consistent with the upward angle of blood plume shown in the video and that McMichael was attempting to push the gun away from Arbery while Arbery was pulling it toward himself. The 3rd shot too appears to be in a struggle over the gun.
Barnhill Recusal Letter, Source 5

He doesn’t get as descriptive with these shots aside from: dude trust me. But what little he does give can be confirmed, they were fighting by this point. (7) And there were two more shots which proves they filed a false police report (6).

Given the fact Arbery initiated the fight, at the point Arbery grabbed the shotgun, under Georgia Law, McMichael was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself.
Barnhill Recusal Letter, Source 5

Arbery started the fight when he grabbed the gun? Really? The fight didn’t start when three older men decided they had a right to chase him down because he had maybe pocketed something? The fight didn’t start when they continued to pursue him when he turned around to get away from them? The fight didn’t start when they posted themselves in the road to prevent him from getting away? The fight didn’t start when Travis chased him again and shot him when he raised his hand to block or push away the barrel? But no, the fight happened when he made contact with the gun and started punching after the first shot had been fired. Let’s see what the self-defense laws have to say.

OCGA 16-3-21 Use of Force in Defense, once confronted with a deadly force situation an individual is allowed to use deadly force to defend themselves or others. OCGA 16-3-23.1 Georgia’s No Duty to Retreat Law, an individual is not required to back away from or submit to an attack; OCGA 16-3-24[b] The use of force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to prevent trespass on or other tortious or criminal interference with real property other than a habitation or personal property is not justified unless the person using such force reasonably believes that it is necessary to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. OCGA 16-3-24.2 A person properly and legally defending themselves is immune from prosecution
Barnhill Recusal Letter, Source 5

Oh look, you gave the exact reason you should prosecute as the reason you don’t think it’s justified. Oopsie.

Use of deadly force to PREVENT trespass is NOT justified unless the person thinks it can prevent a forcible felony. (5)

“But.. But… habitation and personal properties are exceptions!”

It’s not their property.
He’s already left the premises. They can’t prevent something that has already happened.
Also, again, a felony is required to be part of this. Once he has left the house empty handed, no felony possible.

Now, what about backing away from a fight and having the right to defend yourself once a deadly conflict has started? (5) Well, if anything the one who that applies to is Ahmaud having the right to try to take the gun after a man unlawfully tries to detain him to the point of running at him with a bloody shotgun. But there’s another piece of this puzzle that Barnhill, with no bias mind you, skipped over.

Georgia Code Title 16. Crimes and Offenses § 16-3-21 (b) A person is not justified in using force under the circumstances specified in subsection (a) of this Code section if he: (1) Initially provokes the use of force against himself with the intent to use such force as an excuse to inflict bodily harm upon the assailant; (2) Is attempting to commit, committing, or fleeing after the commission or attempted commission of a felony; or (3) Was the aggressor or was engaged in a combat by agreement unless he withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to such other person his intent to do so and the other, notwithstanding, continues or threatens to continue the use of unlawful force.
When you can’t claim Self-defense, Source 10

Don’t know about you, but I think we have pretty much concluded by this point that Travis stalking up gun in hand while Arbery was trying to get around him (7), which he had already supposedly done once without attacking (6), was Travis instigating the fight. And there is no way you can come up on someone, gun raised and finger on the trigger, without the intent to use it to cause harm. (7) That sounds an awful lot like Travis creating a situation where he would have an excuse to use the gun.

So that’s strike one. What about part two? Don’t think it applies? Me either, until I remembered a little something called:

Georgia Code § 16-5-41 – False Imprisonment (a) A person commits the offense of false imprisonment when, in violation of the personal liberty of another, he arrests, confines, or detains such person without legal authority.
What it’s called when you make a fake citizen’s arrest, Source 11

And gee, if we look back up there at the citizen’s arrest laws where you need to have proof or probable cause of an immediate felony taking place (5) and compare it to the likelihood that at most that day someone who was not Travis(4,6) saw Ahmaud commit a misdemeanor (2) then it shows that all three men were, in trying to hold him against his will, guilty of attempting false imprisonment. Which…

In some states, like Georgia, Washington and Florida, false imprisonment is always charged as a felony.
What kind of crime false imprisonment is, Source 12

So, with Travis attempting to commit a felony (11,12), that means part two of the self-defense exceptions–can’t use if you’re trying to commit a felony– also applies here! (10) Strike 2.

And lastly, you can’t claim self-defense if you are the aggressor. (10) I think I hammered that point home well enough by now. Strike three. Bada bing, bada boom, the self-defense laws don’t apply to any of you.

Gee, there sure are a lot of laws that instantly point to this being everyone but Ahmaud’s fault. I wonder how a humble shadow can figure that out but a DA who has a paragraph of experience completely overlooked it? Do you think the work relationship that he belittles the victim’s mother for accusing him of having might be related? Let me answer and close out this article with one more quote, and let you decide.

Just as importantly, while we know McMichael had his finger on the trigger, we do not know who caused the firings. Arbery would only had [sic] to pull the shotgun approximately 1/16th to 1/8th of one inch to fire the weapon himself and in the height of an altercation this is entirely possible.
Barnhill accusing the victim of shooting himself, Source 5

Research Posts from a Shadow Bard

Sarcastic in the middle.

Tag self-defense