For all the press police-involved shootings get in New York City, there are a lot more shootings in Baltimore if you take the difference in population into account (almost an equal number if you don’t). Baltimore shootings don’t get much press because the city isn’t a media center and Al Sharpton doesn’t live there.
Instead, the local chapter of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (who?) is protesting the latest shooting. I think they should pick their battles a little better.
A man robbed a Burger King (not too far from where I lived) and, while making his getaway, pulled a loaded handgun out at police officers. He got killed. Damn right police shot. But perhaps only in Baltimore do family members of the dead robber wonder why morepolice didn’t shoot.
The full story is here.
Family demands answers in police shooting
By Stephen Kiehl
Baltimore Sun reporter
December 15, 2007
The family of a man killed by police last week asked yesterday why it still hasn’t received a written report on the shooting and said it is in the “beginning stages” of filing a complaint with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Relatives of Coby Brown, 23, said they have not received any response from police despite multiple requests for a full accounting of the Dec. 4 shooting in Upper Fells Point. They also question the use of such lethal force.
“We are left wondering what happened, how it happened and if it needed to happen,” said Thomas K. Smith, Brown’s stepfather, during a small rally at the shooting scene. “We want the truth.”
Brown was shot by police after he robbed a Burger King in the 2000 block of Eastern Ave. in Fells Point, police said. Officers on foot patrol gave chase. Another officer pursued in a vehicle. Brown shot at the officers and then stopped in front of a house on Gough Street, police said.
When Brown pointed his gun at Officer Modesto A. Olivio Jr., police said, Olivio shot Brown in the stomach. Brown died the next day at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
“This suspect made a choice when he pointed a loaded handgun at a police officer, and when he makes that choice, the officer is left with no choice,” said police spokesman Sterling Clifford.