Instead of investigating why Brandon Tate-Brown’s crime scene was staged to support a false narrative, Fox News’ Mr. Chris Wallace soft-balled the Philadelphia police commissioner, enabling him to ramble about black-on-black crime and dead cops.
—
It could’ve been one of those interviews that’s talked about for decades, like the late 70s encounter between Mr. David Frost, a British satirist and Mr. Richard Nixon, which resulted in the former President of the United States of America, who temporarily escaped the public eye after after resigning from the presidency due the Watergate scandal, apologizing for his transgressions.
Instead, last Sunday, Fox News’ Mr. Chris Wallace, the interviewer, and Philadelphia Police Commissioner, Mr. Charles Ramsey, one of the interviewees, had a convoluted discussion about “ignorant” activists, dead cops and black-on-black-crime.
Unfortunately, the goal of the host wasn’t to expose, to a national audience, an injustice nine months in the making, which started with a young black man being shot by a Philadelphia police officer while unarmed and fleeing on December 15th, 2014.
Instead, Mr. Wallace – who, to be fair, alluded to the death of Mr. Brandon Tate-Brown – opted to weave in footage of activists – who were demanding justice for the slain 26 year-old that died from one gunshot to the back of the head – interrupting Mr. Ramsey’s speech at Eastern State Penitentiary, with activists in another city shouting anti-police rhetoric.
The goal: portray, by any means necessary, the #BlackLivesMatter movement as a hate group that’s fueled by anti-police sentiments.
For starters, the roughly 10 activists in Philadelphia who shouted down Mr. Ramsey were a part of the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice, not the #BlackLivesMatter organization, though their direct actions are done in solidarity with the national movement started by three women of color.
Secondly, the activists were shouting, among many things, “no racist police,” but nothing articulated that wished harm or death on anyone.
And Mr. Ramsey said that activists missed an opportunity for dialogue, yet, since Mr. Tate-Brown was killed, he has never extended an olive branch to the protesters, who’ve been marching since the December officer-involved shooting.
It’s Mr. Ramsey’s job as a bureaucrat to portray the activists here as stubborn brats who are unwilling to communicate civilly, and to deflect his flaws as a leader by insisting protesters should worry more about the community violence that terminates blacks lives at a much greater rate than police violence.
And it’s the job of journalists to expose hypocrisy and injustice, and in the case of Mr. Tate-Brown, both flow in abundance. But, apparently, at Fox News, they’re more concerned with demonizing a youthful movement than they’re examining why Mr. Tate-Brown was shot at the trunk of his car but body moved to appear as if he was reaching into the passenger side door.
Mr. Ramsey, since December of 2014, has defended his officers in the murder of Mr. Tate-Brown by consigning the narrative that the unarmed man was reaching into the car for a gun when killed.
In June, Mr. Ramsey admitted that the original narrative was false; though he hasn’t supported a call for the investigation to be re-opened given a new narrative exist.
The activists who interrupted him were not disrupting for disruption’s sake.
They were demanding that Mr. Ramsey, who now markets himself as a champion for transparency and improved police-community relations, remove Officer Nicholas Carrelli, Mr. Tate-Brown’s killer, from the streets, along with Mr. Heng Dang, his rookie partner who witnessed the shooting. It is clear that Mr. Carrelli lied in his statement and that Mr. Tate-Brown’s body was moved in order to stage a scene.
There was plenty for Mr. Wallace to grill Mr. Ramsey on, but they choose to analyze community crime, and not the root causes of it, just the surface elements that can be easily blamed on poor black and brown Americans.
But the truth is, on December 15th, 2014, a crime was committed in Philadelphia and Mr. Ramsey, who may not have been a willing conspirator in the beginning, is certainly now obstructing justice, and that, ladies and gentleman, is the real story as to why activists interrupted his lecture.
Mr. Ramsey may be a national darling, but at home, at least to the activists who shouted him down, he’s nothing more than a famous hypocrite who’s been let off the hook by mainstream media for a unjust murder carried out on his watch.
* Tune into 900amWURD or 900amWURD.com every Friday evening at 6:30pm to hear me relive #TheWeekThatWas*
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™