Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 42: Carol Stream Police invade an apartment and shoot a black person

Just last week I wrote about a work friend wanting to disccuss Harvard Professor Roland Fryer's, interview with Bari Weiss concerning his 2016 study which PROVED!  BEYOND QUESTION!  there is no Racial Bias in Police Shootings... and then dumb old reality just had to butt in and disprove his theory.

If I were a more jaded person, I might overlay Fryer’s faulty and ridiculous claims over the body cam footage from Carol Stream.  But, I am not a ghoul. 

The Carol Stream Police Department had an Officer-involved shooting.  As always, I want you to understand that Police advocates have fought for years for this semi-blameless language to be used in official proceedings and in news reports because language is the first line of defense and weapon to be used to exonerate the Officers involved.

The case in Carol Stream involves a misdemeanor domestic battery.  The victim was out of the apartment.  Her injuries, while not reported in detail, did not necessitate hospitalization.  Inside the apartment was the suspected offender Isaac Goodlow.

When making a warrantless entry there are 3 exceptions; Consent, Hot Pursuit, Exigent Circumstances.

“Hot Pursuit” is obvious you’re chasing someone whose committed a crime and they attempt to defeat arrest by hiding in a house

“Exigent Circumstances”  is the immediate need to protect someone’s life (e.g. someone screaming for help or seeing a house on fire.)

She provided “Consent” for the Officers to go into the apartment where the suspect Isaac Goodlow was but, she did not have the right to make authorization as she did not live there and therefore the entry does not fall under the Search Warrant exceptions.

Officers may in good faith believe she has authority but, simply taking her word for it is not enough fact-checking.  Especially, when the victim of the crime is not in harm’s way and there is no on-going emergency which would lead the Officers to believe they had to apprehend the offender immediately.

Carol Stream Police Chief Donald Cummings gave a statement about the Officers attempts to get Goodlow to come out of the apartment before getting the maintenance man to open the door to the open gaining the Officers entry.  At this point, someone in the CSPD needed to say stop why don't we get a warrant to enter; this would have a two-fold effect of lowering the Officer's emotions and further provide Goodlow the opportunity to surrender.  But, instead the Officers went in.

6 officers went inside the residence.  From the "stack", it certainly looks like they wanted to do a SWAT style building entry, a maneuver which is en vogue, with training and tactics these days.  One Officer has a ballistic shield, another Officer has a Taser ready, and at least two had guns drawn.  

I think I know what happened with the first shot.  Everyone in that group is jazzed.  And I think the Officer had his finger on the trigger.  And as they entered the room with auditory exclusion, tunnel vision, jittery hands, and adrenaline pumping up his heart rate, he got startled, and the sympathetic nervous system gave the “Startle Response” and he squeezed the trigger.  The next shot and Taser deployment where in response to the first shot.

And like that Goodlow was shot and killed.

The Police Chief which listed off all the steps that will and must be taken to investigate this shooting and give full due process to the Officers involved.  Now, juxtapose this with the scant due process given to the dead man Isaac Goodlow.

"The totality of the video, including the events that occurred before and after the shooting, will be released at a later date pursuant to the completion of the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office review. Once the investigation is completed by the Public Integrity Team, the State’s Attorney’s Office will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of all forensic evidence, witness accounts, and officer statements to make a determination regarding the actions of those involved."

Due Process, you see is only available, to inherently good people who find themselves in an unfortunate situation.

For instance, right now, a cult of martyrdom is growing around Derek Chauvin to turn him into the American Nelson Mandela.  And while this is part of the broader rightwing attempt to undermine Law&Order and replace it with their Fascist White Power Fundamentalism understand the Chauvin Cultists and people who support each and every police shooting of black people can never be swayed with reality, facts, medical documentation, or even due process and court proceedings.

But, and this is the point with each and everyone of these incidents, a depressingly large swathe of White society does not question the extrajudicial killing of black people.  And a vile segment encourage and reveal in these killings and then, with malicious glee, use the deaths as on-line content fodder and incitement amongst their rightwing drones against the dead black person, black society in general, and of course, DemocRAT controlled cities. 

The basic paradigm which is understood and still taught is black people are inherently criminal and a priori guilty and therefore any time they have an interaction with Police its’ understood their deaths at the hands of Police are entirely their fault.  Whereas, white people (as long as the adhere to the tenets of rightwing white supremacy) are inherently good and must somehow have been caught up in a bad situation and therefore their interaction with Police they must be afforded due process above and beyond what is called for under the color of law.

I could go through the entire litany of cop jargon and lawfare that Police use to cover up such incidents, but the plain facts and what the American society has just seen is another unarmed black man shot to death inside his residence.