#ChristianTaylor Is Not The Same As The Others

The situation has grown well beyond any semblance of control at this point.  Even Serena Williams is just adding fuel to the fire instead of quelling what is, in this case, a totally different situation that requires a totally different view of the facts.

If you've been missing news, Christian Taylor was killed at Classic GMC, in Arlington, TX.  He was caught on their external surveillance tapes walking freely around the dealership, vandalizing cars and ultimately crashing into the dealership showroom.  When police arrived, there was an "altercation" (I'll get to this later) and Taylor was shot 4 times by one of the cops.

This of course sparked media outrage over the fact that a "white" cop killed an "unarmed black" teen.

Unlike Brown and Bland and others, what makes this different is that we don't really know what happened.  All we have to go on is the surveillance video (which I'll get to later) and the statements from the Arlington Police Department.

The police chief, a Mr. Will Johnson, has been almost completely transparent from the start with what information he does have.  Unfortunately, the media at large has poured fuel on a situation that, when you analyze it deeper, isn't anywhere near what Bland or Brown were and still has gaps in the equation.

First though let's talk about what we know.

1. Christian Taylor broke into Classic GMC.  This can't be refuted, it's on record.  That's breaking and entering private property, trespassing.
2. Christian Taylor vandalized at least one vehicle that we can see.  There might be others due to the way the security camera system works (more on that later) but on tape, at least one.  He crashed his SUV into the dealership, shattering doors and walls.  That's vandalism and major property damage.

Normally these are just situations where you arrest the perpetrator.  However, there are exceptions, and most any police officer will rattle off more official versions of these.

1. If any other person is in danger due to these actions and the only way to save that person is to shoot.
2. If the police officer feels their life is in danger or they feel otherwise threatened (this is the subjective one that has triggered almost all of the recent deaths, by the way)
3. If a person flees.  (this is not subjective, but it's controversial.)

Now, let's talk about what we don't know.

1. We don't know why Christian Taylor went to the dealership.  The police statement indicates that Taylor held up keys and admitted trying to steal a car; but there are holes in this story (not necessarily intentional ones.  More later)
2. We don't know why Christian Taylor picked that Mustang.
3. We don't know why Christian Taylor decided to drive his SUV into the dealership.  Police statement seems to imply that he was trying to get keys, but again, there are holes in this story.
4. Christian Taylor walks the length of the dealership, as if totally oblivious to all of the various security cameras in plain view.  Why?
5. Christian Taylor is wearing sunglasses at night.  Why? (I don't want to hear the "tweet" theory)
6. Christian Taylor pulls out the windshield with his bare hands, even cutting his hand at one point.  If his intent was to get keys, why bother?  If the car is locked the key is not inside.
7. Why was Christian going to steal a car yet drove a vehicle to the dealership to steal said car?  (more on this later)
8. We don't know why a rookie cop was sent to this assignment.  
9. We don't know why a rookie cop was fully armed.
10. We don't know why a rookie cop was allowed to be in the position to shoot Taylor (more on this later)
11. We don't know what really happened inside the dealership (more on this later)

There are too many unanswered questions; true.  But what really burns me is that a lot of people online only care about feeding their already fragile emotional states with more hatred of white people.  All the while, they don't realize that their reactions to the situation aren't helping the matter, and the greater majority of them are not focusing on what really matters: the truth.

Many are falling back to the simple, easy excuse: "but did they have to kill him doe!?" not understanding (because they've never put on the uniform) that in all but one case I can see, we're not dealing with total racist cops here.  Stereotyping has been status quo across the country for decades.  The idea that Mexicans and Blacks must be criminals and thugs; that Asians are nearly perfect and do flawlessly in school; that "white privilege" surpasses all; and that females are "not suited" for certain jobs like stock room.  It's all the same thing.  A person passes judgment based on a trait of a person that has nothing to do with their capacity to do something. 

The cops are in many cases making a decision in their head that someone of a given race is going to do something.  Good or bad, right or wrong.  You can't scale equivalent the incident with Dylann Roof (White) versus Michael Brown (Black).  The decision isn't "well, this white kid shot a bunch of people, so we need to shoot him".  The decision isn't, "Well this kid broke into X so we need to shoot him".  The decision is almost always, "I told him what to do.  He didn't do it.  I got mad and reacted."

This has a name: resisting arrest, a very subjective term implying that a person is given instruction that they don't follow, thus allowing the officer to increase their measure in order to "control the situation".

Dylann Roof was taken without incident and without getting killed not because he's white, but because he did not resist.  He complied after he did his deed, allowing the officers to do things their way, rather than his way.  If you look at nearly every black person ever killed in the past year and a half by a police officer, they resisted in some way.

Let me be clear.  I don't care about scale.  I don't care whether it's right or wrong.  I'm stating a fact.  They resisted in some way, which unfortunately opened the door for the police officer to do whatever.  

Sandra Bland, as an example, got "uppity" with the officer.  It didn't matter that her stop was not routine and was really silly.  It didn't matter that she was in her own vehicle.  You get stopped, you're told to exit the vehicle, you do it.  Don't argue it.  You're told to put a cigarette out; do it.  Don't argue it.  Answer their questions directly.  Don't get smart with them. Don't validate the "ghetto black" mentality by acting a fool.  Don't give them a reason.

As an African American myself I used to get stopped by police on many occasions, some suspicious ("weaving freeway lanes"), some not ("failure to stop completely at a stop sign").  I don't fight the police, I don't argue the police.  Let them use their power however.  I show no fear of them and they know it.  But I don't purposely pick a fight just because I feel the stop is unjustified.  

I was once temporarily restrained due to an alleged domestic issue, cuffed and put in the back of a squad car while the officer talked to the claimant.  Mind you, at the time I was 160lbs soaking wet, this gal was easily over 250, had self damaged her face (think "Thin Line Between Love and Hate"), and claimed I "tossed her around".  The police officer, as white as white can be, laughed in her face and said, "really?" then released me and allowed me to get my stuff so I could leave (which was what I was trying to do at the time she called police).

The difference with me and those killed: I was not committing nor have I ever committed a felony.  Those killed committing felonies just gave the police reasons to react.  Good bad right or wrong.

With Christian Taylor, it's different.  He was committing a felony, but we don't know why.  We have no story up to the surveillance video.  Was he acting alone?  Did his friends put him up to it?  Was it just him in that SUV or did someone else go with him that never got out (thus not seen by the cameras), but after it crashed into the dealership, escaped without being noticed?

The video shows that after breaking into the Mustang, he turned on the lights.  This is common with parking lot thefts where you want to "flag" a car that you intend to steal.  The problem is it was unnecessary.  If you have the keyfob, you simply need to walk the aisles and look/listen for a reaction.  If it didn't have keyless entry, it doesn't have an alarm; no alarm, no need to break the front windshield and you might as well go through the side window (he started doing this, but decided against it.  Which seemed to imply that he noticed an alarm).  It just doesn't make sense to then ram your vehicle into the showroom.

One prevailing theory is that he was doing this intentionally to get attention and get police out there for some reason.  Seems crazy, but if that's what he was doing, why a dealership and why in the middle of the night?  

These are important questions to answer.  An interesting factoid about Classic GMC in Arlington, TX is that there are no security cameras inside the showroom floor.  None.  Thus, there isn't video footage of the actual shooting.  Some wild-eyed theories that the Arlington Police are suppressing it, but this is debunked if you just go to Google Maps.

Around 5-ish years ago, dealerships reached out to Google Street View to offer internal shots of their dealership, so that customers could actually walk the lot and the showroom floor, in full high definition.  Classic GMC is one such dealership, and you can go inside yourself to verify that there are no cameras whatsoever in that building.  

Google Street View - See Inside Classic GMC, Arlington, TX

Arlington PD isn't covering anything up, because there's nothing to cover up.  No video of the actual shooting.  More likely is that the dealership put heavy security on the perimeter (the lot) thinking that they'd be able to identify and catch anyone who was spotted, and it would be unlikely anyone would try to break into the showroom after being spotted.  Christian did, to the extreme, and it got him killed.

Some have criticized the media for using terms quoted from the PD like "scuffle", "altercation", etc.  There was a "verbal altercation" in that Taylor apparently confronted the police officer through a glass wall and even started cussing at one point.  That's an altercation, an avoidable one.

Better questions are: why did the training officer, who was the senior that night, not corral the rookie cop?  Why was the rookie cop allowed to go on his own in the first place?  Who knows.

This is a very unfortunate situation that deserves answers.  I'm not interested in getting all angry about "white cop kills unarmed black teen".  I care about the truth.  The full truth.  

We need to know, for sure:

1. Why Christian Taylor decided to go to that dealership?
2. Why Christian Taylor decided to rob a dealership at 1am?
3. Why Christian Taylor thought he could steal a car when he already had a vehicle (how was he going to get it out of there?)
4. What was Christian Taylor doing with his cellphone (seen at one point in the surveillance video)?  
1. Was he texting someone to tell them what he was doing?  Who was that person and what was sent?  
2. Was he taking photos?  Were they sent to the cloud maybe?  
3. Where's the cellphone now?  Has it been analyzed for more information?
1. Did he make any calls or texts or IMs just before going to the dealership (accomplice, peer pressure, blackmail)?
2. What activities happened before, during and after this?
5. What does ballistics say?  
1. Do they show that Taylor was facing the officer and heading towards him (threatening gesture)?
6. What does forensics say?  
1. Do they show that Taylor had his hands up?  
2. Do they show anything Taylor might have had that was misconstrued as a weapon?
3. Are there any fingerprints in the office Taylor was shot in, not belonging to dealership staff (this is a big one)?
4. Was there anything helpful or incriminating inside the SUV?  Did they find evidence that someone else was in there the night of this incident?
1. Freezing the surveillance video when he crashed through the gate reveals what appears to be someone in the passenger's seat, but it's too blurry to verify.
7. What do detectives say?
1. Had Christian Taylor been to that dealership before (casing the place)?
2. Did anyone at the dealership know him personally (inside job...?)
3. Do any of his friends know anything at all (the cell phone should help this one)

A lot has been made of this incident and many people only care that a black kid was killed.  But the search for truth means much more to the public.  Until we put the story together, we can't assume that this is just some racist cop.  On the surface it looks like a rookie panicked and reacted, but until we learn what put Christian Taylor in that situation in the first place, we can't pass judgment.  Whatever it was that put him in that dealership is where anger should be directed, not at the police.  Had he never gone there, he'd still be alive.  We now need to know why he went there.

The Arlington Police Chief has been clear and open the entire time and it's obvious he wants to make sure the right information gets out rather than speculation.  He is to be commended for that as it's rare in police departments across the country.  Rallying for a "cleanup" of the department is silly and short-sighted at this point.  Let them do their job and hopefully, answer all of the burning questions I put up there.  Let's hear the truth before we find the pitchforks.