Darrien Hunt — six bullets in the back
Another young Black man Darrien Hunt has been killed after apparently being shot numerous times—according to an independent autopsy, in the back.
It was last Wednesday that 22-year-old Darrien Hunt was shot dead by officers in the Saratoga Springs Police Department. This case is similar in some very troubling aspects to the killing of Ferguson, St. Louis native Michael Brown.
Multiple witnesses have said that Hunt was running away from the cops who eventually shot him dead.
Susan Hunt, the mother of Darrien Hunt, is White. She said “They killed my son because he’s Black.”
Of course, that statement has been denied by Utah government officials. Police said they encountered Hunt after received a report of a “suspicious individual” lurking around area businesses. And, initially, they claimed Hunt was killed after “brandishing” a sword and “lunging” at police.
“Police officers from the Saratoga Springs Police Department responded to a report of a suspicious individual walking around a local business with a ‘samurai-type’ sword,” said Chief Deputy Tim Taylor of the Utah County Attorney’s Office. “When the officers made contact with Mr. Hunt, preliminary evidence suggests that Mr. Hunt brandished the sword and lunged toward the officers with the sword, at which time Mr. Hunt was shot.”
But that initial statement was then amended and police said Hunt was shot not when, and where, he first supposedly “lunged” at police—but dozens of yards away. According to Deputy Taylor, “Whether or not the individual lunged again at point two, the other location, I don’t know about that.”
Isn’t this later version of the story an attempt to counter the findings of the independent autopsy report that was requested by Hunt’s family?
That autopsy showed that the 22-year-old was shot six times—all from the back as he was running away from the officers. According to Salt Lake City attorney Randall Edwards, who is representing the Hunt family, the autopsy showed Darrien Hunt was shot “numerous times” all from the back.
“This is consistent with statements made by witnesses on the scene, who report that Darrien was shot to death while running away from the police,” said Edwards in a statement furnished Sunday to the Los Angeles Times.
Hunt’s mother said “They killed my son because he’s Black. No White boy with a little sword would they shoot while he’s running away.” Indeed. Something really stinks here.
The killing of Hunt seems so similar to the killing of Michael Brown—but there is a fact in this case even worse than the outrage done to Brown. Both of these young Black men were killed as they were fleeing from trigger-happy cops firing on them. But, unlike Michael Brown, who stopped running and turned around to surrender before he was cut down, Darrien Hunt’s autopsy showed that he was shot repeatedly—in his back.
The Utah law enforcement officials have a serious problem with their story. They say Darrien Hunt “lunged” at him but that he wasn’t shot dead at this point. So, what was the threatening action that justified their use of deadly force? Are they saying because he supposedly “lunged” at them before that justified them shooting him?
Will there soon be a newer revised version of why police shot this young man down dead?
Police say Hunt hsd a sword and this has been emphasized by some to insinuate that the police faced danger.
By most accounts the sword was more of a decorative type of thing. But, more importantly the witness accounts fits perfectly with what the autopsy found: that these police fired multiple shots into the back of Darrien Hunt—reportedly, the fatal shot struck him in the shoulder.
Apparently, many police throughout America think they have a license to kill Black men at will—without having to pay any consequence for their murderous acts of barbarity. The stories they manufacture after the fact always have a consistent pattern: the victim posing a threat to police, even when the victims are fleeing, are at a distance, with their backs facing police.
Around the same time we heard of Darrien Hunt’s autopsy report, officials in Ferguson, St. Louis are telling us the county Grand Jury needs more time to decide if Officer Darren Wilson should be charged with anything for taking the life of Michael Brown. From the very beginning, the people in Ferguson complained that prosecutor Bob McCulloch couldn’t be trusted.
So the grand jury reportedly needs perhaps until Jan.7—to decide whether Officer Darren Wilson should be indicted for shooting the unarmed Black teenager to death. Are these “law and order” officials trying to stall justice, calculating that anger and resolve will dissolve by then, especially, as the winter season approaches?
Who makes such determination? Is it conceivable that on one given day several grand jurors woke up and concluded they needed until the first week of January, 2015? This seems unlikely.
The evidence is stacking up that that fear was correct.
Some peculiar proceedings are taking place, with the grand jury in Ferguson—that make it clear officials are paving the way to let Officer Wilson walk away scot-free. One extremely curious action was allowing Officer Wilson to give testimony in this grand jury—where he faces no cross-examination while spinning his fables. It surely, seems like another mockery of justice is being planned by local government officials and prosecutors here.
The disregard America’s criminal “justice” system has for Black people is self-evident.
Here in New York a pregnant Black Brooklyn woman was put in a chokehold, while a Black Staten Island man was killed with a police chokehold by an NYPD officer named Daniel Pantaleo.
Meanwhile, two North Carolina Black men are released from prison after serving 30 years for a crime they didn’t commit—in a case eerily similar to the Central Park Five Case, where five Black and Latino males were railroaded by police and prosecutors.
Makes you wonder how many innocent people are serving long sentences today; some have probably died behind bars.
Aren’t all these incidents indicators of the White American justice system’s utter contempt for the human rights of Black people?
Suddenly, in the last few weeks, an interesting shift has happened in the national media narrative and now the topic of domestic violence is a hot one. Several NFL players—most of them Black—are now being vilified for domestic abuse issues. Many in government and media are now railing about the troubling issue of wives and women who are beaten by boyfriends and husbands.
And of course domestic abuse, including and especially of children, is indeed a topic that deserves serious discussion. Yet how is it that some commentators don’t denounce police brutality just as vociferously?
Why can’t they stand up and denounce the institutional racism that emboldens police officers to continue killing young Black males by shooting them in the back?
