By Worker’s World
Photos: YouTube\Video Screenshots
On Saturday morning, on Buffalo’s East Side, police shot and killed a Black man – yet again.
Edward ‘Eddie’ Holmes [58] was a brother, father, and grandad. He was a chef, skater, biker, mechanic, and loved cars and cowboy hats. (Quote: Black Love Resists in the Rust)
The version presented by police was that a phone call was made describing a man with a gun who “may shoot at anyone”. The call was responded to by C-district cops, who promptly killed the man in a hail of bullets after he fired one shot. The Commissioner said that they weren’t sure what direction the man fired in, and also claimed that the phone number for the 911 caller is the same as the phone number of the man who was killed by police.
Just based on the information from the 911 call, it appears clear that the person was experiencing some kind of a mental health crisis. The police had forewarning of the potential danger of the situation. Rather than utilizing any kind of de-escalation tactics or non-lethal means of engaging with the man, the police did what they have always done when responding to a call about a Black man — kill him without a second thought.
Buffalo’s East Side residents are seeking justice and answers for this killing which took place during Black history month, in a community still grieving from the racist killings at Tops Supermarket, where ten people were killed by a white supremacist who, not surprisingly, was apprehended unharmed by the same police in 2022…Why do police continue to receive increases in funding each year for new training and equipment when they still shoot to kill as a default response to mental health calls?…
