The St. Louis County police were taking heat Thursday morning for social media postings about a fatal police shooting not in Ferguson, Missouri, but in Cleveland.
The county police department tweeted out (and later deleted) a post from the City of Fenton Precinct’s Facebook page titled “Kids will be Kids?” that commented on the death of Tamir Rice, a black 12-year-old who was shot last month by a white Cleveland police officer who mistook his toy gun for a real weapon.
Here’s the Facebook post on Tamir Rice, just in case @stlcountypd did take it down pic.twitter.com/zq0hWPRzpr
— Elias Isquith (@eliasisquith) December 4, 2014
“This article is not about this a boy losing his life, whether this was a justified shooting or, whether the cops acted too fast,” the post, which has also since been removed, read. “This is about the Fenton Precinct making residents aware of a ‘hot’ topic and learning from this incident so Fenton never loses a child’s life.”
The post goes on to advise parents to talk with their children who have toy guns about the importance of knowing how to respond should a police officer approach them.
“If the type of gun is in question by the witness, the Police will respond as though it is a real gun until it can be confirmed one way or the other … the police will respond lights and sirens and come to a screeching halt in the area where your child is playing with the gun,” the post continued.
Asked by a Guardian reporter whether the post was inappropriate, a St. Louis County Police Department spokesman identified the officer who wrote the post but said he hadn’t read it:
Asked if @stlcountypd thinks Tamir Rice tweet/FB post was inappropriate, dept. spokesman paused, claimed: “I haven’t even read it”
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) December 4, 2014
The @stlcountypd tweet/FB post on Tamir Rice was written by police officer Aaron Dilks, he tells me. I asked if he regretted it. He hung up.
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) December 4, 2014
I guess I’m missing something.
Seems like very good advice for parents. These days you need to be careful that your kids aren’t walking around with something that looks like a gun in their hand, because the police are seeing more of the real thing out there.
Thanks, NRA, for making real guns such a big part of our life that fake guns create a dangerous sense of alarm in law enforcement!
Mmmm kay, Ohio is an open carry state, correct? So, while this is useful advice for parents, and as a parent I wouldn’t let my kid carry around any kind of toy gun, it really flies in the face of the fact that OHIO IS AN OPEN CARRY STATE.
This post, while probably well-intentioned and practical, really says “Our cops have terrible judgment, and if they think your kid is the wrong kind of open-carrier, they might just shoot him. So be careful out there.”
It’s sad.
Am I missing something?
This reads like good advice if your child–especially if your child is black or white–regarding having a toy that looks for real. If people on social media are considering this a “problem,” then it only underscores how social media can be a spreader of bad information. This, however, is good information.
So, what is the problem with this?
Yes, logic seems missing from your thought process.
It says, in effect, that cops are really stupid (most are not). It says we as a society are willing to accept substandard behavior within our police force, so, you better watch out.
Heck, I hear Orcs work for nothing, might as well outsource your policing to them.
The article posts this FB information out of context. That’s why folks are looking at this and going “this seems like good advice, what am I missing, why are people angry?”
Because you haven’t seen the previous FB posts they removed, and the previous tweets they have since deleted, mocking the death of Tamir Rice and blaming it on the victim, while doing what they actually claim in THIS posting they are not doing, which is defending the police position and how the incident occurred. What you’re reading above is their attempt at appeasement while trying to distract people from the vile things they posted originally, and trying to distract from the fact they didn’t apologize for any of it.
So this article is really only half complete, and really does a disservice to the whole story, and what epic douchebags the STLPD have been in the last couple of months on social media. And when I say epic, I mean EPIC. I mean mouthing off with total impunity levels of epic, while spouting thinly veiled racist remarks epic.