Well LAPD strikes again.  I would love to get ahold of their Procedures manual.  I would not be surprised to find kill Black Men on EVERY page!!!

LAPD kills another Black Man!

A promising young Black Man that the KTLA reporters have inaccurately identified as in his 30s, Reggie Doucet, 25 year old resident of an upscale beach condominium complex in Playa Vista was slain in that very neighborhood.  He was a well received football player at Middle Tennessee State University.  He was a model, personal trainer and club promoter who was in the process of opening his own gym at the time of his death.  He was also featured in Eye Candy on Essence.com.  Reggie, after having been out in Hollywood, took a cab home and got into an argument with the cab driver.  According to reports at some point during this argument he got naked.  The cabby and neighbors called the police.  As the story goes 2 cops tried to contain him and they got him to calm down a bit and put his boxers on, then when they tried to detain him again he would not cooperate and there was a scuffle and Reggie was shot by a Black male officer (17 months on the job).  There was also an Asian officer (5 yrs on the job) responding with the shooting officer.

Okay, lets talk shop for real people.  If you are sitting here saying RACE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS ... hop the hell up off my site, because I am fine with respecting the opinion of those of us who live in the real world-all others, I am simply not interested in listening to nonsense.  The LAPD has long made it a policy to kill Black Men or at the very least give it a hell of an effort! It pisses me off to no end that on the eve of Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday that I am not talking about progress and uplifting each other, but rather on the bullshit that continues to happen in this country.  I swear I see a damn commercial to save a polar bear or some random ass pet every damn day, when the hell are we going to start saving Black Men.  I mean are polar bears more important than the Black Man? NOT TO ME!!!


Taking the story at face value, I need to know how shooting this man 2 times in the chest was the answer.  There have been no reports of this man being armed.  In fact they said he was naked, unless he was hiding the gun between his sack and his meat I would be hard pressed to believe that he was armed. The cops were taken to the hospital for cuts, scrapes and bruises ... how does that equate to a need to use deadly force to protect one's self.  Police have night sticks and tasers.  Why did they not taser him to take him down.  If he was scuffling with them why did they not use the baton to take him down.  (Of course I also mean for them to use these items within reason and not to Rodney King the young man) Why was deadly force THEE option?  According to his neighbors he had never been a violent person.  According to people who knew him personally he was never a violent person.  So what happened between him and the cab driver that caused him to 1) not want to pay, 2) get into a verbal altercation with him and 3) cause a disturbance in his own neighborhood????  Things that make you go hmmmm.  Further what prompted the police to utilize such a drastic response as deadly force.  The obvious answer is we are not getting the whole story and unless someone was secretly taping what happened, I feel confident in saying we will never know the whole story.

So seriously, when does it stop??? When does the LAPD stop using Black Men as target practice.  I have heard a lot of my peers say there aren't enough Black Men of our caliber around for us, well it seems to me if you let the LAPD have it their way, there won't be ANY AT ALL!

This story saddens me for a myriad of reasons.  I'm sad that someone I know has lost someone they valued.  I am sad that another young Black Man is dead.  I am sad that all the years of fighting, marching, protesting, advocating,  and supposedly realizing the dream has amounted to what? I mean look where we are..... we are in the same play with a different set director and different wardrobe.  It's clear to me that it is still okay to kill Black Men in the street.  It's sad.  It's also sad to see that even US (not all but without question some of us) when we put on that Gd forsaken LAPD uniform we lose ourselves.  We seem to forget we are Black and think that we are Blue.

Please don't misconstrue my words.  The police have to protect themselves ...but as I stated above there are non deadly ways to do this.  I have friends that are police officers and I would never tell them not to protect or defend themselves, but I would also tell them as the law tells me, you should protect/defend yourself with the equivalent amount of force you are being threatened with.  You should not use deadly force, when you can be effective with non deadly force.

I pray for Reggie's family and friends.  His young daughter and (from what I understand) son on the way.  <--------- that is the main reason why I am sad! There is another young man who will grow up without his father.  The lack of the Black Father is an epidemic unto itself without any assistance from the damn police!!! Contrary to what is too often the case, this man has not left his child behind, he was murdered by the LAPD.  Killed essentially over cab fare.  Wow!!!

I am truly baffled at this unnecessary homicide and I hope his family files a wrongful death suit as this story continues to unfold.  I will definitely be following this story to see if this ever becomes a criminal trial and/or civil trial.  If these officers are ever brought up on criminal charges I pray the jurors are not decedents of the Rodney King jury ... they clearly have the visual impairment gene!

I ask you all to pray for Reggie's family and friends and pray for our Black Men.

XOXO,
Snobby Gyrl