The Police Shooting Death of Brandon Durham (Part 2)

is the least fun part of the job. But we think you're in good hands before we get there, though, So it's time to discuss Baba becoming a better ally Bob. On today's Boba. Sponsored by Friends of the Movement, you can sign up for the free Voter Willer from fotmglobal dot com to support black businesses and allied businesses as well as make an impact with your spending. Again, that's Fotmglobal dot com. This comes from NARF dot org. The

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RF dot org and they're doing really great work. If you are in a position to donate, please, you know, consider them, and if not, there's other ways that you can get behind what they're doing. Again, that's NARF dot org. All right. The police shooting death of Brandon Durham. I remember when I saw this video online and I sent it to you.

to become overwhelmed. So this one was mine. I actually saw this video, a very quick video, and I'm going to share a little bit from the associated press and then share with you what I saw. So again from the AP, A Las Vegas man called for police help during a home invasion before an officer fatally shot him, according to authorities and nine one one calls, Brandon Durham called nine early November twelfth, saying he was hiding with his fifteen year old daughter after someone broke into his home.

Assistant Sheriff Dorry Korn said Durham is heard pleading with the dispatcher to send someone asap and audio recordings obtained this week by k VVU TV in Las Vegas. Koran identified the officer who shot Durham as Alexander Bookman, twenty six. Bookman was one of the first officers to arrive and

kicked in the front door. Koran said that the officer found Durham in a hallway struggling over a knife with the intruder, and a short clip of body camera video released by the police, the officer yells for them to drop the knife, then fires one round. Durham and the intruder both fall to the floor. Then the officer moves closer and fires five more rounds while standing over them. The video shows Durham, forty three, died in his home.

Corn said Durham and the intruder knew each other. The intruder was arrested in charge with home invasion and assault. David Roger, general counsel for the union representing Las Vegas police officer, said Saturday in a statement that Bookman was not at fault. Quote. While mister Durham's death is tragic, Officer Bookman was doing his job and did not intend to commit a crime. The person responsible for mister Durham's death is in custody, he said. Durham's family once Bookman

fired and charged in the shooting. Quote, Mister Durham was not threatening anyone. There is no justification for the use of force against mister Durham. Lee Merit, a civil rights attorney representing the family, said at a news conference. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wilson said in a statement that it was too early in the investigation for him to comment on possible charges. Bookman is on paid leave while the Las Vegas Metropolitan

Police Department investigates. Oh yeah, I saw the video and you know, as the article mentions, they're both standing in the hallway. Brandon Durham is shirtless and he's you know, holding the intruder in the hallway, and the officer comes in and maybe one second passes and Durham gets shot. The man with no shirt on. You know, it's his house. He's the one that called clearly. He gets shot, falls to the floor, the officer keeps shooting him, and he dies.

minds might say. Okay, I also try to put myself in a position like that where I have to make a split second decision, like what is it Is it easy to get something like that wrong when your emotions are heightened, when you're afraid, Because I do imagine that police officers, even though they claim to be brave, are just as terrified, probably more terrified than the average person,

because they're constantly met with all kinds of stuff. Okay, this is me trying to extend as much grace as I can, but even here, all of that breaks down for me. And the reason for that is because I've seen executions before. You know, when you shoot somebody and they drop and then you walk up on them and

empty the clip into them. You know, I come from a very bad place where things like that happened, you know, and you know, one shot might have been an oops, you know, but the rest of these shots, they don't feel like an oops. When we're talking about you know, Sonya Massey is another person that called the police into her home, you know, and I made the case when we talked about her that, you know, to to the man with a hammer, all the world is a nail or.

You know. Police culture kind of encourages this overly violent reaction oftentimes when black people are at the center of the storyline. And you know, now we have another example of a person and these aren't the only two we've covered that We've covered stuff like this for many years, but two recent enough examples where they check more or

less the same boxes. A black person calls the police because there's an intruder at their home, The police show up and in their life, and you know, people wonder, why do black people not trust the police? Why do black people not want to cooperate or talk to the police. Why don't black people not want to be around the police.

It's such an interesting place to be right now for me because where I try to extend some grace and have like a critical analysis of what happened and take this systemic approach and try to explain it on that level to appeal to you, know, you, our listener, I'm starting to have trouble because for me to say it, it's almost like I'm talking to a wall. You see the systemic issues right here. These human beings are losing their lives. These police get to go home and they

get paid for it. And then the police unions or the police protection agencies will try to preemptively chronicle and narrative that suggest the officers are doing their job. There's no reverence for the fact that a human beings life was lost.

This guy shouldn't have broken into his house. Sure, I'll give you that. But people break into houses, people have disagreements, people have mental health lapses, people have problems. The one consistent thing is that the police always show up with the guns, and at least on this show, the one consistent thing is that the black people always end up dead. I know that I've kind of talked this around that, and I've seen you kind of WinCE a couple of times.

your officer did anything wrong. You're not saying I don't think my officer deserves to spend the rest of their life in prison, because as a human being, I could understand you arguing that for somebody under your employ or somebody that maybe you care about, or somebody who is

your job to defend. But to argue that your officer did nothing wrong, it's just genuous strips every piece of dignity away from the person and their family, and their friends, and their loved ones, and their coworkers, and their church family and their neighbors. It does not just affect that person, It affects everyone that knows and cares about them. And we have to consume this knowing that now, and I'm

sorry that everything relates to him, but it does. We have a president elect who plans to extend blanket immunity to law enforcement. So those who make mistakes are okay, and those who are very, very intentional about taking our lives are also okay, And we have to pretend that we don't know that those officers exist as well. Some of these officers the grace I will extend have to be scared because they have to feel like every time

they get called, their life is on the line. But you applied for, tested for, and trained for that job. You convince someone that you wanted it. I tried to be a police officer before. You have to go through

a lot of steps to get there. So you left home one day an application, went to a job, and if you passed the physical plaster written tesk and had to pass an oral bar review and convince someone how badly you wanted to be an officer, only for you to become an officer and be so terrified that you shoot and kill the person who calls you for help. Someone comes along, says you do nothing wrong, You get

paid leave. In most cases, a district attorney who's friendly with the police and the police unions agree that nothing was wrong and there's nothing to see here, and we're not even going to press charges.

upon a time I did something similar. I had a domestic issue and a woman that I was seeing at the time, she became upset and she threw something at me and hit me and I started bleeding, and I was like, you know, I probably should leave my house. I left, and I was bloodied and all that sort of stuff. But she had been screaming the whole time, so my neighbors had heard, and I'm like, okay, black man leaving. I was in a black range rover at

the time. I'm like, let me make sure that I get out in front of this because this could in badly, like if I if the woman says something. Thank god, she told the truth. But if she says something that didn't happen, this looks really bad. So let me pull over at a circle K make a phone call and report this. And I remembered the steps that I went through.

else's business out there. So you know, everything worked out. This person had was going through a mental thing and there was nothing I could do. I couldn't leave until I had to because I was bleeding. But yeah, anyway, I remember being afraid after being harmed to.

you know, all that sort of stuff. I've never been arrested, by the way, but it just kind of, I think goes to show you that there's a couple of steps that mentally we go through before even making a phone call.

And I think that this story of Brandon Durham illustrates the why because in my story, you know, I've shared on the show before, but my earliest memories were the LAPD and the LAPD For those that are fans of history, are those old enough to remember, that's the same police department responsible for the Rodney King beating and the subsequent riots. People didn't riot because Rodney King got beat up. People rioted because the police were doing that everywhere, and then

there was no accountability for it. Now that it's on video capture. There was a long standing story and before Rodney King happened, I Ramses saw with my own eyes how the police treated.

in prison. But continuing to take the position that they did nothing wrong over and over again, and then our justice system agreeing with you is insanity. No one did anything wrong here, that's the argument that's being made. You might remember there was a parody movie called Naked Gun. We were very young, but the generation and above us might know that movie was a parody of lawlessness within

the LAPD and the lack of accountability. Yeah, Like there's a line in the movie where a guy even says something about, like, how many people does an officer of this department have to unlive to get in trouble? He asked that out loud because it was so ridiculous that this movie is now thirty something years old.

are doing meaningful things. And you know, like I said, now's the time to batten down the hatches, and whether the storm, we still strategize, we still move forward, and we do so so that people like Brandon Durham, they don't just die in vain and their energy dissipate into the ether and the infiniteness of the universe. That this death counts for something. So with that in mind, we'll leave it right there. As always, I'd like to thank

you for tuning into this episode of Civic Cipher. I've been your host rams.