Madison police officer Matt Kenny, who killed 19 year-old Tony Robinson on the night of March 6, 2015 in his own apartment before (with the help of another officer) dragging the teen’s lifeless blood-covered body onto the front porch, will of course not be charged with committing any crime whatsoever. Kenny was responding to a 911 call made by a concerned friend of Robinson’s who wanted to get help for him after he’d taken some hallucinogenic mushrooms (commonly known as “‘shrooms”) and reportedly began acting erratically. According to the friend who made the call, he “was on his way to a local basketball game and called police to ask them to assist his friend [Robinson], who he described as unarmed, not trying to hurt anybody but in need of help.” Within 18 seconds of arriving at the apartment where Robinson was located – alone – officer Matt Kenny shot his gun at the teen seven different times. Kenny alleges that Robinson first punched him, though there is no one who can collaborate this claim. Regardless, it should not require use of lethal force to subdue an unarmed person.
District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, who was sweating profusely, prefaced the announcement that no charges would be brought against officer Kenny by first offering a list of his own “credentials”, remarking that,
“I am the son of a black woman, who still worries about my safety from the bias of privilege and violence that accompanies it. […]
I am a man who understands the pain of unjustified profiling. And I am the first district attorney of color, not only in Dane County but in the state of Wisconsin. […]
I conclude that this tragic and unfortunate death was the result of a lawful use of deadly police force, and that no charges should be brought against officer Kenny in the death of Tony Robinson Jr.”
This preface (or is it a disclaimer) is meant of course to pacify resistance to the system of white supremacy. By reinforcing his own ‘blackness’ it’s as if he is saying, “How could I represent a criminal justice system that is inherently racist? After all, I’m a person of color and therefore I am living proof that the system is colorblind.” Of course in reality such tokenism means very little in the lives of everyday Black people across this nation. Justice Clarence Thomas currently sits on the Supreme Court and has time and again cast his lot with some of the most racist rulings in the modern era. The election of President Barack Obama has delivered little if any improvement in the lives of ordinary Black people, and he and his previous Attorney General Eric Holder have used the same language as their historical white counterparts to describe those participating in the righteous rebellions in Ferguson and Baltimore as “criminals” and “thugs“.
But back to Ozanne’s remarks. The District Attorney continues,
“Recent violence around our nation is giving some in our communities a justification for fear, hatred and violence. […]
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Violence brings only temporary change. Violence, by creating many more social issues than it solves, never brings permanent peace.'”
Naturally Ozanne wasn’t directing this quote at the police officers across the nation who continue murdering unarmed Black people in droves, but at those who respond to this state-sanctioned violence by rebelling.
Never mind that the quote he used by Dr. King was taken completely out of context. These remarks were made as part of a Nobel acceptance speech dealing with the issue of not only nonviolence as a means of achieving eventual peace but nonviolence as a principal that should be adopted by the American government which he rightly called “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today“. In other words, he was first and foremost condemning the violence used by the United States of America in its treatment of the rest of the world, particularly Vietnam. His critique would be far more accurately applied in our own time to the U.S. military industrial complex which assassinates people in far-off lands by use of not only bombs but drones, as well as to the police who use violence against the poor and people of color every single day and are never held to account for it. The last people who need to be lectured about “nonviolence” are those who are the most oppressed by violent actions of the state.
Must Read:
- Martin Luther King Jr. Unsanitized: confronting the triple evils of capitalism, militarism and racism
- Mumia Abu Jamal quote on the misappropriation of MLK Jr.’s legacy
United States Hypocrisy 
The Left in the rush to see all law enforcement guilty of something (anything), tend to forget (accidentally or deliberately) that:
1. The cops didn’t ask to be there,
2. Were put into a situation the circumstances of which are UNKNOWN,
3. Are only able to trust what they see erratic, insane, probably dangerous (they understand, unlike the media or “friends” all of which have NO REASON, to tell the truth (and often good reason to lie) since, even if the suspect only kills you accidentally you are STILL dead, and
4. Sadly, mental telepathy does NOT come with the badge so all you’ve got is your own experience–and if that experience is that certain people are habitually violent they have to go with that…period.
In any event, it comes down to a.) The dead man chose to take the drugs, b.) Chose to me in public where he could put other people in danger (others who also cannot read minds and don’t know the person or what he’s up to and can only trust their own eyes, and lastly c.) If the mans “friend” was unable to control the man to the extent that he called for armed assistance out of fear for himself or others–that says to everyone at the scene that the man is a menace and should be dealt with according to what the level of danger he presents–NOT what others (who don’t understand or even know the situation) only say it is…again, accidental or not you only need to be killed once.
Lastly, it is the people who pay that officer who dictate the rules and the rules say, as the dead man knew, if you threaten a man with a gun who is only trying to help and the officer believes he could be killed the taking life, human or otherwise, IS APPROPRIATE. That’s why he isn’t being prosecuted where most officers are at least tried in court.
PS – Something the Liberals will enjoy…only about one officer in 50 will survive the shooting, in that:
1. The Officer is not the one on drugs and is the one who understands actually what it means to kill,
2. The Office is usually chosen for the job because he has what the dead man did not, i.e., a conscience, a decent IQ which makes it easier to understand the seriousness that the dead man, apparently, did not) and usually a wife and family who need him to come home safely at the end of the shift.
PPS – Therefore the officer has every reason in the world NOT to shoot and always has trouble when they do as few officers survive a shooting even if they are initially unharmed. Guilt and plain decency have an impact on police that drug users and their friends seldom do.
Where does it say that the officer was threatened with a gun bootlicker?
According to the powers that be, violence by the state is always okay. They preach nonviolence because they want the state to have a monopoly on violence. Despite his skin color, Ozanne is an obedient puppet. He knows his position of privilege is based on his obedience. It has nothing to do with his qualifications.
It’s a shame that MLK’s image has been so thoroughly whitewashed by the very people who would be denouncing him in every conservative AND liberal paper were he alive today the same way they do Cornel West.
Never —– and I repeat: “Never” ever call police on a friend for any reason, humanitarian or otherwise!
I agree! It never turns out good because the primary goal of police in this country is not to help anyone but to criminalize them.
as in “Gestapo” — is that right, Caleb Gee? Thank you for your comment.
Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Add another one to the ever growing list! Blows my mind ….. off he walks!
Just another day in the land of impunity for killer cops.
Isn’t it amazing how so many people in this country tolerate the police being like this?
The current social climate is curiously akin to pre-war Germany. History repeats itself?
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.