On Tuesday — minutes before the guilty verdict was announced in the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin — a Columbus, Ohio, police officer shot and killed a 16-year-old black girl. And while the anti-police crowd was quick (as per usual) to jump on the story as another example of “systemic racism” and “police violence against people of color,” the available evidence shows that the officer’s actions were a near-textbook example of the proper use of deadly force.
Just after 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, police dispatch received a call from a distressed young woman, saying “We got these grown girls over here trying to fight us, trying to stab us. Trying to put their hands on our grandma. Get here now!”
Officer Nicholas Reardon was the first officer to arrive at the scene of the fight. Within seconds of his arrival, body-cam footage shows Ma’Khia Bryant — armed with a knife — attacking another young woman who is then pushed to the ground. As Officer Reardon approaches and draws his sidearm, Bryant turns and attacks yet another young woman, pinning her backward of the hood of a car parked in the driveway. As the officer shouts for Bryant to stop, she lunges at the young woman she has pinned, appearing to attempt to stab her.
Officer Reardon is seen firing several times, striking Bryant, who died from those shots.
Warning: This video is graphic and shows the death of a young woman. Viewer discretion is advised.
So, let’s unpack that.
A black young woman is trying to kill another black young woman. The police officer on the scene shoots and kills the would-be-muderer, saving the life of the would-be-murdered. As Columbus Interim Police Chief Michael Woods stated, “Deadly force can be used to protect yourself or for the protection of a third person. So that is within the policy and that is within the law. That is what the law says.” He added that the investigation of the shooting — which is standard procedure for all police-involved shootings — will determine “whether this complies with that.”
The shooting was captured on not only Officer Reardon’s bodycam but also on a a security video from a neighbor. Those videos, when slowed down to be seen frame by frame, clearly show that Officer Reardon saved the life of a young black woman. But if you thought that would be enough to keep Officer Reardon out of the sights of the BLM/anti-police firing squad, you have not been paying adequate attention for the past few months and years.
Because even before any details are known about what caused the initial altercation, the BLM crowd — via its self-appointed spokesperson LeBron James — was instant in decrying the shooting as another example of police violence against innocent black people. He tweeted a picture of Officer Reardon with the caption, “YOU”RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY.”
Former President Trump quickly denounced James and his tweet, saying in a statement, “LeBron James should focus on basketball rather than presiding over the destruction of the NBA, which has just recorded the lowest television RATINGS, by far, in the long and distinguished history of the League,” Trump added that James’ “racist rants are divisive, nasty, insulting and demeaning.”
And James was not alone in being selective about which black lives matter.
As NPR almost gleefully reported under the headline, “Columbus Activists Call For Federal Probe Of Police After Ma’Khia Bryant Shooting, “Hours after Bryant was killed, protests erupted in the area, with neighbors like Ira Graham III saying her death was further proof of something they’ve believed for years. It is not safe to call the police.” The article goes on to quote several BLM activists who all seem to agree that when a black teen is about to kill another black teen and an officer intervenes, he must be a racist. “I have an 18-year-old who happens to be at college now and I tell him, unfortunately, [I] never called the cops for anything, because you call the cops and things can unfortunately end up like this,” said Graham at the neighborhood demonstration.
Another activist quoted in the article said, “I shouldn’t be scared of the police,” adding, “I shouldn’t have to live in fear when these people pull up. I should be able to call 911 if my family needs it.”
Conveniently left out of this perspective is the simple fact that trying to kill someone in front of a cop is a good way to get yourself shot. If you are not committing — or have not recently committed — a crime, you likely have nothing to fear by calling 911.
Politicians — from the local to the national — were also quick to jump on the “racist cop” bandwagon. Columbus CBS affiliate WBNS reported that Mayor Andrew Ginther stated during a press conference, “We don’t yet have all of the facts, but we do know that a 16-year-old girl — a child in this community — died last night.” Ginther also asked, “Did Ma’Khia Bryant need to die yesterday? How did we get here?”
And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki took to her podium Wednesday — one day after the shooting and after the video was released — and said:
She was a child. We’re thinking of her friends and family in the communities that are hurting and grieving her loss. We know that police violence disproportionately impacts black and Latino people in communities and that black women and girls, like black men and boys, experience higher rates of police violence.
Apparently Psaki either has not seen the video or was wearing a strong prescription pair of anti-cop goggles when she did watch it.
So the takeaway is that Black Lives Matter (BLM) — but only if they help promote the false narrative of the liberal establishment and its BLM foot soldiers. Because the black life of the young woman Bryant was trying to kill does not seem to matter to BLM or the liberal establishment. It appears that the criteria that must be met for a black life to matter is that that life must be ended by a white police officer — preferably while committing a a violent crime.
