The Shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith
The tragic death of Anthony Lamar Smith occurred in December 2011 when St. Louis Officer Jason Stockley fired five shots at his car after a suspected drug deal. Smith was an African American man from St. Louis Missouri who was previously convicted for drug distribution and unlawful possession of a firearm. However, he was out on probation at the time when officer Stockley and his partner reported seeing him engaging in a drug deal. This resulted in a car chase that lasted around three minutes, ending when Stockley's car rammed into Smith's. During the chase, the dashcam in Stockley's car recorded him saying "[I'm] going to kill this mother****er, don't you know it." After the chase ended, recordings showed that Stockley was yelling at Smith to open his door while each remained in their cars. Stockley testified that Smith was not complying, and was apparently reaching around in the interior of his vehicle, which he perceived as reaching for a gun. Stockley then immediately grabbed his gun and shot five bullets through the window, killing Smith. Stockley later went inside the car and found a handgun tucked between the seat and the center console. Prosecutors argue that this handgun was planted by the officer to justify the shooting.
This shooting occurred at West Florissant and Acme Avenues in north St. Louis, just minutes from the Michael Brown shooting that occurred 3 years later. These two shootings are incredibly similar; a white police officer shooting an African American resident, using self-defense as a justification, which gives rise to the question about a possible corruption in the St. Louis Police Department. In September 2015, just the same as officer Darren Wilson, Stockley was found not guilty of the murder charges. This sparked outrage in the community, as protestors had blocked highways and were throwing rocks at the mayor's house. Activists and protestors also gathered outside the courthouse and marched through the city's downtown for many hours, chanting "no justice, no peace!" To this, Stockley responded by saying "I can feel for and I understand what the family is going through, and I know everyone wants someone to blame, but I'm just not the guy," which is ironic given he is the one that pulled the trigger that killed Smith.
Sources:
1. https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/15/us/jason-stockley-officer-shooting-verdict/index.html
2. https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/us/police-involved-shooting-cases/index.html
this is so sad and I feel for the victim and his families. he should have never gotten put in a situation like that and its sad to say institutionalized racism had a major part in this shooting. I love how the people of america use the right to protest for good and to try to get white people to stop shooting black men in the street. Its important we dont forget to protest when something goes wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt is surprising that a shooting so similar to what happened to Micheal Brown was allowed to happen again- it shows that nothing has changed within the police department. I definitely agree with what you said about the corruption in the police department, it is clear that there is something going on in that department. Additionally, the closeness of the incidents, with West Florissant was mentioned in the case volume, it is so obvious that nothing has changed, even the protests and controversy still made no impact on the thought processes of the officers of Saint Louis.
ReplyDeleteI was really suprised to learnt hat such a similar event as the Michael Brown shooting occured right next door and not that long ago after. I looked more into the case and found that Smith was only 24 years old at the time. I watched the surrveillance video footage that was relased and I crash occur but then I got ocnfused becasue for some reason the police decided tos top recording and the rest of the footage was captrued by a bystander.
ReplyDeleteWhat an unfortunate coincidence that this shooting was in the same area as the Ferguson shooting. To me this speaks of the culture in the area. Although a majority of polices are not racist or have racial biases that skew their behavior something is clearly wrong in this police department. I think beyond racism there must be some procedure faults in the police department. For some reason this region is aggressive and trigger happy and that may be in part because of the training that the cops receive.
ReplyDeleteIt's so sad that we live in a society like this where one can't even trust the police anymore and specifically to this case, it looks like the St. Louis department is now having a bad reputation just like LAPD. This was very similar to the Michael Brown shooting and it was in the same city of St. Louis Missouri which is really sad because 3 years later is when the shooting of Michael Brown happened snd the fact that they didn't press charges to either the cops makes me really upset that the families that have had a similar incident get no justice.
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