The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

How to Get Shot by the Cops

Posted on | June 18, 2022 | Comments Off on How to Get Shot by the Cops

Lawyer for suspect
in deputy involved shooting
in Indian River County wants
unedited body cam video
— WPBF-TV, June 15

This story is a perfect example of how the media undermines law enforcement by giving voice to bogus criticism, especially in cases like this one in Florida, where an armed felon was shot by sheriff’s deputies investigating a string of crimes in the community. Simply because the suspect is black, many in the media seem to believe, he must be a victim of injustice, and the police must be in the wrong. Therefore, the TV cameras seek out the suspect’s family or a “civil rights” activist or, as in this case, the suspect’s lawyer, to condemn the cops, no matter what the circumstances were that led to the shooting. Watching the video of this incident doesn’t give you the necessary knowledge to understand what happened, or why it happened. Once you do understand it, however, it becomes impossible to deny that the person responsible for this 19-year-old suspect getting shot was — wait for it — the 19-year-old suspect.

Say hello to Jamall Frederick. According to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office (IRCSO), the events that led to him getting shot were as follows: Deputies were investigating a homicide that happened Thursday in the Gifford community. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, deputies responded to a report of shots fired a few blocks away. Subsequent investigation (i.e., surveillance camera video) gave them a description of a vehicle suspected of involvement in that incident. The same vehicle was also connected to a number of burglaries, including burglaries of vehicles in which firearms were stolen. Thus, the deputies had reason to believe that the occupants of this vehicle were armed and dangerous. So they began monitoring the area in which the shots fired incident had occurred. About 9 p.m. that evening, deputies spotted the suspect vehicle, and that’s when the incident occurred.

 

As I say, just watching the video doesn’t add much to your knowledge of what happened, because it happened very quickly at night. One of the deputies saw the pistol in the back seat next to Frederick and told him not to reach for it. He grabbed it and ran, and they opened fire, and it’s something of a miracle that Frederick survived the shooting.

Civilians may ask, “Why did they shoot? He was running away.” Yes, but he had a gun in his hand. Are cops just supposed to let an armed fugitive run free in the community? And what are the chances that Frederick would have turned around and shot any deputy who pursued him? There’s no rule that requires cops to let bad guys get the first shot.

Frederick is from Fort Pierce, 18 miles away from the scene of the shooting. The deputies also found another gun in the car and arrested 18-year-old Zbryius Jones of Vero Beach. Both guns were stolen, one from South Vero and the other from Fellsmere. Frederick was a convicted felon on probation, and Jones was also charged with violating probation. Sheriff Eric Flowers said: “These guys are countywide criminals. We will not tolerate known felons endangering our community. Our community expects us to prevent crimes and keep them safe.”

There has been much critical attention directed toward rampant crime in Democrat-controlled cities like Los Angeles, where Soros-sponsored District Attorney George Gascon is being blamed for releasing a felon who shot and killed two police officers. You don’t have problems like that in Indian River County, which has not voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1944, and which went 60% for Trump twice.

The media can (and should) help fight crime by discarding the anti-cop bias that treats all critics of the police as inherently legitimate. It is one thing — and a very important thing — to expose genuine abuse or corruption by the police, but it’s a whole ’nother thing to portray cops as racist villains when they’re just doing their job.




 

Category: Crime, Florida

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