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Thou shalt not protest to police (lest ye get capped)
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Thanks to reader Aaron for sending along this story:
Robbie Tolan will likely live the rest of his life with a bullet lodged in his liver.
It's a painful reminder of his encounter last Wednesday with a white Bellaire police officer, who fired at least three shots at the unarmed 23-year-old black man in his own driveway.
Bellaire police and city officials have said Sgt. Jeff Cotton mistakenly thought Tolan's Nissan Xterra had been stolen, but Tolan's relatives say he was a victim of racial profiling and did nothing to justify being shot as his parents watched outside their home.
As of last week, neither Tolan nor his family had received an apology from police, and the young man was still in intensive care while Cotton was put on paid vacation while the department sorted out the details.
And as you might expect, the department's version of events differs from the family's.
According to a statement later released by Bellaire police, officers approached Tolan and Cooper under the mistaken belief that their 2004 Nissan Xterra had been stolen.
Police said an argument broke out as the officers tried to detain and question the two men, but family members said both Tolan and Cooper complied after officers ordered them, at gunpoint, to drop to the ground.
Drawn by the commotion, Tolan's parents came outside. His mother, Marian Tolan, told police she was the homeowner and that her son's car wasn't stolen, said Berg, the family's attorney. He said Sgt. Cotton grabbed the 55-year-old woman and threw her against her garage door. When her son rose slightly from the ground to protest, Cotton fired, striking him once in the abdomen, Berg said. At least two other shots missed and somehow wound up in the ceiling of the home's front porch.
What if you or I just decided to pull a gun and shoot an unarmed civilian who posed no mortal threat to us? The police would take every opportunity to portray us as violent threats to society as they tracked us down and locked us up. Yet the police are often allowed to apply lethal force in response to detainees who simply question their authority or disobey orders.
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