Image 01 Image 03

Analyzing Wisconsin police shooting of unarmed Black teen

Analyzing Wisconsin police shooting of unarmed Black teen

Teen was armed robbery convict who violently attacked officer

Stop me if you’ve heard seen this one before: the now tiresome and wholly predictable cycle of news coverage when a white police officer shoots and kills an unarmed black teenager:

Step 1: Build the false narrative. Mainstream media outlets report that a police officer has shot an unarmed black teenager, and provide extensive coverage of the victim’s grieving family alongside flattering photographs and background stories of said teenager. The event is followed within hours–hours!–by well-organized protests, family spokespersons, and (naturally) lawyers (these last two typically combined).

Step 2: Watch the false narrative implode.  These mainstream media reports are inevitably followed by factually correct and comprehensive reports of the victim’s violent and criminal background and actions at the time of the shooting. These facts place responsibility for his death squarely on the victim’s own shoulders, and make it clear that the police acted appropriately.

Sounds familiar, right? In case you’ve not yet had enough of that cycle, allow me to introduce you to the late Tony Robinson, the “unarmed black teenager” who was shot and killed by a veteran Wisconsin police officer this past Friday evening (so, not even 48 hours prior to the writing of this post).

Step 1: Build the False Narrative

Let’s take a look at  how NBC covered this shooting in a post headlined: Black Teen Tony Robinson Shot Dead by Cop in Madison, Wisconsin, Was Unarmed. First, their lede:

The 19-year-old black man who was shot dead Friday during a confrontation with a police officer in Madison, Wisconsin, was unarmed, police said Saturday.

A “confrontation,” eh? How wonderfully passive.  Zero indication of whether this confrontation might have been the responsibility of the black man or the police, except for the observation that the black man was unarmed–so, right in the first sentence they’ve established the ” cop shoots unarmed black teenager” narrative with which we’ve grown so tiresomely familiar.

Then we learn in the second paragraph that the family has, within hours of their son’s death, retained an official spokesman, who appropriately for his job description simply oozes sympathy for Robinson’s family:

“It’s a challenging time for this family right now. To lose a son, especially the way they lost a son,” said the family spokesman, Michael Johnson.

But, hey, let’s not just stop with an official spokesman–if you don’t have protests going, you’re just not keeping it real.  Again, within hours of the shooting:

The shooting took place Friday at about 6:30 p.m., Madison police said, and sparked protests, including a sit-in at Madison City Hall.

The NBC piece references a statement made by Police Chief Mike Koval.  Koval states that the officer involved, Matt Kenny, had been responding to a call of a black man jumping in and out of traffic, and who was also suspected of an earlier battery.  Kenny responded to the scene, was attacked by the black man, and “During the confrontation, the officer drew his weapon and shot the suspect.” Kenny immediately began to provide first aid to Robinson, including CPR, to no avail.

Interestingly, the NBC piece then spends a full four paragraphs referring to a previous shooting in which Officer Kenny was involved.  In that case, the police had received a “man-with-a-gun” call which was later determined to have been made by the eventual victim in a “suicide-by-cop” ploy.  When police arrived the victim pointed a realistic-looking air pistol at them and Kenny engaged him with fire.  The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Continuing to follow the apparently formalized script for covering such events, NBC then provides a number of glowing quotes about the apparently angelic shooting victim:

Sharon Irwin, Robins’s grandmother:   “He was a beautiful, beautiful soul and everybody that knew him knew that.”

Robinson’s aunt, Lorien Carter: “This is the type of child that you wanted to have in your life because he made it better.”

Family spokesman Michael Johnson: Robinson was a “loving and caring young man,” who we also learn was “about to” attend a local technical college.  Can I get a “he was turning his life around”?

Tony Robinson graduate shot

Police Chiefs being the political creatures they are, Madison Chief Koval appears to plant himself firmly on the side of the false narrative, as NBC reports that he encouraged local residents to peacefully “tell me squarely how upset they are with the Madison police department.” Chief Koval clearly intends to protect his job against whatever political tsunamis that may arrive. He’s not about to put himself and his department in the DOJ bullseye if he can help it:

Conclusion:  Tony Robinson was a beautiful, loving, caring unarmed black teenager who made life better, who despite being unarmed was mysteriously shot dead in confrontation by a white police officer.

Watch the next step, it’s a doozy.

Step 2: Watch the False Narrative Implode

Curiously, the NBC piece on Robinson’s shooting managed to leave out a considerable amount of context, context that any reasonably person would likely find relevant to understanding the truth of what happened.

Fortunately, The Smoking Gun blog was helpful enough to provide us with this relevant context: Wisconsin Shooting Victim, 19, Was Convicted Last Year For Role In Armed Home Invasion.

It is notable how different this headline is than that offered by the NBC piece, which you’ll recall was: Black Teen Tony Robinson Shot Dead by Cop in Madison, Wisconsin, Was Unarmed.

Also notable is that The Smoking Gun piece was published on Saturday, March 7, the day after the shooting–whereas the NBC piece appears, from indications on the post’s page, to have been published in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 8–after the publication of the The Smoking Gun post. Yet the NBC post contains little of the relevant information contained in The Smoking Gun’s post.

So, what do we find in The Smoking Gun post that was left absent from the NBC piece?  As we did with the NBC piece, let’s start with the lede:

The unarmed Wisconsin teenager who was shot to death last night during a confrontation with a Madison cop pleaded guilty last year to armed robbery and recently began serving a three-year probation term for that felony conviction, court records show.

Wait, what?  The “beautiful, loving, caring” Tony Robinson, “who made life better,” was a convicted armed robber and home invader?  A crime to which he pleaded guilty only five months ago, this past October?

Tony Robinson mug shot

And what does The Smoking Gun have to say about the mysteriously passive “confrontation” described by NBC?

According to police, an officer responded Friday to a 911 call about a man who had assaulted a victim and was dodging cars in traffic. The cop followed the suspect into a nearby apartment, where the man allegedly struck the officer in the head, knocking him to the ground. During an ensuing struggle, patrolman Matt Kenny fatally shot the suspect.

So, Robinson was a suspect for both disorderly conduct and battery when Officer Kenny was tasked to the scene, and was appropriately subject to a police response and arrest.

At this point Robinson could, of course, have complied with his lawful arrest, but instead he choose a different path:  he struck Officer Kenny in the head, knocked him to the ground, and fell upon the officer while he was down.  It was under these circumstances that the officer shot and killed the “beautiful, loving, caring” convicted armed robber Tony Robinson.

Anyone want to wager that we’ll soon learn Robinson was a student of the Mike Brown School of Grabbing A Cop’s Gun?

Despite all this, The Smoking Gun post notes that Robinson’s mother, Andrew Irwin, told reporters (presumably with a straight face) that:  “My son has never been a violent person. And to die in such a violent, violent way, it baffles me.”

Is it possible she did not know that her son was an armed robbery convict?

The Smoking Gun has also apparently heard of some social networking platform they refer to as Facebook, whatever that is, and on which Tony Robinson maintained an account.

From there we learn–with no little irony–that Robinson was particularly perturbed by the recently released Department of Justice report clearing MO Police Officer Darren Wilson of all wrongdoing in the shooting death of Mike Brown.

We also learn that Robinson routinely referred to himself using the name “Tony Montana,” most familiar as the name of a fictional hyper-violent drug dealer character from the movie “Scarface.”  It’s worth noting that a prominent scene in the movie involves Montana cold-bloodedly shooting a police officer to death.

Robinson also described himself as a “Real nigga from the start till the casket shut.” I leave the interpretation of that statement to others.  (Update 3/9/15: Robinson’s Twitter account can be found here: @_Tonyy_Montana_· It is most definitely NOT safe for work, and includes a great deal of explicitly pornographic content. You have been warned.)

This past December, in reference to the arrest that resulted in the death of Eric Garner in New York, Robinson wrote: ““The only thing cops are getting trained for is to shoot first and ask questions later.”

Especially, I suppose, if you violently resist arrest, strike an officer in the head hard enough to knock him down, and attack him while he’s down. Indeed, a loud noise may follow.

Looking Forward

The propaganda value of these tragic events seems to be continually diminishing as the false narratives implode ever more proximately to the events themselves–here, within hours.  The sooner the false narrative can be exposed, of course, the less human and property damage will result.

Hopefully Madison WI can avoid being sacrificed to the mobs a la Ferguson.

As a parting thought:  Why is it that these events are never described by the headline: “WI Police Officer Successfully Saves His Own Life From Vicious Criminal Attack”?

Things that make you go, hmmmm.

–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense


NEW! The Law of Self Defense proudly announces the launch of it’s online, on-demand state-specific Law of Self Defense Online Training.  These are interactive, online versions of the authoritative 5-hour-long state-specific Law of Self Defense Seminars that we give all over the country, but from the convenience of your laptop, tablet, or smartphone, and on your own schedule.  Click over for more information on our state-specific Law of Self Defense Online Training, and get access to the ~30 minute Section 1. Introduction for free.

Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog (autographed copies available) and Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle). He also holds Law of Self Defense Seminars around the country, and provides free online self-defense law video lectures at the Law of Self Defense Institute and podcasts through iTunes, Stitcher, and elsewhere.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.

Comments

Is it too cold/too much snow for the sympathizers to come out and get their loot protest?

“…remorse and contrition at his loss…”?

WTF? Don’t the patrolman’s representatives have something to say about THAT premature ejaculation?

Remorse (as in “sadness”) might be felt for the fact that any 19-year-old life had to be violently ended.

But CONTRITION is a word loaded with guilt.

Coupla questions for further development…

1. was Robins, in fact, “unarmed”, or was the LEO hit with something used as a weapon?

2. where are the photos of the LEO after-action? (I know…very early days)

3. who witnessed the shooting, and where did it occur? Stranger’s dwelling? Robins’ bud’s place? Who?

    Not A Member of Any Organized Political in reply to Ragspierre. | March 8, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    Sounds like an Obama plant doesn’t it.

    donb in reply to Ragspierre. | March 8, 2015 at 6:38 pm

    Rags, “unarmed” is a euphemism — it means that the people involved were asymmetrically armed, defined as the “unarmed” person’s armaments either (a) did not include a firearm, or (b) included a firearm of lesser caliber or magazine capacity. Either way, it makes the LEO’s response “disproportionate.”

    (And, of course, it is “unfair” for a defender, be it a law enforcement officer or a middle eastern democracy, to use a “disproportionate response” in protecting the lives of innocent citizens.)

Char Char Binks | March 8, 2015 at 4:06 pm

I live in Madison, and all the libs and lefties (including my friends, actually) are lamenting the death of this poor, nonviolent, unarmed black teenage armed robber. They’re just making a show of it. Robinson’s black life apparently didn’t matter much to himself when he was dodging traffic and punching an armed man.

Where are the Revs Al, Jessie and Calypso Louie? This is a made for TV event for them to grab some more shakedown money. Oh that is right, it is too cold and snowy for these erstwhile self-aggrandizing charlatans to make any appearances. Besides Michigan is not considered a major media market, unless there is a perceived corrupt Republican politician involved.

smalltownoklahoman | March 8, 2015 at 4:18 pm

I just hope there are no riots like there were in Ferguson.

He was a good boy.

‘Cept when he was robbin’ and breakin’ into houses n’ stuff.

But that was to pay for his tuition at school. Honest.

I’m not lying. He was a gentleman and a scholar.

For sure. Really. I mean that. Truly. Why would I lie?

the Police need to start shooting White people. Maybe then things will calm down.

/s

This sort of misinformation is to be expected from NBC. MSNBC and NBC are two different brands for what is essentially the same news organization.

What happened with Zimmerman’s lawsuit against NBC and the charges of prosecutorial misconduct for withholding the cell phone information? The last I heard was that Judge Nelson ruled against Zimmerman on the lawsuit.

    Gremlin1974 in reply to nebel. | March 9, 2015 at 5:05 pm

    I was really hoping George would file and appeal for his Lawsuit against NBC, but I am betting he is just plain out of money.

Another alternate headline, ” Teen felon plays deadly game and wins deadly prize.”

    Nicely done. 🙂

    –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

      I’ve been reading the articles you’ve written since the beginning of the “White Hispanic” fiasco. I enjoy the truthful alternate headline to the intentional conflation that usually leads the fish wraps. Btw, really enjoy yours and the rest of LI’s contributors writing. Thank you!

Scott Walker’s fault…

darkknight3565 | March 8, 2015 at 5:25 pm

Whatever crime or crimes he may have committed a day before or a month before or a year before the incident is irrelevant to the question of whether the actual shooting was justified. And if he was unarmed, and was not an immediate threat to the lives of others, he should not have been fatally shot. That’s the bottom line.

Striking an officer does not automatically mean he was putting the officer’s life in jeopardy, or that he could not have been subdued by the multiple officers at the scene – all armed with TAZERS, most likely.

The threat he was posing to the officer at the time he was shot dead is the question that should be before us – not what’s on his Facebook page, what songs he listened to, or what was his past criminal history.

    Oofah. Maybe you could ask somebody to explain the point of the post to you. No offense, just hate to see you wast time like that. 🙂

    –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

      gregjgrose in reply to Andrew Branca. | March 8, 2015 at 5:53 pm

      Oh, heck, I’ll give it one try… (Fools rush in)

      The threat he was posing to the officer at the time he was shot dead is the question that should be before us

      Exactly. So what do his tender age, his good looks, his educational goals, the opinions of his near and dear on his overwhelming dearness, their pain at his death, etc. have to do with that question?

    jakee308 in reply to darkknight3565. | March 8, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    what you say is all true however, what we’re commenting on is the instant narrative pushed by the Media and taken up by the Grievance Squad as fact.

    In support of this they try to cast the victim as a victim always and never ever having been otherwise.

    Now it’s true what someone does today should not influence how they are treated tomorrow however the reality is that past behavior IS a indicator of future results.

    The odds are that felony perpetrators yesterday will more than likely have an adversarial attitude towards law enforcement today. We know they have a very soft attitude towards crime and therefore will be indignant if someone (LE) makes it likely they will have to pay for that attitude.

    Thus a thug convicted of being a thug in the recent past is more likely to be acting as a thug NOW than not.

    You know the story of the Frog and the Scorpion, right?

    Well then.

    Gremlin1974 in reply to darkknight3565. | March 8, 2015 at 6:04 pm

    “Whatever crime or crimes he may have committed a day before or a month before or a year before the incident is irrelevant to the question of whether the actual shooting was justified.”

    Except that isn’t what the article was about, it was about the media false narrative the keeps being produced in these situations. At no time did Andrew even remotely imply that because of his past the shooting was justified.

    “And if he was unarmed”

    So you don’t believe that an unarmed person can pose a threat of Death or Great bodily harm?

    “and was not an immediate threat to the lives of others”

    Please define if you include the police officer in “lives of others?

    “Striking an officer does not automatically mean he was putting the officer’s life in jeopardy,”

    You might be right except for the fact that we know he struck the officer in the head hard enough to knock him down. I can tell you as a Nurse and Martial Artist that a blow to the head from a closed fist can be deadly and/or cause severe traumatic injury.

    “or that he could not have been subdued by the multiple officers at the scene – all armed with TAZERS, most likely.”

    Funny, I haven’t seen a thing that leads me to believe that there were multiple officers on the scene when this young man was shot, please provide a link to the evidence of there being multiple officers.

    “The threat he was posing to the officer at the time he was shot dead is the question that should be before us – not what’s on his Facebook page, what songs he listened to, or what was his past criminal history.”

    Incorrect, because all of those things can be used to give you a picture of his attitude and credibility. I bet you would be all in favor of looking at those things if he had a clean record and only talked about his church activities on facebook. Not sure where you got the music thing from, but whatever.

    Basically you are wrong in every way possible. Have a nice day.

      Ragspierre in reply to Gremlin1974. | March 8, 2015 at 6:08 pm

      Just FYI, I hold in suspension any investment in the officer’s claim to having been struck so hard he fell to the floor.

      We’ll see…

        Gremlin1974 in reply to Ragspierre. | March 8, 2015 at 7:52 pm

        I agree. Most likely it was a combination of the blow, the cops motion, and the altercation that caused him to end up on the ground. The times when someone is literally “pole axed” to the ground a few and far between.

        pst314 in reply to Ragspierre. | March 9, 2015 at 9:51 am

        Okay, maybe it wasn’t merely that the officer was struck so hard that he fell, but that his posture at the moment he was struck made him more vulnerable to falling.
        But nonetheless: The perp struck him, and then leapt upon him to continue the assault.
        So: From what he know so far the officer was fully justified in regarding this as an attack severe enough to warrant the use of deadly force. And given the perp’s criminal history I will not weep for him.

        Elliott in reply to Ragspierre. | March 9, 2015 at 10:34 am

        There appears to be a substantial size and age disparity. I would say due to that, plus the probability of drugs/alcohol in the deceased’s system as evidenced by his running into moving traffic and trying to choke people, that the possibility of knocking over a middle aged much smaller cop is perhaps greater than first appears.

      MouseTheLuckyDog in reply to Gremlin1974. | March 8, 2015 at 7:41 pm

      You might be right except for the fact that we know he struck the officer in the head hard enough to knock him down. I can tell you as a Nurse and Martial Artist that a blow to the head from a closed fist can be deadly and/or cause severe traumatic injury.

      Just ask Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini. I was watching it on TV at the time. Still freaks me out.

    Ragspierre in reply to darkknight3565. | March 8, 2015 at 6:06 pm

    “…or that he could not have been subdued by the multiple officers at the scene – all armed with TAZERS, most likely.”

    That is intelligence none of us here have. If you have support for that, put it up, please.

    Or did that just get pulled from the archives of your ass?

    I live in a country where most citizens do not own a gun. Even so, there are many murders. Over the weekend a woman was murdered in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta… her attacker used a knife on her.

    There are many other instances where people have been killed by attackers using only their fists. One such person killed in this manner was a former cricketer. His death occurred in Melbourne. In Sydney there have been several incidents involved people dying because they have been king hit by someone using just their fists.

    The fists are a very lethal weapon. Lots and lots of people either die or end up with serious injury because someone has used their fists.

    Knives are also a very lethal weapon. I have heard of many murders where knives are the murder weapon.

    The “unarmed” meme is getting tiresome indeed. These people are not unarmed if they have used their fists on the other person in the first instance.

    Once again we are left with an unanswered question” did Robinson try to grab the cop’s gun before he was shot? What was the distance between the cop and Robinson when the cop used his weapon? Until these questions are answered, then we do not have sufficient facts about this case.

      In close quarters knives scare me far more than do guns.

      And I’ve been rather extensively (and, being a civilian, expensively at my own cost) trained in the use of, and defense against, both.

      –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

        Gremlin1974 in reply to Andrew Branca. | March 8, 2015 at 7:46 pm

        Amen to that Andrew.

        I have seen my share of knife wounds in the past 20 years and they can be just as deadly as gun shot wounds, especially penetrating stab wounds, which can be hard to spot when you are treating a person. (Treated a guy with multiple stabs from an ice pick several years ago, every time we would plug one up we would find another. Remarkably he made it.)

          Very common with a penetrating stab wound to the chest, the victim believes he’s merely been punched, but in fact major cardiac and/or pulmonary vessels damaged, he runs a few yards, maybe a block, gets dizzy, falls over, dead.

          Of course, he was mortally wounded with the first “punch.”

          I frankly think it’s harder for most thugs to hit the same mark with a handgun as they can with a hand held blade.

          Slashing blade attacks are themselves less frequently immediately lethal, unless they hit a particular half-dozen or so spots on the body, but they do tend to be debilitating, leaving the victim subject to further, more thorough, attack.

          –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

        randian in reply to Andrew Branca. | March 9, 2015 at 2:12 am

        My understanding is that knife attacks are more likely to be lethal than being shot by a gun. They are also much more likely to inflict severe disfigurement upon the victim. So yeah, I’d be more scared of knives too.

          Gremlin1974 in reply to randian. | March 9, 2015 at 5:13 pm

          That used to be an accepted fact in the ER, I don’t know if anyone ever bothered to prove it scientifically. Though with today’s high grade ammo I would be more inclined to lean towards gunshots being the more deadly.

          Though Andrew brought up a valid point is that thugs are probably more likely to hit a vital area in close with a knife than they might be with a gun.

          What scares me the most about a knife is that with slashing attacks you can disable a limb very quickly, and if that limb is is the shooting hand, well I don’t think I have to take that one any further.

          I had a knife defense instructor tell me once that the main thing about being in a knife fight is that you have to accept the fact that you are going to get cut, even if you win in the end. That way if you make it out uninjured you can feel especially lucky and mark off one of your 9 lives. 🙂

          Handgun ammo, especially in the smaller 9mm category, is vastly superior than 20 years ago.

          Were I choosing a concealed carry pistol today, it would almost be a 9mm. But I’m old, so I’ll likely stick with what’s worked for me the last 25 years or so.

          In any case, caliber is way, WAY down the list of what decides the outcome of a prospectively life threatening violent encounter. Even once you get past situational awareness and avoidance, caliber only matters if you can hit something that will stop the fight. That’s roughly a fist-sized space over the center chest, or an equivalent space over the tip of the nose.

          I’ve enjoyed many enjoyable dinners and drinks with governmental interrogators who tell me they’ve often “interviewed” folks who’ve been shot 5, 10, 15 times, even more, who have survived for questioning.

          But they’ve never “interviewed” anybody who has been struck in that fist sized space center chest or centered on the nose by a penetrating round, even handgun.

          Never.

          THOSE folks don’t make it to questioning.

          –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

      MouseTheLuckyDog in reply to Aussie. | March 8, 2015 at 7:35 pm

      I live in a country where most citizens do not own a gun. Even so, there are many murders.

      Knives are also a very lethal weapon. I have heard of many murders where knives are the murder weapon.

      Yeah but you guys down there have some pretty big knives. I’ve seen Crocodile Dundee.

      pst314 in reply to Aussie. | March 9, 2015 at 10:28 am

      Here in St. Louis, MO, USA, a sixty-year-old Vietnamese grocer was murdered with a blow to the head by “urban youths” playing the “knockout game”. (For people living outside the United States, the “knockout game”, aka “polar bear hunting”, is recreational violence by blacks against non-black–usually whites and Asians.)

    Sanddog in reply to darkknight3565. | March 8, 2015 at 7:28 pm

    Here’s the reality, cupcake…. a violent piece of crap attacked a police officer by hitting him on the head and knocking him to the ground. He then jumped on the officer, presumably to finish the job. The officer is now vulnerable to having his firearm, taser, pepper spray or baton taken from him and used against him and others. The violent piece of crap is now dead BECAUSE he made himself a lethal threat to the police officer and everyone around him.

    As long as there is a coroner’s report in the country that lists “blow from fists/feet” as cause of death, lethal force is an absolutely appropriate response.

    No one is required to see how many punches they can take without being killed or crippled.

If Tony Robinson had been sentenced to a year or more in jail for the serious crime of armed robbery, he’d still be alive. Instead, the system taught him he there were no serious consequences for behaving like a thug — up till the time he made a cop fear for his life, and then the consequences were lethal.

The system does bear considerable responsibility for Tony Robinson’s death. But not the parts of the system that his parents are blaming.

    Ragspierre in reply to ecreegan. | March 8, 2015 at 6:18 pm

    Very true.

    Conversely, though, Robinson took a plea bargain, by all indications. Suppose this was one of the myriad pleas that are made by truly innocent people, just for the sake of argument. We know those are common enough that they are a national disgrace. Glenn Reynolds often deplores them at InstaPundit.

    Now, THAT is speculation on my part, based only on the few clues the accounts offer. I hope to be able to sketch in the details are our faithful Andrew continues his illumination. The kid could have been guilty as sin, and should have been put away for at least a while.

      Gremlin1974 in reply to Ragspierre. | March 8, 2015 at 7:48 pm

      I would love to believe that this didn’t happen, but I know it does and I agree it is sad.

      Plea bargains are as inherently a part of our modern criminal justice system as spark plugs are to an internal combustion engine.

      Sure, it’s possible to do an equivalent job without them–look at diesel engines–but it would take a total restructuring of the criminal justice infrastructure.

      Not to suggest that wouldn’t be a good thing. But it would be hard to do.

      –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

        Ragspierre in reply to Andrew Branca. | March 8, 2015 at 11:04 pm

        Just as an aside (I agree with your observation) plea bargains and over-charging go hand-in-glove with a lot of prosecutors.

        That would seem to be something we could address without too much strum und drang.

      MouseTheLuckyDog in reply to Ragspierre. | March 8, 2015 at 9:17 pm

      Conversely, though, Robinson took a plea bargain, by all indications.

      I don’t know if he took a plea, but the reports are that the judge “stayed a six month sentence” and put him on probabtion.

      Which means that if he kept clean, the whole conviction would go away. If he got convicted of something else though…

      So if the cop had manged to catch him he was facing six months. All the more reason for Robinson to do anything to evade capture.

I read some other information about the late Tony Robinson, something along the lines that he was spaced out on Ice.

The police officer was taken to hospital due to his “wounds” from what I understand.

It sounds to me like it was a very violent confrontation and we do not know all the facts. The Australian media are folling the NBC line and are leaving out some very relevant facts about Robinson.

The question on my mind is: was it the Trayvon Martin vs Zimmerman scenario or was it more like the Michael Brown scenario? Will just have to wait for all of the facts to emerge.

    Just as an aside, the officer being taken to the hospital does not, of itself, mean much.

    I advise all my clients that if they are involved in ANY kind of defensive force incident to always request both police and medical response from 911, and then request personal examination by a physician (e.g., be taken to the hospital) when the medical folks appear on scene. (Under US law the police are required to facilitate such a request.)

    There are several reasons for this, the most pragmatic of which is that in the maelstrom that is personal combat it is entirely possible to be quite seriously injured and have no idea that you’ve suffered any injury whatever. And I speak from personal experience.

    Also, it’s very common for older folks (meaning my age and greater) to survive an existential attack only to suffer a heart attack some hours later as an after affect of the stress of the event. Best to do that, if one must, at a hospital.

    –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

MouseTheLuckyDog | March 8, 2015 at 7:55 pm

Child Tony was a Daddy!

Apparently a woman successfully sued him for paternity.

    Char Char Binks in reply to MouseTheLuckyDog. | March 8, 2015 at 8:10 pm

    They start so young! Apparently, women really go for thugs.

      Uncle Samuel in reply to Char Char Binks. | March 8, 2015 at 10:40 pm

      This youthful paternity/maternity thing is a cultural characteristic of black society…and has been since I was a girl (a long, long time ago). It increased dramatically after Lyndon Johnson put everyone who had an illegitimate baby on welfare. The more babies, the bigger the check every month, so…

        Miller in reply to Uncle Samuel. | March 9, 2015 at 8:18 am

        This youthful paternity/maternity thing is a cultural characteristic of black society

        Margaret Sanger is that you?

        Miller in reply to Uncle Samuel. | March 9, 2015 at 8:19 am

        This youthful paternity/maternity thing is a cultural characteristic of black society

        cough*BristolPalin*cough

          Casey in reply to Miller. | March 9, 2015 at 3:11 pm

          That’s “cultural characteristic,” not “isolated incident.” And where did you think the terms “baby daddy” and “baby momma” came from in the first place?

          For over 40 years we’ve been told not to judge. Maybe we should apply more social pressure on single and/or teen parents, and less on the consumption of salt, sugar, and cigarettes.

What a shame. There were a lot of people depending on 00624839. Jail and prison guards, criminal defense attorneys, court staff…. on and on. The economic loss to people involved in the whole criminal justice industry is significant.

On the bright side, I guess the race hustlers, classically trained professional journalists, supporters of any and all leftwing causes that can attach themselves to the narrative will prosper.

The only thing that would stop the narrative is if someone finds out 00624839 was registered as a Republican. Then he wouldn’t be a part of their tribe.

So the bottom line of this post is this? The Media is full of shite????? And the family lies??? And their personal rep lawyer (sic) shows up to advocate for them? And the dead guy upon further investigation turns out to be a scumbag? ETC. Wow!!! I would never have thought that possible in these days and times. 😀 😀 😀 LOL LOL

I wonder if these “Journalist” even take a moment to realize that race might, just might not be an issue? I mean even the headline “Officer shoots fleeing suspect.” is more objective than the ones they usually use. The thought of objectivity in Journalism is just dead, i guess.

    Barry in reply to Gremlin1974. | March 9, 2015 at 1:32 am

    It’s not journalism. It’s rabid left wing propaganda and virtually all the main stream “news” organizations are staffed by radical communists that call their selves “progressives”.

No matter how your kids dies. Who’s first thought is, “let’s hire a PR guy and flood the media”?

White kids stuck by cars, or dying of Oxy overdoeses. Asian kids who drown. Hispanic kids who die in knife fights due to gang warfare. Black kids shot by other black kids.

You love your kid no matter what. You would be destroyed by their death. Whether your kid was an angel, or a devil, or somewhere in between like a lot of kids are. Your kid is your life, your kid dies, your life goes into suspended animation til you get your breath back. It’s got to be a body blow, if your kid is really your life like that.

But who signs up lawyers and PR reps and organizes protests and all, before their kid’s body is even cold. And does all the media appearances and shines in the media like they’re America’s Next Top Model. Who DOES that.

    Ragspierre in reply to Miller. | March 9, 2015 at 1:21 pm

    A BIG part of the answer to your question is that NOBODY does that quite that way.

    If you needed to get hold of a PR firm, would you know how?

    The deal is that the PR firm, lawyers, and riot planners will CONTACT YOU. They are waiting for ANYTHING they can pounce on. It’s their “business model”.

    Same-same with gun grabbing activists. The bodies of notorious killings will not be cold before they start contacting the families and neighbors of the victims.

Regarding the Chinese characters in Robihnson’s Twitter account:

青龍 translates to “Green Dragon”

The Liberal mainstream media pandering to minority interests and selling anti-gun rhetoric?
Say it ain’t so!

‘Hopefully Madison WI can avoid being sacrificed to the mobs a la Ferguson.’ Why?

    I dislike seeing small business owners with no responsibility for events being burned out fo the their livelihoods.

    –Andrew, @LawSelfDefense

    Char Char Binks in reply to Maudie. | March 9, 2015 at 6:03 pm

    It’s a good place to live, and I it is where I live. I happen to live far from the madding crowd gathered downtown, but it’s generally a nice place, including the neighborhood where Robinson got shot. We have a relatively small problem with thugs, and a much bigger problem with the lefties who love them, and with bored college, and high school, students who itch for something to protest — all the cool kids are doing it!

      I’ve only been to Madison a few times, first visiting a friend who was in college there, and then about a year and a half ago for her wedding. It struck me as a really nice, friendly place. My friend went sort of soft-left when she was at UW Madison, did some kind of casual protests “because everyone”, but after about a year with a real job she was back to the conservatism she grew up with. Now, with a husband and baby, even more so.

      Hoping it doesn’t get too crazy up there for y’all. It sure didn’t seem the kind of place where a Ferguson could spark; God willing it won’t.

If they are calling him a “teen” or a “youth”, aren’t they violating the hallowed AP Stylebook? The same way they did with Michael Brown?

The Associated Press Stylebook states that in reports referring to a person’s age, the figure for the age number should be used. It also states that reports should “use man or woman for individuals 18 and older.”

18 and 19 year old men are men. I spend a fair bit of time out by NAS Jax. In the military you see 18 and 19 year old men and women all the time. In fact if you wanted to pull the race card, you could claim that to call a 19-year-old black man a “youth” or a “teen” is really only a coded way to call a black male adult “boy”.

Putting aside the “optics” of how the police may or may not come out in this one, I’m happy to look at the “optics” of the MSM calling a black man the pretty 21st-century equivalent of “boy”. And yeah, that’s not so pretty.

I hope the officer was using a camera.

    For what it’s worth, the guy this cop shot was not armed with a knife. I’ve not seen anyone claiming that he was.

    Also, that photo you claim is the result of “what a man armed with only a knife did to a cop armed with a gun” is all over the internet in all sorts of contexts. It’s no doubt a photo of a man with knife wounds, and there’s no doubt that knives are deadly weapons that people (not just cops) have the right to protect themselves against with deadly force if necessary, but what evidence do you have that the man pictured was “a cop armed with a gun” who was attacked by “a man armed only with a knife”?

Frankly, I think Officer Matt Kenny should have waited for backup prior to rushing into Tony’s apartment. Not doing so, he put his own life in harms way and yes he killed Tony. There really was no imminent danger to the general public from this kid since he was in his apartment, so a rushed response where Kenny had to go solo was unnecessary and now raises questions about Kenny’s decision making ability.

Also, Madison city policy on taser use prohibits cops from tasing if they do not have a lethal backup (i.e. another cop holding a gun against the assailant), I guess for safety reasons of the cop.. understandable.

In light of the above policy, it becomes particularly incumbent upon Kenny to have waited for backup so that in the event of a tussle, he could have used a less lethal taser.

Yes, Tony could have complied, but Kenny could have gone with backup so as to increase the probability of such compliance from the assailant. Tony would have been less likely to attack Matt, if he was OUTNUMBERED.

    Char Char Binks in reply to inyourface. | March 11, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    Kenny was in hot pursuit of a felon, and he also heard a disturbance in the apartment. I don’t know if it was Robinson’s apt. or not, but that he heard a disturbance implies that there was at least one other person in it (I don’t know for sure, and I don’t know if Kenny knew for sure), and that that person was potentially in danger, so he HAD TO GO IN RIGHT THEN, not wait for backup, if for no other than to protect whoever was there with Anthony “Strangler” Robinson.