‘Just to confirm: self-inflicted?’ a police dispatcher asks, to which a voice replies, ‘Self-inflicted’

After fatally shooting an unarmed Black woman who called 911 to report what she thought was a prowler outside her Illinois home, police claimed her death was in fact self-inflicted, according to the victim’s family and dispatch audio from the incident.

Police at first told hospital staff that Sonya Massey, 36, had died by suicide, Jimmie Crawford Jr., the father of Massey’s daughter, said Tuesday at a press conference organized by civil rights attorney Ben Crump. At the same time, officers told Crawford that a neighbor had been responsible for Massey’s killing, he said. Massey’s son said police told him that his mother “had been shot in the eye and it came out her neck.”

“They didn’t tell me who,” Malachi Hill Massey, 17, said on Tuesday. “They were just saying [it was] ‘somebody.’”

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Murder was in fact a fairly uncommon event in Ankh-Morpork, but there were a lot of suicides. Walking in the night-time alleyways of The Shades was suicide. Asking for a short in a dwarf bar was suicide. Saying ‘Got rocks in your head?’ to a troll was suicide. You could commit suicide very easily, if you weren’t careful.

    Sure, self-inflicted. Having the absolute gall to be black in front of a cop is really just suicide.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Calling the cops is what made it self-inflicted. If you’re white, they probably just shoot your dog. (No guarantees.)

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Seriously. This just happened.

        (For the record Edina has a somewhat posh shopping center. The kind of joints that charge 5x what the same chair costs at Hom furniture)

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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      4 months ago

      … he said, because he was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer last fall …

      Thinks he’s going to die. Wants to make sure he gets a chance to murder someone first.

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Not just black, but suffering mental illness. Not sure which is a bigger crime. Certain people will instantly dislike you because they sense something different about you.

    • jwiggler
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      4 months ago

      Always a relevant xkcd Terry Pratchett quote

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Look I had to find the video and confirm I heard it right the first time.

    The guys says “I’m going to fucking shoot you in the face”.

    He then shoots her in the face.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      “Your Honor, my client is an honest man, as is evidenced by his statement about face-shooting.”

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      He then refers to what he did as “a headshot.”

      Every article and everyone interviewed; and the prosecutor, judge, everyone at trial needs to constantly refer back to him missing twice. This trash human will never think he did the wrong thing, but this petty move will twist a satisfying dagger to his fragile ego.

      Headline: Officer completely misses two shots at point blank after being scared of woman holding water

      Prosecutor: Mr. Douchebag, is it true you’re in fact gay? DB: NOO!! Prosecutor: Ah, but what about your gay haircut? And the fact that you completely missed your first two shots?" (He’s probably afraid of being gay, too)

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I can’t write my honest opinion about that cop without breaking at least rules and probably some laws.

  • gwilikers@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    It’s sickening to see this time and again, particularly when the person who was murdered was the very one who called the police. Honestly, I think African-Americans would be safer with the kind of self-policing model we saw from groups like the Black Panthers.

    • SirDerpy@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’ve been to prison. You’re wrong to wish such torture upon anyone for any reason, no matter what they’ve done.

      You want him dead? Then give him a quick and merciful death. That’s punishment enough.

        • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The manner of death is for the living, not the person you want dead. It’s to remove that person from society and to take their life away. That’s literally the most you can do directly to that person. There’s nothing you can do to them afterwards that will mean anything to them.

          If you want to torture someone and then end their life, that’s also for the living. Your desire to inflict revenge, pain, suffering, and trauma on the perpetrator. Your need to see it done. Because once they’re dead they don’t care, every bit of pain you inflicted on them is gone, so the revenge is for you. You get to carry whatever…satisfaction…there is from that torture with you.

          So the answer isn’t that “a quick death is too good for some people”, it’s that it’s not good enough for you.

        • TheFlopster@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I agree with you that some people don’t deserve a quick death.

          But I don’t think it should be government sanctioned or within the prison system, because they get it wrong all the time, and the innocent suffer.

          • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            4 months ago

            I’m with you on that 100%. I don’t trust the government to make any decisions and the US prison system is already corrupt and abusive to begin with.

            But I think for example, a father that gets ahold of the rapist who kept his daughter in a basement for several years… He’s getting a free pass from me.

          • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Hold up…

            You’re wrong to wish such torture upon anyone for any reason, no matter what they’ve done.

            You should be raped and stabbed until you understand why you’re wrong.

              • Ookami38
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                4 months ago

                Because they’re still someone. You can’t take a hard line moralist approach and abandon it as soon as it’s inconvenient.

                No one should suffer these things, not the vilest of criminals, or the idiots who think they should.

                • Pfifel@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  I’m not saying I agree with him, but this is the parafox of tolerance. If you tolerate the intolerant, intolerance wins out and the tolerant are eliminated.