Sometimes I’ll draw a cartoon knowing full well most of my clients won’t run it. OK, it’s more than sometimes I do that. But sometimes, you have to say something others are afraid to.
Usually, when a cop does something that outrageous America and the police have to actually accept what that cop did was wrong, they like to refer to him as a bad apple. But it’s not individual cops that are the root of the problem of systemic racism among the nation’s police departments.
When a black CNN reporter was arrested for doing his job in Minneapolis, the arresting police department issued a statement saying they couldn’t verify his credentials. Never mind the fact he had his credentials on him, there was a camera crew with him, and he was live on the air when they arrested him. It was not a “bad apple” that issued that lying statement. It was the entire department.
When a Buffalo cop shoved an old man to the ground, cracking his head open, the cop was punished. Fifty seven other cops resigned from that volunteer task force in protest of the punishment. That was not one “bad apple.” It was 58.
When cops murdered George Floyd, it wasn’t one cop who refused to arrest them for an entire week. It was the department.
Today, it’s the Kenosha Police Department that’s still refusing to arrest the cop who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times in front of his children.
It’s the Kenosha police union, not one cop, saying Blake had a knife, justifying being shot in the back seven times. A knife on the floorboard on the passenger side of his car…when he was shot seven times in the back on the outside of the driver’s side of his car.
It’s the Kenosha police union, not one cop, arguing Blake was a bad man and a wanted fugitive, as though that justifies being shot in the back seven times.
It’s the Kenosha police who decided Jacob Blake was such a danger to society, even though he was handicapped from the waist down from being shot seven times in the back by a cop, that he needed to be shackled to his hospital bed.
It was the Kenosha police who tossed water bottles to armed militia men patrolling their streets, pretending they were there to protect businesses. It was the Kenosha police who thanked these militia men even though their chief said they weren’t wanted.
It was Kenosha police who thanked and gave water to a white 17-year-old out-of-state vigilante.
It was Kenosha police who decided to drive past that white 17-year-old out-of-state vigilante after he had shot three people and killed two of them. It was Kenosha police who decided to let him go without question despite bystanders screaming at them that the white 17-year-old out-of-state vigilante had just murdered someone.
It was the chief of police who defended that murdering white 17-year-old out-of-state vigilante by saying he was “resolving” a problem.
It’s a white president refusing to say anything critical about that murdering white 17-year-old out-of-state vigilante while he continues to call peaceful protesters “terrorists.”
It’s white Trump supporters and Fox News glorifying and defending that murdering white 17-year-old out-of-state vigilante.
It’s white Trump supporters and Fox News glorifying and defending a terrorist.
The Kenosha Police Department has a LOT of explaining to do. America’s police departments have a LOT of explaining to do.
And in honor of Chadwick Boseman, Wakanda forever!
Tip Jar: This pandemic is hitting everyone, including your favorite goofy cartoonist. I have lost clients and I’m afraid I might lose more. The PayPal button has always been included here for those who can and want to voluntarily support what I do. I understand this time is hard on everyone. If you can’t, don’t contribute. Take care of yourself and your family first. But, all and any help is greatly appreciated and it helps keep me going. Think of me like a street performer busking out tunes on a corner (I won’t play “Wonderwall.” I promise). If you like the tune, or in this case, toon, throw a buck into the tip jar. It’ll help me play another song, draw another toon, write another blog, make another video, and post another snarky post on social media. It’ll help keep me alive. You can also order a signed print for $40. And if you don’t like the PayPal option, you can snail mail it to my P.O. Box.
You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.
New Book: Tales From the Trumpster Fire
Watch me draw.
claytoonz 
“t was Kenosha police who decided to drive past that white 17-year-old out-of-state vigilante after he had shot three people and killed two of them.”
Actually,
1) it was National Guard trucks that passed him by;
2) the people inside those trucks didn’t know this guy in the street with his hands up had shot someone just a few minutes previously (you can hear the loudspeaker from one truck telling him to ‘get out of the street’);
3) the people IN those trucks most likely did NOT hear anyone shouting about Rittenhouse having shot someone. These trucks seem to be like tanks, and are probably pretty soundproof.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have to take issue with this. Watch the video. They had blue lights. But even if they weren’t police, there were cops there too in the cars. Go watch the video again. It was a police car he walked up to close enough he could have touched the window.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“It was a police car he walked up to close enough he could have touched the window.”
But . . . did they already KNOW he was the one who shot someone? With all that chaos, did the dispatcher already know and tell the cops in the car? [And would they ever ADMIT to this? Their knowing/not knowing he had just shot two people would make a difference in how complicit they were/were not.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
And if it was a black person with that rifle they would have stopped to either tackled and beat the shit out of him and drag him to jail, or shot him dead where he stood.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And they ignored people POINTING and clearly calling and yelling? You don’t have to hear that. And just where were they going, and according to whose directions? Whoever it was, in several vehicles, they were not responding to the immediate situation.
LikeLike
You are absolutely correct, Clay. Kenosha is a mess right now. My son lives there with his wife and his two beautiful daughters – – – my granddaughters. It scares the hell out of me. How others can treat fellow HUMAN BEINGS like that is beyond reasoning. Trump, as PresiDUMP, (spelling intended) makes it all a million times worse. How anyone with any brains could vote for that psychopath is unfathomable.
My motto: ‘Dump Trump!”
LikeLiked by 3 people
“Kenosha is a mess right now.”
My friends still living in Kenosha have sent videos that they’ve taken of the destruction; what you see on tv and YouTube is only part of the story. In one of the videos I saw, the narrator mentioned that insurance will not cover damage from ‘civil unrest’, so anyone (and I suspect many) who set their own places on fire for the insurance may have a BIGLY surprise coming when they make a claim.
Case in point: The car dealership whose 50 cars were burnt, is claiming $1.5 million . . . now, I passed by this dealership twice a day for 25 years, plus random times before I began working in that neighborhood, and I can tell you . . . unless all his cars were Mercedes Benzes or Lexuses (to quote my BIL, who is a retired used car dealer), there is NO WAY those cars (and the building used as an office) were worth $1.5 million. They were JUNK CARS, being sold in that area to attract those living there who could not afford anything better and/or had no credit rating. There will be a lot of insurance investigators combing through the wreckage of EVERY building destroyed, I’m sure
Another case in point: The Danish Brotherhood BLEW UP. Hmmmm . . . did someone open the gas outlets (or whatever they’re called), and hope for the best? The building is old and hasn’t been able to be rented out for parties, weddings, etc., since February. Losing business, much?
OK, call me a cynic. I call me a realist.
Unfortunately, as with ALL the violence and destruction, this will ALL be blamed on . . . wait for it . . . the protesters. It’s so much easier to find just ONE scapegoat than it is to sift through the facts and put the blame on whom it belongs.
[Hubby told me he read that a Kenosha alderman actually called for help from outsiders on a Facebook page, but hasn’t been able to find it to show me, so this couldn’t be verified. It was probably removed immediately after the vigilantes started running amok.]
A video I watched showed National Guards protecting the Dinosaur Museum, but not ONE guarding Reuther Central High School [the building I worked in for 25+ years] . . . who knew that dinosaurs were SO IMPORTANT, but a school wasn’t. [The four buildings surrounding Civic Center Park are: Kenosha County Courthouse on the north, Kenosha Dinosaur Museum on the west, Reuther Central High School on the south, and US Post Office on the east.]
LikeLiked by 2 people
In their defence, the school can be replaced. The dinosaurs not so much.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Who needs the dinosaurs, except that they are monuments to the dinosaurian thinking rampant in the Repuglygarbagecan Party.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
There’s plenty to answer for … “The Kenosha Police Department has a LOT of explaining to do. America’s police departments have a LOT of explaining to do.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
well said. it’s an institutional issue. they let the bad apples in, nurtured them, and they spoiled the whole bunch. I don’t want these type of folks running around with badges. Hell, I’m white and I don’t wanna leave my house because of these folks. Granted, in Texas we’re not in the hotbed of stuff here, but I’m in the middle of Dump country and had to spend weeks talking myself into putting a little 2×3″ Joe 2020 sticker on my car. I actually had to tell myself to put it on the bottom passenger side of the back window in case some bunghole decided to break my window or scratch the hell out of it or shoot it.
I said even before Dump got elected that I wasn’t afraid of any foreign terrorist coming in from the border or anywhere else, but my neighbors scared me far more with their vitriol. That goes double today. You know there’re gonna be some folks that will feel emboldened by what happened with that kid and wanna do the same thing. And let’s face it, most everybody’s pretty well armed down here… especially the Dump flag wavers in their big ol’ pickup trucks.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“In their defence, the school can be replaced. The dinosaurs not so much.”
There are NO real dinosaurs in there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“There are NO real dinosaurs in there.”
Darn right… they are all in the GOPOCRITE COVERUPUBLICAN State Legislature.
LikeLike
It is sickening.
Becky Gottsegen
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s more than just sickening . . . . . It’s lethal.
LikeLiked by 1 person