Black Friday 2023

On November 25, 2015, even before the increase in hate crimes that came with the Trump era, I did this cartoon for Black Friday. In the blog with the cartoon, I wrote about the case of 17-year-old LaQuan McDonald who was shot 16 times by a white Chicago cop. McDonald is dead. The officer who murdered him was sentenced to nearly seven years but served less than half of that after being released from prison last year.

Van Dyke’s argument for shooting McDonald was that he was in fear for his life because the teenager had a knife, but Van Dyke was with multiple officers when he shot the kid in the back with most of the bullets being delivered while the victim was on the ground.

Cop defenders love the bad apple argument. They claim it’s not indicative of all police and just one bad apple here, and one bad apple there, and another over there, and another… But there is a cop culture with this.

When CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and two colleagues were arrested in Minneapolis while covering the protests after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, it wasn’t a cop who lied about the arrest, it was the department.

The State Police tweeted that the journalists were among four people arrested as troopers were “clearing the streets and restoring order” following the protests and the CNN journalists “were released once they were confirmed to be members of the media.”

But the arrest was live on air and viewers could hear Jiminez, who is black, telling the cops, “Put us back where you want us. We are getting out of your way.” Jiminez’s press card could clearly be seen as he and his crew were telling the cops they were with CNN. Also, they were filming live. If those cops couldn’t tell they were journalists, then Minnesota needs to raise the requirements to be a police officer. The cops lied. And then the entire department lied trying to cover it up.

Also in 2020 during the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, two members of the Buffalo Police Department shoved 75-year-old Martin Gugino, a white peace activist, to the ground, giving him a brain injury. At least 12 cops walked past Gugino while he was bleeding from his head without checking on him. Despite the incident being aired on television, the Buffalo Police Department and police union claimed Gugino slipped. Donald Trump, who was president (sic) tweeted lies and conspiracy theories about Gugino. Even after the entire world knew the truth and even the department acknowledged it (without admitting they lied of course), the police union continued to claim the man tripped. That’s cop culture.

Cop culture includes lies and racism.

And there was Kyle Rittenhouse, an underage white kid who traveled out of state to defend his home, who was allowed to skulk around in front of cops with an assault rifle. Even after he shot three people, killing two, the cops just let him walk by. Later, a jury acquitted him in a tainted trial with a judge who restrained the prosecution repeatedly. Today, Kyle is a right-wing hero posing for photos at gun and goon conventions.

It’s not just cop culture that’s racist, it’s our justice system. Colin Kaepernick was blackballed by the NFL for protesting our nation’s systemic racism.

A lot of people are going to scream at me for this cartoon, but since the murder of LaQuan McDonald, there’s been the police killing of Tamir Rice, Natasha McKenna, Charley Keunang, Tony Robinson, Anthony Hill, Eric Harris, Walter, Scott, Freddie Gray, William Chapman, Jonathan, Sanders, Samuel Dubose, Christian Taylor, Bettie Jones, Keith Childress, Greg Gunn, Paul O’Neal, Sylville Smith, Terence Crutcher, Alfred Olango, Deaundre Phillips, Chad Robertson, Kenneth Johnson, Jordan Edwards, Eurie Martin, Stephon Clark, Marcus-David Peters, Antwon Rose Jr, Botham Jean, Robert Loggins, George Robinson, Javier Ambler, Ronald Greene, Elijah McClain, Manuel Ellis, Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, George Floyd, Julian Edward Roosevelt Lewis, Marcellis Stinnette, Andre Hill, Daunte Wright, Lyndani Myeni, Latoya James, Leneal Frazier, Michael Craig, Eldred Wells Sr, Quadry Sanders, Jason Walker, Patrick Lyoya, Jayland Walker, Roderick Brooks, Donovan Lewis, Maalik Roquemore, Immanueal Clark-Johnson, Joshua Leon Wright, Tyre Nichols, Alonzo Bagley, Timothy McCree Johnson, James Lanier, Irvo Otieno, Delaneo Martin, Jamarr Thompson, Jawan Dallas, Brandon Cole, Ahmad Abdullah, Tahmon Wilson, Ta’Kya Young (and her unborn baby), Dhal Pothwi, Lueth Mo, Leonard Cure, Darcel Edwards, and Vernard Toney Jr. Actually, this is a very tiny portion of a much larger list.

The rate of police shootings for Blacks from the time LaQuan McDonald was murdered to today is nearly six per one million. For Whites, it’s 2.3 per million. And factor in that Whites make up over 75 percent of this nation’s population while Blacks make up less than 14 percent.

So yeah, don’t scream at me for this cartoon. Scream at cops. Black lives still matter.

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