About 15 people, some armed, confronted the wrong black teen. Now an officer is fired
I find it telling that often in incidents like this, people call for calm if the act happens to a black community member. That we should all relax and let the authorities take charge.
A girl goes missing and armed mobs come to people's houses. Where are the calls for calm there? A group of people perceived a slight and God damn it, they were going to get answers. When a slight happens to the black community, allow the slow wheels of justice to turn as they may. A woman calls for a mob to get off her porch because they have no business there and they don't leave? Hard to arrest anyone as the sheriff says.
And again. As they things mount, others want to consider them one offs or anomalies. But this is every day life for others.
Some good news, though. The girl was found. She supposedly simply ran away. Why they needs an armed group of 15, I don't know.A North Carolina corrections officer is out of a job and facing charges after he and about 15 other people, some armed, harassed a black teenager they mistakenly believed was involved in a girl's disappearance, the teen's attorney said.
Jordan Kita is charged with forcible trespass, breaking and entering and willful failure to discharge duties, New Hanover and Pender County District Attorney Ben David said last week.
Kita, who the teen's family says wedged his foot in the door when 18-year-old Dameon Shepard and his mother tried to close it, committed the crimes "while armed and in uniform in a county that he was not duly sworn in and in furtherance of personal not law enforcement purposes," the prosecutor said.
Pender County resident Austin Wood, who is accused of carrying a gun in the mob, is charged with going armed to the terror of the public, the police said.
The New Hanover County Sheriff Ed McMahon fired Kita, he said in a statement that David read to reporters.
I find it telling that often in incidents like this, people call for calm if the act happens to a black community member. That we should all relax and let the authorities take charge.
A girl goes missing and armed mobs come to people's houses. Where are the calls for calm there? A group of people perceived a slight and God damn it, they were going to get answers. When a slight happens to the black community, allow the slow wheels of justice to turn as they may. A woman calls for a mob to get off her porch because they have no business there and they don't leave? Hard to arrest anyone as the sheriff says.
And again. As they things mount, others want to consider them one offs or anomalies. But this is every day life for others.