Cat Brooks is shocked, shocked by the shooting death of armed robber Jacob Harris, who violently invaded a fast-food burger joint in Phoenix, then held a gun to the head of an employee before making his getaway. When police tried to get Harris to stop, he led them on a high-speed chase before cops flash-grenaded his car, stopping it. Apparently still holding on to his gun, Jacobs attempted to run away, before one of the cops shot him in the back, killing him.
Here’s a video of that incident.
For Brooks, this is just another case of a poor, misunderstood Black youth (Harris was 19) being persecuted by systemic racism. She calls the case “the most egregious case of state-sponsored violence I’ve ever heard of.” We’re used to such hyperbole from Brooks. God forbid she should say anything critical about the monstrous nature of Harris’s predatory behavior. It wasn’t his fault he invaded that burger joint. It wasn’t his fault he scared the life out of the employee whose head he aimed the gun at. No, tt was systemic racism and White supremacy that drove him to it. It always is for Cat Brooks, who can never be bothered to criticize any act of violence committed by a Black person. Brooks traveled down to Phoenix to attend a “Justice For Jacob” rally, at which Harris’s father said (according to the local news), “There's no proof that his son had a weapon or was involved in the robbery.” No proof? How about two videos? But we’re used to the parents of Black men killed while committing violent crimes telling us that their kid was a saint who would never do that sort of thing. Cat Brooks traffics with these shameless deniers: they’re her constituency. She uses them, they use her, and maybe, both sides make a little money.
Cat Brooks would have more credibility were she to criticize Black crime. Just once, Ms. Brooks! Tell the truth about how awful it is that so many young Black men are growing up uneducated, barely able to read, worshipful of guns, addicted to crime and violence, convinced that the world owes them something they haven’t earned, and that if the world doesn’t give it to them, they’ll take it by force. They need to have that chip knocked off their shoulders. But Cat Brooks will never do it. She is the ultimate crime enabler in Oakland: by her refusal to rebuke crime, she celebrates and promotes it.
Now, each of us can decide for ourselves whether the cop’s action was warranted. I’ll let the justice system make that decision, and I’ll respect the outcome, whatever it is. But society is better off without the likes of Jacob Harris. Think of all the innocent people who would have been his victims had he lived to commit more crimes. By the way, on another but not unrelated topic, I applaud San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ decision not to charge that security officer with killing Banko Brown. Had this incident occurred in Alameda County, there’s no doubt that Pamela Price would have charged Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony with murder. How I wish Jenkins were our DA! Let Pamela Price continue her rampage against law and order. Eventually, voters will see her for what she is—a race-baiting grifter for crime. We really have to get much tougher with these shoplifters, who are driving business after business out of San Francisco and Oakland. Progressive politicians have tacitly legalized shoplifting, which they view as a long-overdue redistribution of wealth. But the backlash has set in; citizens realize that crime must be punished, not tolerated much less rewarded. In my judgment, security guards should be allowed to use their weapons. Otherwise, why have security guards in the first place? If they can’t intervene in crime, they’re just a bunch of costumed jokes. If allowing them to shoot means that every once in a while a shoplifter is shot, well, if someone doesn’t want to get shot, then don’t shoplift. It’s that simple.
Steve Heimoff