Unfit to Print

Meanwhile, in Oakland, the cops killed a 20-year-old man about a mile from my house.

Sgt. Pat Gonzales police shot Gary King, Jr. twice in the back, and then handcuffed him and called for backup before calling for an ambulance. When his mother asked to see her son or ride in the ambulance with him, the police refused to let her. When she persisted, the police allegedly reached for their guns.

The parents have not yet seen their son’s body; they have been refused admittance to the hospital where he was taken and to the coroner’s office where his body now resides.

The story first appeared on CBS news, but — surprise, surprise — the reporters simply repeated the police PR, claiming that he was a suspect in a homicide case, and was pulling a gun when the cop shot him.

Which seems a little unlikely if he was shot in the back, a fact initially not reported by CBS or other news agencies.

The police (diligently copied into the CBS story) also claim that the cop had used a “stun gun” on King before shooting him, but it seems that some eyewitnesses didn’t see a taser used. The police have explained to several news stations that the reason the taser was not sufficient to stop King was that it had “malfunctioned.”

Apparently, Gonzales had approached King on foot, who had initially cooperated with the cop. Somehow, the interaction escalated into a struggle, at which point Gonzales allegedly told King to surrender. Gonzales claims he felt a gun in King’s waistband as they struggled, and that he shot him in the back when King turned away from him and tried to pull the gun out of his pants.

The police later “recovered” a gun from the scene that they claim belong to King, and initially did not specify that they had taken the gun from his hand or pants. Subsequent stories have the cops saying that they found a gun tucked in the waistband of his pants.

Witnesses say Gonzales had held King by his braids to stop him from escaping. One witness does corraborate the cop’s story, which is that he used a taser on him and that King had reached into his pants. But that witness also claims that as soon as Gonzales let go of King’s hair, he was trying to run away, not turn and shoot the officer.

This is the third time Sgt. Gonzalez has fired on a suspect, and the second time he has fatally shot someone.

The police have yet to prove any connection between King and the murder the officer was supposedly investigating. Gary’s mother, Catherine King, was quoted as saying that her son had not been involved in the homicide, and that Gary probably fit the description of “thousands of 20-year-olds - or thereabouts - men who are light-skinned and have braids around here.”

Gary was black, by the way. I strongly suspect that Pat Gonzales, who shot him, is not. But you probably already knew that.

Full CBS story is here.
Chronicle story is here.
East Bay Daily News story is here.

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