Robert Cameron Redus
By John McDevitt in the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Liberation News:
Early on the morning on Dec. 6 in Alamo Heights Texas, Christopher Carter, campus cop for the University of the Incarnate Word, pulled over student Robert Cameron Redus. Carter alleges that Redus was driving erratically. Minutes later Carter fired several shots killing Redus. This is yet another case of police terror that has expanded from the neighborhoods to the college campuses.
Redus was described by his friends, now in shock at the police killing, as a gentle person. He was an honor roll student and anchor person on the television program at the Catholic college in the San Antonio area.
Although other police vehicles are equipped with video cameras on the dashboard, Carter’s camera was not on the dash. Police claim dashcam fell off because low temperatures caused the glue holding the camera to malfunction.
According to the campus police, Carter has “an extensive law enforcement background.” He is now on administrative leave. The Alamo Heights Police Department is carrying out an investigation in conjunction with the Texas Rangers.
When someone is killed by police, chances are that any investigation of the cops by the cops will result in blaming the victim as seen in the university statement that promotes the notion that Redus was driving erratically on campus, did not identify himself as a student and used the officer’s baton to attack him before the officer responded with deadly force to “restrain the suspect who repeatedly resisted.”
Carter also claims that he told the Redus to stop resisting arrest 56 times. One must wonder how Carter was able to utter this phrase so many times during a six minute arrest!
Any unarmed individual with a gun pointed at him at close range would undoubtedly struggle to survive—for Redus this was in vain as he faced a killer cop. As Carter was stopping Redus, the officer apparently gave an incorrect location to police dispatchers delaying a response from other officers.
Comments posted on a CNN article covering the incident show the outrage in the community. One comment stated that law enforcement are the biggest law-breakers. Other comments raise questions about Carter’s version of the incident. Others pointed to the countless other police killings in Texas, not unlike this one.
It is clear that the people are aware of the role of the police in the community and schools. Likewise it is clear that the people are capable of carrying out an independent investigation of the police. It will take a struggle to win this, but ultimately there will be no justice for Robert Cameron Redus, and police killings will continue unchecked until the people control the policing of our own communities and schools. Only then will the last chapter be written on the scourge of police terror.
Content may be reprinted with credit to LiberationNews.org.
Only non-white on Zimmerman jury regrets the verdict, says she believes he was guilty.
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/931595/9_new_pieces_of_evidence_in_the_trayvon_martin_case
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/21/will_george_zimmerman_kill_again_his_history_and_the_law_pose_serious_risks/
The source alleged that Zimmerman was let go after becoming a “liability.”
“One time this woman was acting a little out of control. She was drunk. George lost his cool and totally overreacted,” he said. “It was weird, because he was such a cool guy, but he got all nuts. He picked her up and threw her. It was pure rage. She twisted her ankle. Everyone was flipping out.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/30/new-details-darken-outlook-for-zimmermans-claims-of-self-defense/#ixzz2nRKo0bm3
….
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/24/george-zimmerman-beats-the-rap-again-in-domestic-dispute-and-theft-cases/
Shellie Zimmerman told police that her husband had made threatening remarks toward her about having a gun about a week after she filed for divorce.
She also said her estranged husband had punched her father in the nose and smashed her iPad in the Sept. 9 incident at a Lake Mary, Florida, home owned by Shellie Zimmerman’s parents.
Her parents had later accused George Zimmerman of taking a flat-screen television worth $2,800, leather theater seats worth $3,000, a king-sized bed and some other items from the home he and Shellie Zimmerman had rented while he stood trial for second-degree murder and manslaughter.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/31/report-george-zimmerman-left-behind-bullet-riddled-target-for-wife-to-find/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/26/george-zimmermans-estranged-wife-reveals-doubts-about-his-innocence/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/13/florida-police-chief-george-zimmerman-is-a-sandy-hook-waiting-to-happen/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/11/trayvon-martin-medical-examiner-claims-prosecutors-intentionally-lost-case/
According to the former assistant coroner, his autopsy results showed that it was impossible for Martin to have been on top of George Zimmerman when the gunman pulled the trigger.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/10/george-zimmerman-lawyers-quits-after-client-is-accused-of-threatening-shellie-zimmerman/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/30/george-zimmermans-wife-reveals-shed-left-him-the-night-before-he-killed-trayvon-martin/
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/19/2966281/zimmerman-domestic-violence/
…
Zimmerman’s ex-wife and his current girlfriend aren’t the only two people who have accused him of abuse or violence. During his trial over the shooting of Trayvon Martin, one of the witnesses, a female cousin of Zimmerman, said that he had molested her as a child. And Zimmerman’s ex-fiance petitioned for a restraining order against him after he allegedly slapped her — long before his name became nationally recognized. This is a classic pattern for domestic abusers, who will go find another victim if the previous one is no longer available to them. A 2000 study found that 41 percent of abusers re-abuse their victim within a 30-month follow-up period, and another study found that almost half of people who had been arrested for violating a restraining order had two or more victims within six years.
Their abuse isn’t always visible.
As with the last domestic disturbance call by Zimmerman’s ex-wife back in September, in this latest incident, Zimmerman’s girlfriend told 911 he was being erratic and violent. He reportedly smashed an iPad during the incident in September. This time, he broke a table, and pointed a shotgun in his girlfriend’s face, she told the 911 dispatcher. But (with the exception of reportedly punching his father-in-law in the nose), Zimmerman was not said to have caused any physical harm to either woman in either case. Such behavior — damage to property, threats of physical harm — falls into the category of psychological abuse. Ninety-five percent of men who physically abuse their partners also psychologically abuse.
They minimize or explain away their behavior.
One of the most fascinating aspect of Zimmerman’s latest incident was that he himself called the police to counter his girlfriend’s call, and offered another dispatcher a separate set of facts. He said that the girlfriend had “gone crazy” and had broken a table in the apartment. “I just want everyone to know the truth,” he tells the dispatcher. “She got mad that I told her I would be willing to leave.” There’s no telling what exactly happened before their respective calls to police. But, if Zimmerman’s girlfriend is telling the truth, then his effort to turn the tables and make his girlfriend sound guilty is again a classic case of something domestic violence prevention advocates call “minimization, denial and blaming,” which is when abusers make the victim feel as though they are responsible for the abuse, or crazy for thinking any abuse occurred at all.
They find new victims.
After the newest allegations came out about George Zimmerman, Twitter was full of people asking, “who would date this guy?” But one thing about domestic abusers is that they know how to find new victims. Domestic abuse often relies on a cycle of emotionally manipulative steps, where abusers identify people they are close to as potential victims or set up their victims to trust them, then maintain normal behavior to keep the relationship stable, and then eventually abuse, before beginning the cycle again. Abusers can use a variety of tactics, including dominance and isolation, to make the victim blame themselves for the abuse. We don’t know the details in this latest Zimmerman incident, but that could very well be the case here.
They don’t get charged.
Zimmerman’s (now) ex-wife decided not to press charges against him when he reportedly broke her iPad and punched her father in the nose in September. But if that seems unusual or amiss, think again: Domestic violence victims often drop charges, because they are pushed to do so by friends and family, because they are intimidated by the abuser himself, or because they fear retaliation. This is something anti-domestic violence advocates have grappled with, and something the law is still catching up with. In many states, a woman’s domestic abuse case will be thrown out if she doesn’t testify against her abuser. In some states, a woman can be incarcerated if she refuses to testify. And, in fact, victims often are the ones who face legal difficulty resulting from abuse, either when they act in self-defense and are seen as the perpetrator, or when they are coerced into illegal action.
LAPD is city, Sheriffs Department is county.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/19/prosecutor-at-bail-hearing-zimmerman-choked-girlfriend-days-before-shotgun-threat/
“The victim had indicated that there was a prior domestic violence incident that had occurred approximately a week and half ago that involved a choking that she did not report to the police,” the prosecutor said. “He has also has mentioned suicide in the recent past.”
At least two other women, a former wife and a former girlfriend, have also accused Zimmerman of domestic violence in the past
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/20/girlfriend-zimmerman-alone-depressed-and-obsessed-with-guns-after-acquittal/
Zimmerman accused of sending image from homemade sex video to girlfriend’s underage daughter
…
Scheibe said Zimmerman threatened to take his own life on multiple occasions, and she said the threats tended to come when he his name fell out of the headlines.
She thinks Zimmerman enjoyed the media attention he received, although she knew that would prevent him from living a normal life.
.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin_n_1340358.html?1331601197
George Zimmerman Neighbors Complained About Aggressive Tactics Before Trayvon Martin Killing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-evidence_n_1528268.html
George Zimmerman Made Racist Remarks At Work
Zimmerman was eventually “fired for calling the HR hotline so many times.”
http://politicalblindspot.com/george-zimmermans-old-myspace-surfaces-full-of-racist-statements-and-admissions-of-criminal-activity/
Wikipedia
Sure doesn’t sound to me like his issues are a result of trauma from the arrest and trial. Sounds like they are long standing patterns of behavior that long predate that incident.
He has threatened more than one woman that he was married to or going out with with guns, while breaking stuff during arguments. His MO with the women as well as in the Trayvon Martin case is to call 911 and claim he is the one being threatened or whatever. He has called 911 in dozens of incidents where he was following people recklessly or chasing them or otherwise acting on prejudice and suspicions that were in most cases unwarranted. The guy is a menace to society. I believe he was guilty in the Martin case even if it could not be proven beyond a doubt.
RTAA–I guess I don’t know the difference, but thanks for the correction.
They weren’t LAPD. They were 18 deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
We’ve got the Kelly Thomas going on over here in Southern California, so I’m a little surprised at Jose’s possible defense of the shooter. I’m not feeling a whole lot of love toward police departments right now.
OTOH, there was a surprise announcement this week that 18 members of the LAPD were indicted for possible crimes. Is it possible they’re trying to clean house? It remains to be seen.
Another example of the noble police officers that Jim Gray thinks that we should all thank, respect, and admire.
If you talk to a police… you would know that their preferred method is to have several of them take on one individual. Many on one. Just like the Hells Angles.
Zimmerman decided to go one on one as did Christopher Carter. Rather then waiting for back up they went in like George Custer and that alone was not only stupid but was wrong.
Their decisions to be a lone rangers ended up with other people being needlessly killed. Stupid in my opinion. In neither case was any other individual in danger but these two guys decide to charge in and try to be a single hero. Rather then sit back and wait until the rest of the army arrives.
Back to the original topic… There is no practical way to reform the police. Remember the old saw:
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
Government police forces cannot be anything other than bathed in the violent, arbitrary force of government. They are nothing more than lethal enforcers of the ruling class, and they cannot be anything else.
The only way to make people safer from cops is to abolish government police forces altogether, and allow private sector to contract with people for their security needs. Private providers of security service are routinely held liable in civil and criminal court, and if policing as a whole were privatized, liability should be encouraged.
Zimmerman certainly has had his troubles since the trial. He and his family were hunted and had to go into hiding, he faced death threats by both real gangland should-be-in-prison thugs as well as MMA wannabes who would have been happy to finish the job Martin was doing on his head, he probably will never be able to hold a normal job or father any children because they will always be targets, and every time he shows up anywhere the idiot slobbering dogs of the media will hound him to death and show all the thugs where to find him. The toll all of it took on him is obvious. Going anywhere paints him; so he can do few of the things ordinary people do — so he’s packed on the pounds, he looks like he’s aged ten years, and other telltales of stress.
YOU would be going lulu in that kind of environment too.
The only thing the trial did is 1) made sure more people are going to go home, lock their doors, and ignore their elderly lady neighbor’s screams; and 2) encourage police to falsely arrest, and prosecutors to illegally prosecute, victims who defend themselves.
Zimmerman’s only real mistake was to do what police departments all over the country have been asking people to do for the past twenty years: trying to make his neighborhood a better place by being part of a neighborhood watch. He didn’t even draw his gun until Martin saw it and started to go for it.
“all he had to do is stop and stop resisting when he was asked to do so by law enforcement.”
Bullshit, he was beat by out of control cops long after he was capable of resisting.
“In this case was Redus driving erratically on campus? ”
Who knows? Probably just a bogus after the fact excuse by the cops to excuse their actions after they murdered him. After all he is not here to give his side of the story. And if he was is that a death penalty offense and the cops are judge, jury and executioner?
“If so why did not Redus stop? ”
How important was it that he stop? Worth a life? Was there no non-lethal way to stop him?
“This sounds like another case of liberals jumping in before they have all the facts. Just like the George Zimmerman case.”
Are you frIggin’ kidding me? Have you followed any of the news on Zimmerman since the trial?
“murdered by yet another vigalante cop.”
Exactly.
Is this like Rodney King? I am not excusing what happened to Rodney King but all he had to do is stop and stop resisting when he was asked to do so by law enforcement. In this case was Redus driving erratically on campus? If so why was he? Was he asked to stop? If so why did not Redus stop? I will wait for all the facts to come in before I pass judgment on this case. This sounds like another case of liberals jumping in before they have all the facts. Just like the George Zimmerman case.
“ultimately there will be no justice for Robert Cameron Redus,”
Unfortunately, that would be impossible. He is currently dead, murdered by yet another vigalante cop.