Okay, let's talk about Pamela Turner.
By now many of you have probably heard news about an innocent pregnant black woman in Baytown, Texas who was shot to death by a racist white police officer.
However, if that sentence describes what you heard, then you heard a lie. The woman wasn't pregnant and she definitely wasn't innocent. As for the cop, he wasn't a white guy.
Here's a what really happened: on May 13th, 2019 at approximately 10:40 pm an officer attempted to detain Turner, a middle-aged woman who had three outstanding warrants related to assault with bodily injury and criminal mischief. Law enforcement officers received a report that Turner had attacked and injured someone, and officers were searching for her.
The incident took place at the Brixton Apartment complex. The officer, Juan Delacruz, was aware of her wanted status and had a professional obligation to detain her. But when the officer attempted to arrest Turner she put up a strong resistance. Things get heated very quickly. During a brief struggle between the two individuals Turner grabbed the officer's taser and shot him directly in the groin, a very painful place to be attacked with any kind of weapon, much less a taser.
Fearful for his life and his own personal safety, the officer was prompted to draw his duty weapon and fire three shots at Turner.
You may not agree with what the officer did, but there are very few people in this world who would have reacted differently. If your life is in danger and you know you're not in the wrong, you're going to fight for your life. The officer's well-being was in jeopardy when Turner attacked him, but if Turner had complied with the officer, she wouldn't have been shot. Turner also wouldn't have been shot if she didn't have three outstanding warrants.
Turner was pronounced dead at the scene, which is a horrific and tragic way for a life to end. She's also a known violent criminal with a purported history of causing harm to others. She was shot to death because she violently attacked someone who was trying to arrest her for violently attacking someone else. Considering the choices she made and her disdain for the safety of others, it's not hard to understand why she died. This terrible incident wouldn't have happened if Turner wasn't threatening bodily injury to more than one person (the officer and the person she had reportedly previously attacked).
Even still, because Turner is a black woman, and because there's a video of the incident, people are going to draw their own conclusions and high-ranking media personalities are now trying to exploit Turner's death for their own gain. Rev Al Sharpton, an MSNBC TV host, will travel to Houston today so he can deliver a eulogy at a service being held in Turner's honor. Sharpton had no previous interactions with this woman; they've never met each other. So why would Sharpton give her eulogy? Because of the color of her skin. Simply put, Turner wasn't a victim, a fact that Sharpton is probably aware of by now, but that won't stop him from attaching his name to a controversial news story. Sharpton is known for this sort of thing - he often inserts himself into contentious national news stories involving the issue of race because doing so has elevated his career in the past. But in Turner's case, race has nothing to do with her death. The officer who shot her wasn't some white supremacist from the alt-right. Heck, he wasn't even white - the arresting officer is a Hispanic person.
Even still, Sharpton decided to speak publicly about this news story over a week ago when people still falsely believed an innocent black pregnant woman was murdered by a white cop. Now the dust has cleared and we have a better understanding of what really happened that night.
Will Sharpton give an honest eulogy about Turner? It's unlikely. The only things he knows about her are what you now know. But when the real truth isn't the narrative Sharpton's after, he's likely gonna have to do some improvising. Only time will tell.
Welcome to Houston, Al Sharpton. Please don't throw gas on the fire while you're here. The last thing anyone wants is for Baytown to turn into another Ferguson, Missouri.