Kelly Thomas must be ignored

"Get your tissues ready, it's going to be brutal for you."

These are the words of a grieving father describing a newly released video of his son being brutally murdered. A video which records his son’s last intelligible words, crying for his father to save him. A video which clearly shows at least seven cops directly responsible for the murder of a mentally disabled, unstable, homeless man.

“Dad, they're killing me. Dad...dad!”

What caused this deadly confrontation? Surely this unstable man must have posed an imminent threat to some poor, frightened individual. Perhaps he was holding a defenseless old woman hostage, knife pressed to her throat poised to extract her life, an evil grin played upon his lips and a deranged gleam in his eye.

Nothing so conscience salving. Rather, it was a hesitation by Kelly Thomas to comply with an order to put his legs forward and his hands on his knees that led to his premature demise. Whether because he was unwilling to obey or confused by this order is unclear. However, the motivation and character of Officer Manuel Ramos in response to this “grave offense” leaves little to the imagination.

“See my fists? They’re getting ready to f*** you up if you don’t start f***ing listening to me”

What followed was a series of escalated abuse. As each new uniform arrived to the scene, the danger to Kelly Thomas increased while his chances of survival declined. Eventually enough brave soldiers in blue had appeared to share in the festivities and Kelly’s fate was sealed.

Critical mass. The event horizon. No going back.

Here’s an example of one of many disgusting post-assault conversations:

Cop 1: “You alright dude? Cut yourself? Is that you or him?”

Cop 2: “Probably him. We ran out of options so I got the end of my taser...and smashed his face to he**.”

At this point most of us rational, moral human beings are asking ourselves if perhaps all of this could have been avoided. Maybe if Kelly had simply complied, we think, maybe then he might have survived. Maybe if he hadn’t been so mentally challenged or defiant. Maybe then.

And as reality sinks in we realize, If this could happen to Kelly Thomas, perhaps it could happen to me. And if I should be so unfortunate, what can I do to avoid Kelly’s fate?

Relax. That was the solution prescribed by one of the cops involved.

Whatever you do, don't flinch from the blows. That’s resisting.

Don’t involuntarily spasm from the 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through your body. That's resisting.

Be certain not to inadvertently make contact with a taser, gun or baton with your head amidst the chaos of being brutally assaulted. That’s resisting too.

Or, better yet, you could crack this all up to a statistical anomaly.

Go back to your perceived reality of peaceful streets patrolled by hosts of Andy Taylors.

Willingly comply with any and all requests, demands and assaults upon your person and rationalize them as being necessary for the safety of us all.

Give in to the sweet comfort of knowing that, no matter how much danger you may face, there is a uniformed public servant, alert and waiting nearby to save you.

Be complicit as agents of coercion attempt to form the authoritarian society of tomorrow, without conscience, without qualm, and without incident.

But above all, ignore Kelly Thomas and all those like him, for they dare to say, “No. Not without incident”.