Riots in Philadelphia follow a familiar pattern
The governor has called in the National Guard.
This time the supposed provocation was the police killing of a 27-year-old black man named Walter Wallace, who was apparently armed with a knife and coming towards the police, The family says they had called for an ambulance because he was having mental health problems. The police say they got a call “about a man screaming and saying that he was armed with a knife.” The family may have wanted an ambulance, but in a situation so unsafe, ambulance workers are not going to be the first ones to interact with the person. Then:
In video filmed by a bystander and posted on social media, officers yell for Wallace to drop a knife. In the video, Wallace’s mother and at least one man follow Wallace, trying to get him to listen to officers, as he briskly walks across the street and between cars.
Wallace advanced toward the officers, who then fired several times, said police spokesperson Officer Tanya Little. Wallace’s mother screams and throws something at an officer after her son is shot and falls to the ground.
A terrible and tragic situation. And now Philadelphia is falling prey to looters who are using this incident opportunistically.
More on Wallace’s history here (in the NY Post):
Walter Wallace, the mentally ill Philadelphia man whose death sparked riots in cities across the US, had a long history of violent run-ins with the law — and was a newlywed about to have his ninth child, according to reports.
Wallace’s family members, including his father, who witnessed the shooting, are “never going to be the same again,” Fitzhugh said. “They actually sat and watched their son literally get murdered,” he told NBC.
Certainly not “murdered” if a person is wielding a knife. More:
Police had been called to his home dozens of times in recent months, including twice Monday before they returned a third time when he was shot, sources told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Since May, police had received 31 calls about the address — including reports of someone with a weapon as well as assaults, sources told the paper.
Why wasn’t this guy in custody already? Possibly in some mental health facility?
Wallace had also been in and out of court for nearly a decade, with convictions for crimes including resisting arrest and robbery, the paper said.
He had been arrested in March after he allegedly threatened his child’s mother over the phone, saying, “I’ll shoot you and that house up,” NBC said.
In 2019, he was charged with resisting arrest by “kicking the windows and door panels of a police patrol car.”
In 2016, during a robbery, he allegedly grabbed a woman by the neck and held what she believed to be a gun to her head, NBC said, citing court records. He was sentenced to 11 to 23 months behind bars, WPVI said.
His mother had a protective order against him in 2013 which he allegedly violated when he “threw water in her face and punched her in the face” and “threatened to return and shoot” her, the reports said, again citing court records.
That same year, he pleaded guilty to assault and resisting arrest after punching a police officer in the face, WPVI said. That same year, a judge also ordered a psychiatric evaluation along with mental health treatment, the reports said.
The aspiring rapper’s music also heavily featured guns and rhymes about shooting people, including police, the station noted.
That’s quite a history. And quite different from what the earlier article I quoted – which is from NBC Philadelphia and very lengthy and detailed – would lead us to believe. That NBC article mentions none of Wallace’s violent history, and a reader would tend to think that the fatal incident was sparked by some isolated breakdown in an otherwise peaceful but troubled person.
But actually Wallace had a lengthy rap sheet and a long and repeated history of violence against family as well as other criminal activity. I wouldn’t doubt that he may also have been mentally ill, but whatever previous evaluation and treatment he got in 2013 don’t seem to have done any good, which is no surprise.
This case follows the same pattern as so many others that have been used as propaganda by BLM. What are police supposed to do in such situations, work magic? They can’t fix the complex problems being exhibited here. They can only defend themselves and others, if threatened – and if BLM has its way, even that avenue will be closed.
The martyrs of BLM are an astonishingly repulsive rogues’ gallery of violent felons and serial abusers of women, yet one never hears from the sanctimonious hard-left feminists about the abuses committed by these men, nor about the hideously misogynistic Muslim rape-gangs in England and other European countries, nor about the criminal behavior of donors to leftist causes such as Weinstein and Epstein. One might be tempted to think that the charge of “toxic masculinity” matters to “progressive” women only when it can be falsely applied as a weapon against their ideological enemies.
A taser might have been a useful intervening technique. At worst, it would provide cover–having not had any effect–on the use of guns. Well, not in BLM land.
Couple of items which might apply. There was an accident in front of our house several weeks ago. I called 911 to report it. First two vehicles on the scene were cops. Then the firetruck, then the ambulance. Cops were on the road and so….here they are.
And I know of an elderly person who has called 911 so many times that they won’t respond.
And there are places first responders won’t go without cops.
I still expect riots on election day, in hopes of depressing turnout which will favor us.
Has anyone on the left–especially on the feminist left–realized that they’ve declared unilateral surrender on policing domestic violence? If I cast my mind back to all the reports I’ve read and heard over the years of police shootings, I would say about half consist of the following scenario: A women, who has been regularly beaten black and blue by her man, finally realizes that this time she is in danger of her life and in terror calls 911. The police arrive, and this probably saves her life because the gun/knife/whatever wielding maniac directs his violence towards the cops who then are forced to shoot him (especially since municipalities are depriving them of tasers). If this scenario inevitably results in riots like Philly than the police are going to stay in their cruisers until the bloodletting is over and the public effort to reduce domestic violence is effectively over.
He must have had a really good job to support 9 children.
The left anarcho communists have found an excuse that lets them act without responsibility… they care not, other than such events, regardless of the details, provide cover for their actions and prevent repercussions… the public is that gullible to never question things… people here are so sure that supporting trump is wrong they cant see that their attitude is insane given none of them are making cogent arguments about policy, outcomes, and futures… but on things like locker talk… blame for deaths in covid, as if they know others would have done better (doubtful given the lefts rules of action)…
they literally do not care what tomorrow brings…
they would rather be bent over the table, screwed and robbed by someone that looks good and has great public deportment than be helped, not screwed, and have issues they complain about addressed by a bore… this is exactly the same as churchill in many ways, and several others that cropped up in history when needed because blunt and brunt is what would work…
they do not even think that socialism (communism) is anything bad or really different in how it is or the power and actions it takes, or its irreversability… One i know makes a living with fashion shows and those kinds of things, and is completely unaware that eat the rich, and there are no more such shows… that the left has always wanted to destroy the artifacts of bourgeoisie culture… which they love live and are a part of…
buggers the mind from one ear through to the other..
I have always wondered if guys like Walter didn’t have a chance for mental incarceration ever since the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest came out.
skip. What started the public outrage was, imho, Titticutt Follies. It’s for real.
Use taser or shoot him in the leg or use your police hand to hand training to get the knife away from him. Period.
D:
you are an ignorant leftist. Go away.
Seen reports of bad guys being bad despite tasers? They are out there.
You are ignorant of handguns and their use, You think cops can just shoot a lunging knife-wielder in the leg? Not how it works, pal. If you miss your mercy shot, you are dead by stabbing.
I want you to wrestle away the knife from a crazy. stronger and quicker than you. Just do it. In a fraction of a second your aorta will be transected and you will be most surely dead. What a bizarre, stupid notion.
This ain’t the movies. It is life.
The worst thing is you are not embarrassed by your ignorance in advocating follies.
D:
Period? Not really. In fact, you show ignorance of how these things work. Almost as much ignorance as Joe Biden, and that’s saying a lot.
That link I just gave describes why “shoot him in the leg” is an absurd thing to advocate. And you have no idea how dangerous a knife is and how quickly a cop can get knifed (and even killed) while trying to disarm such a person. It is a very difficult judgment call and not a simple one at all, as you can see if you read this.
Lastly, regarding tasers, the police in this case were not supplied with tasers. If they had been, the police probably would have tried tasing him first, which I agree would have been appropriate and might have saved his life. It’s unclear why they were not given tasers – perhaps financial limitations for the Philadelphia police force? – but unfortunately tasing was not an option here. Nor is tasing the least bit foolproof, because tasers often fail.
D:
Just another idiot. Sharp stabby things kill. That’s is why London is particularly sensitive about sharp stabby things. Tasers aren’t effective in many cases (just think about Taser incidents with non-complient citizens this year).
Should police be armed with sharp stabby things (swords) or billy-clubs, or just nerf guns? Or just unarmed and wear “stab me here for social justice” uniforms?
Do you let Joe Biden think for you too? You are a maroon, one stupid cookie.
“the mentally ill Philadelphia man … had a long history of violent run-ins with the law — and was a newlywed about to have his ninth child”
That pretty much says it all.
I don’t think that “D” was being serious folks. It was probably intended as sarcasm and mockery of Biden and the ridiculous expectations of the ignorant. That is how I read it.
“Police hand to hand training …”
Go to YouTube and search for Donut Operator to find many body cam videos of people getting hit with multiple tasers and still stabbing their target. As far as aiming for the leg goes, it’s such an ignorant idea I’m not going to waste time debating it.
Who is D? Ever commented here before? Not that I recall. A new voice from the interwebs longing to share his/her/they/their insight? Who can tell.
Maybe “D” is a voice of diversity needed to lift the fog in this dreaded echo chamber?
There was no “/sacr” tag.
“D” is new here. And my guess would be that “D” goes around from blog to blog, dropping his remarks on many posts connected to the Philadelphia violence.
Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, was tased twice before being shot as he tried to get in a car with children in the back seat while holding the knife he’d threatened people with. The guy in Atlanta was tased and attacked the officer and got his taser.
So, what do BLM activists want? Do they want black women who call police for help to be told it’s their problem, and police won’t come? Do we want police to just stand by and let black women be beaten or murdered?
Tasing a black guy who was just turning his life around would be sufficient optics for a riot.
In addition, tasers sometimes kill. Interrupt the heart rhythm or something.
Best use of a taser is to show you tried something less than lethal but it didn’t work so you went to guns.
Not sure that will mollify the crowd.
The dead guy gets a Darwin award, though he spread his DNA extraordinarily widely.
Turning his life around? Surely you jest.
We are better off without him.
I have been curious. I am sure the Philadelphia police force is heavily, if not predominately Black. There has been no story that I have seen that says “White cop shoots Black Man”.
That may or may not be significant. One picture showing two cops; one appears Black the other White. I don’t know which one fired.
Anyone know the race of the shooter? Not that it would matter.
(New poster; long time daily visitor.) Hodge Twins stated Philadelphia Police Dept. lacked funding currently for tasers–a cruel irony if true.
Facts of the incident don’t mater to Burn Loot Murder (Inc.). The incident just provided a pretext for informal reparations and mostly peaceful protests.
The family of the deceased and their lawyers may now be part of the “shakedown the city/town game.” Sort of like playing the lottery, but with a very high ticket price. The family may collect, but he won’t. A cynical but sad situation, if true.
Yet another metamorphosis:
Psycho Thug goes wild – miraculously transforms to martyr.
“Shoot ‘im in the leg !” Sage advice from the man who vanquished Corn Pop.
We are trained to shoot for the biggest target, center mass. Try to shoot a moving target in the leg and you risk shooting that kid down the block. In a super tense situation, it is common to miss whatever you are aiming to hit. My first firearms class, was led by a veteran county sheriff, who described an instance where police were called to an armed robbery or something. As two cops walked down a hall, the perp came around a corner facing them, holding a gun. They shouted to him to drop his weapon; he didn’t, and they all started firing, the two cops and the perp. He said there were probably over 20 shots fired and no body hit anybody. He laughed and said, you can practice shooting paper targets everyday but adrenalin can mess up all your great plans.
So, looks like we have a repeating set up, wherein a mentally ill man at large with a history acting out violently is shot by cops while assaulting or menacing someone. Generalized social uproar and violence results.
A couple, addled by drugs and alcohol abuse compounding preexisting deficits, continually fight, and call cops to intervene. The umpteenth time, perhaps on that very day, one of them is killed while armed and threatening the life of a cop. Social uproar results.
Clinically disturbed women band together in a “political action” group, proudly proclaim their dignosed mental and emotional instabilities, climb up on stage, and shriek, ululate, blame the God of the scriptures, men, and an insufficiently solicitous universe for their problems. They usher in days, weeks, and months of generalized rage against … something … mostly against people who are not crazy.
I think we have a pattern here. It involves crazy people and the insanity of trying to live with them as if they are not.
}}} In video filmed by a bystander and posted on social media, officers yell for Wallace to drop a knife. In the video, Wallace’s mother and at least one man follow Wallace, trying to get him to listen to officers, as he briskly walks across the street and between cars.
This ignores the equally pertinent fact that the officers in question THEMSELVES backed off a number of times while asking him to put the knife down. It’s not like they just up and shot him as he approached them with a knife. They told him to put down the knife. He advances. They back off. “Put down the knife!”. he advances. They back off. “Put down the knife!”. he advances. They back off. “Put down the knife!”. he advances. They shoot.
Yes, this is sad, and a tragedy, but… WTF kind of insane idiot is going to blame the cops?
He should have been on medication, rather apparently which he was not, or at least not taking them, or he did illicit drugs which put him on this path.
This is just bullshit. We need to stop pandering to people — black or white — who want some insanely ridiculous standard for interacting with cops.
Roll call of the fallen:
Saint. George Floyd
Saint. Rashard Brooks
Saint. Jacob Blake
And now – Neighborhood Activist (very active) Walter Wallace.
Add up the rap sheets for these holy men and you have the decline and fall of urban civil society.
I’m getting the impression that, when they receive these kinds of calls, if the police just went out for a leisurely coffee before responding entire neighborhoods and sections of cities could be saved from burning, looting and destruction.
Sure, some women, maybe a few kids, a couple parents or neighbors, would probably die, but isn’t that what the Left really wants – more martyrs for Progressivism?
The Left destroyed the institutional part of the public mental health system decades ago, so now there’s no place to keep the “occasional crazies” who can’t reliably take care of themselves except prisons and cemeteries, both of which are notably lacking in mental health services.
Police are not social workers or mental health counselors, they’re a blunt instrument for public order: contain, subdue and transport is what they do, and sometimes, the force necessary to “contain and subdue” without endangering the public or themselves turns out to have consequences for those who behavior requires the containing and subduing.
This is just the price of admission to the New Left’s Society of Choice.
The dead guy gets a Darwin award, though he spread his DNA extraordinarily widely.
With the willing assistance of trashy and impetuous women.
What has developed as a clear pattern in this country, and in Western civilization as a whole, is how much impact sheer irrationality and pure emotional and psycholigical disturbance are having on a politics which reaches down into every aspect of our lives.
Crazy men, lunatic women, gender fantasists, hyper emotional and hysterically vindictive media figures; and all of them acting out despite what is in objective terms a more secure, comfortable, tolerant, and economically promising situation than anyone has experienced in the last 30 years or for virtually all of human history. Oil supply shocks have now been lessened. Just prior to Covid lockdowns minority employment was at an all time high. The Islamist war power was broken. Trade deals were beneficially renegotiated. Some manufacturing was brought back into the country.
No one is starving, and 40% or so are actually self-indulgently obese.
So from a birdseye view, what’s the bloody problem?
In order to understand that, you have to somehow get inside the soulless heads of the voluntary self-extinctionists, the “Spirit Cooking” political class, the Satanists, the gender fluid who are demanding that you dance to whatever tune they whimsically or insanely call that day, the Suburban females who hate Trump so much they cannot get the words to explain exactly why out of their mouths, a self-serving and proudly smirking incestuous deep state which many of us did not even believe existed until it became obvious it did, an academia filled with bleating hyperventilating Stalinists, and a big tech crony capitalism at war with free speech, free enterprise, and free men and women.
Objectively, material conditions and prospects have seldom been better. Psychologically, a large portion of humanity has disintegrated into nihilistic subjectivity and fantasy.
The question is “why?”
Has it always been the case that a significant portion of most populations have been mentally or emotionally or morally defective, and have only been kept from dropping put of orbit and doing their neighbors harm through the tool of publicly enforced rituals of community and sanctions? Is this perpetual minor slavery to their neediness, the price which sane humanity has always paid for the privilege of more or less successfully integating these human annoyances, rather than just driving them out, or as a last resort, killing them off?
Because shy of that, there seems to be no way of getting them to simply back off. And that, is just crazy.
It’s totally clear that the violence, shootings and murder rates in the black inner cities are allowed to continue – by the inaction of city/state govt – only because the victims are black.
Does anyone think that these crime/shooting/murder rates would be tolerated in any white part of town or where all the victims were white??
How many black CHILDREN have been killed by black gang-bangers?
What response did this elicit from the city/state officials?
Oh, that’s right; there was no response – just another NORMAL day in the inner city.
If the victims were over 90% white, does anyone believe the criminal element would, for all intents and purposes, left alone to do as they please?
Black criminals in the black inner city realize they can do pretty much what they wish and not worry much about getting caught or being punished.
Of course, the socio-economic pathologies within the black inner cities benefits those politicians and black “leaders” – almost all demokrats, white or black – because they depend upon this chaos to fill up their bank accounts and maintain their connection to the liberal progressive, millionaire/billionaire, elitist movers and shakers in society. You know, uber rich movers and shakers like Obama, Soros, Hollywood types, Pelosi, et. al. – all folks who talk and talk and promise and promise and do ZERO.
But hey, it gets them votes and/or influence and $$$$ !!!
It is no coincidence that poverty pimps like Sharpton, et. al. are millionaires.
None of this will change unless black voters begin electing LOCAL and STATE representatives that will actually do something to help the inner city denizens.
I know, this really seems hopeless.
After all, look who is the Mayor of Chicago; one would think that BEFORE she ran for mayor she would have a plan to address the mess of inner city Chicago.
So what is her plan?
To make sure no violent mobs or criminals get near her home, but let them destroy the property and livelihood of “other” folks, black or white.
And there are many cities just like Chicago (coincidentally, by some miraculous coincidence, all run by demokrats. Who would have thunk it).
For better or worse, people get the government they vote for.
Just as an aside and not relevant to the riots in Philly, check this out:
https://spectator.org/americans-election-hitler-stalin/
In one on my previous comments a day or so ago, I had mentioned something similar to this theme.
Powerful link.
And he’s laid it ALL on the line.
Well you gotta believe (from this Mets fan of yore)…
Thanks much!
Think of the harm and chaos the psychologically disturbed cause to those around them from the time they enter school, until they die.
In the best case scenarios it is merely, disruption, distributed stress and frustration, antagonism, wasted time, spoiled efforts, and spreading hostility they contribute. At worst, chaos and death.
If it seems to us that the world has gone mad, it may be because, in part, there are so many madmen running loose within it.
OBloodyHell
Yes, this is sad, and a tragedy, but… WTF kind of insane idiot is going to blame the cops?
Those adhering to the “progressive” left narratives. Yes, insane idiots, but very vocal ones.
Perhaps a false report (one dearly hopes it is); but if true (and it may well be, judging from the source of the threat), then it’s confirmation—if anyone still needed it—that America is at its watershed moment:
“Corporate media outlets have been warned not to cover Tony Bobulinski & Hunter Biden’s laptop or they will be blacklisted by any future Biden/Harris Administration – according to several media sources.”
https://twitter.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1321439391848562691
H/T Instapundit
File under: The fundamental transformation of America
Another crazy going from dangerous to really dangerous.
Mentally disturbed.
Yet not without some kind of attraction – having 9 kids?
All on welfare? – not asked nor answered. No mention of Wallace’s job.
Same mother? – not clear for all, but she was wife, so quite possible.
We’ll likely find out that he had multiple drugs in his system.
As noted above:
there’s no place to keep the “occasional crazies” who can’t reliably take care of themselves except prisons and cemeteries,
Our society needs more care places for crazy folk – but no such place will be able to work without the ability to stop those receiving care from taking drugs, or drinking too much.
Low cost “re-hab” centers should probably be established that are like the old mental institutions, but allowing the “patients” to leave easily – tho not come back so easily. With a low cost place to stay and sleep, a few clothes, and enough food to avoid hunger. With TV and video games; perhaps a ban on pornography.
Drug users and mentally disturbed people, when they act irrational and are violently threatening others, no longer deserve all the freedom that the non-violent neighbors deserve. How to protect the innocent nearby is a huge question.
Defunding the police is a terrible action, and won’t protect innocents. Tho it might evolve into the innocents protecting themselves. Perhaps with more family members trying to shoot the aggressors in the legs? Or more tasers? Or pepper spray? Along with more violent aggressors successfully killing, or more often merely injuring, the innocents nearby.
Opportunistic rioting and looting is a newly learned behavior, but it’s rapidly being copied. So we’ll likely see more of it before we see less.
“Facts of the incident don’t mater to Burn Loot Murder (Inc.). The incident just provided a pretext for informal reparations and mostly peaceful protests.” om
This.
“What has developed as a clear pattern in this country, and in Western civilization as a whole, is how much impact sheer irrationality and pure emotional and psycholigical disturbance are having on a politics which reaches down into every aspect of our lives.” DNW
That’s half the picture. The Left is using the sheer irrationality, pure emotional and psychological disturbance that they have inculcated and fomented to steer the country to vote for their own enslavement, while trumpeting it as “social justice” necessary to correct the wrongs of systemic racism.
The dead man’s family said they called for an ambulance, not the police.
That’s just great — send unarmed first responders to the scene of a madman threatening his family with a knife.
What could go wrong?
Geoffrey Britain:
You stand on the shoulders of giants! (in my own mind). 🙂
Deeper analysis as usual.
Here’s a good example of why tasers aren’t always the answer and how fast things can go south when confronting a man with a knife
(Graphic video warning)
https://youtu.be/M6h_7dUKZL4?t=372