Horror Stories
I’m currently listening to This American Life on WBEZ.They are talking about racial violence and high speed car chases. I’m angered and horrified about these two stories.
One happened here in Chicago. A group of off-duty, drunk, police officers chased an African American man and his wife through the city streets and even shot at the man. The man was just driving home from work, he had done nothing wrong. I heard nothing about this on local news casts nor did I see it in the newspapers.I want to know why. Everyone in and around Chicago should be outraged by this. The police officers got off with not even a slap on the wrist. The radio program airs the 911 tape of what happend. The officers called 911, didn’t identify themselves as police officers, got the description of the car they were following WRONG (they told the operator they were following a Chevy Blazer when they were the ones in the Blazer. When they told the operator how many people were in their vehicle they got the number wrong 3 times. The man being followed wasn’t about to pull over because he didn’t know who these men were chasing him, he had done nothing wrong and quite rightly for him, he was scared. I’d be scared too if a Blazer-load of men were chasing me. I wouldn’t have pulled over either! The officers lied and said they hadn’t shot at the man, there were bullet holes in the guy’s car a ballistics test proved that the officers had in fact shot at the man.The judge in the trial said, “If I could make them wear red noses I would, just to show what ‘Bozos’ these guys are.” Bozo is a clown who entertains children, he isn’t someone who would chase after innocent people and shoot at them. Again I say, why aren’t we talking about this? Why aren’t the people of the City of Chicago pissed off that something like this could happen and the offenders are not properly punished? The 911 tapes PROVE that those officers were drunk and wrong and they SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO REMAIN POLICE OFFICERS.
The other story is of Native American teenage girls who were terrorized, taunted and shot at by a group of white teenage boys after a high school basketball game in a nearby town in rural South Dakota.
I guess living in Chicago I don’t ever see the way Native Americans are treated today. I’ve got a very very small amount of Native American blood in my veins. My great great great great Grandmother was a Chocktaw Indian. Even though it isn’t enough to really count, I’m still very proud of the fact that I have that heritage in my family.
I can’t stand the way that so many people in this country are so closed minded and so filled with ignorance and hate for people who are different from themselves. I’m so disgusted by all of this.
This show will be aired again, Sunday, August 18th at 5pm CST. You can stream the show from the WBEZ website. Or you can go to the This American Life website in a couple of days and download the Real Audio of the show.
