Journal Entries

Civilian Brutality

"Hello again everyone as we welcome you back to your scheduled BCNC News broadcast where major tensions are seemingly rising. At about 6:30 PM, roughly two hours ago, citizens gathered in the streets of Los Angeles for peaceful protests for a fallen victim. If you're just joining us, let me get you up to speed to the events that transpired. Back in January, officials from LAPD were responding to what they call an "audibly incoherent disturbance" after a college house party. The man known as Dennis Little, a 21 year old African American male student at UCLA, was shouting various vulgarities and "continuous threats" out loud as he walked away from a fraternity house where a house party was being held. When two officers responded to the man they claim they were met with hostility and resistance from a quote unquote "drugged up Little". An argument occurred and that's where they said he pulled out a gun and threatened to kill them both if they didn't quote "leave him the (expletive) alone". Other partygoers of the event disagree. Various college students say that Little was the one met with hostility and irrational behavior by police and when he didn't "comply fast enough" he was taken down by the officers causing the man to let them know that he did in fact have a gun in his pocket and was afraid that it would go off accidentally. That's where they say that one of the officers mistakenly took his words as a threat and commenced to shoot. In the released dash cam video you can see the officers apparently telling Little to 'stop' and then a few seconds later, twelve gunshots were fired. Miraculously, Little stayed alive for a little while after but was ultimately pronounced dead on January 15th at a West Cali Medical Emergency room. The two officers involved with the shooting, 27 year old Thomas Jethro and 31 year old Brian Holyfield, were put on suspension without pay and one of the officers (Thomas) was charged with 1st degree murder and kept in an Inglewood jail. Fast forward to today, June nineteenth. As trial waned on and various scenarios were explained to the judge, it was finally concluded that Officer Jethro was in fact not guilty and that all charges would be dropped. It was stated around 4:30 today that he acted in an act of self defense to actions of "possible assault of an officer" and "resisting arrest". Well as you can imagine this infuriated the whole community, and not just the African American community but the community as a collective whole. It poses the question of 'when are these instances of police brutality gonna end?' The second the verdict was handed down, there was an unimaginable outpouring of criticism of our current legal system on social media. Within an hour there were protests planned and now we end up here. A crowd of what we are told to be 1,500 people have formed to rally for justice and pay their respects. For the most part nothing violent has happened just a lot of anti-authority chants. We have spotted a few instances of friendly police/protestor interaction but as far as any hostile acts goes, nothing has happened. If we can in a couple of minutes we will try to send you down to one of our correspondents to gather more information on the pressing matters. Also the news station has been granted limited commercial breaks so that we can stay on top and bring you every crucial detail regarding this unusual verdict and surprising display of social compliance. I am getting word that we finally have a chance to send you down on the ground with Anderson Clyde, one of our senior correspondents, so he can give you further explanation to this auspicious protest that has the potential to be one of the most non violent gatherings after an apparent case of police brutality in recent history. If we could now switch over to him.....what now? We can't connect to him? Well ladies and gentlemen it looks like we're going to have to hold off on a ground interview. It seems to be a little technical difficulties with our camera crew down there. I guess we'll just have to do our best with an arial view from one of our choppers that is also flying over the scene and give you timely updates from the sky. If we could switch over- there we go. Ladies and Gentlemen we would like to welcome our chief pilot and head of arial news broadcaster Tommy Greene and Tommy, as I was telling the viewers at home this protest has seemed to be as peaceful as can be, correct? Tommy.......hm it seems that we have also developed technical difficulties with him so I guess I will have to be a one man show here. If we could switch cameras again.....yes here we go and ladies and gentlemen I assure you we have our technical team working extensively to bring the coverage that you deserve. If we could switch back to the ground for a while and see if we can connect back with Anderson. Is he there? Anderson.....buddy, you there? Ladies and Gentlemen once again I apologize for the technical inconvenience. This has never happened before in my thirty five years of reporting for this news station so I am almost as frustrated as you all watching at home. The arial view is basically the best we can do for right now, and I'm seemingly the only one that is able to update you with anything breaking or out of the ordinary to the best of my abilities. If I'm not mistaken, it seems that the crowd of protesters have started a chant of some sorts. I can't really make out what the chants are but they are shouting in unison and raising their fists up to the air. Maybe a sign of unity and cry for justice in this city and justice for the world in this matter. Speaking from my own experiences in the broadcasting profession, it's just heartbreaking to see a man so young get his life taken away from him whether it be accidentally or purposefully. It's nice to see the protestors out in full force shouting for a change and it shows you how far we have come as a society in this community and in the whole state of California. The first name that came up when it was made publicly known that an officer related shooting had taken place? Rodney King. Obviously his case was different because he didn't get killed but it made the law system wonder; what if the LA riots start up again? That would be a scary sight especially with the impact of social media and what's made public to the regular civilian. If we could switch back to ground view please....I'll try my best to provide coverage from the studio while Dave Bosch, our camera man, walks around to show you a more 'up close and personal' view of this protest. Dave? Are we connected............there he is, and as we take you around this crowd here I want you to pay attention to their faces. Some are beaming with happiness and cheerfulness as they interact with some of the officers while others display looks of anguish and anger demanding justice giving you the full three sixty range of emotions that are coming out of this community for a fallen member of their own. You see a woman here wearing a shirt with Dennis' face on it, while another one, as Dave passes through the crowd, is seen holding a "Think before you shoot" poster. Just a whole lot of reactions to this apparent case of 'accidental' murder. We would like to give a thanks to Dave, our lead camera man, for braving the crowd and capturing some of the images of this gathering but we are....going to switch back to arial view to give you a full look at anything happening right now, so if we could.....do that. Ah....yes and as you can see on your television screen folks; this is a large crowd. It may only be 2,500 people but for this town that is an incredibly high number which is why the SWAT team was notified to be on standby just in case another version of the 1992 riots were to erupt. And once again if you're just joining us, this whole protest or social gathering or what have you started after a 21 year old UCLA student by the name of Dennis Little was gunned down for quote 'not complying with officer commands'. As we said earlier the final verdict was handed down today which determined that Thomas Jethro and Brian Holyfield, the two officers who were connected with the case, were in fact not guilty. That sent the community and city of Los Angeles into an uproar and various people from the state have shown up to remember the life of Dennis Smith, asking for justice in the process. The protest has gone exceptionally well aside from a couple of chants and loud cheering, which is good because the LAPD were expecting 'much worse' and they were taking precautions to avoid another case of violent protests. The news team of BCNC were prepared to give you all a highly detailed broadcast however our audio team has developed failures in connecting with the audio team. Other than that we have done our best to bring the best news show that we possibly can and we apologize for the limited coverage- you said what now? If you will excuse me my correspondent has just told me to switch back to arial view to see what looks to be an altercation in the crowd here. If we could......okay and here we go. Yep, there definitely seems to be some sort of altercation here in the crowd because a fire has been started in the middle of the crowd. The police officers have now turned from friendly to a more stern approach to the protesters. Earlier in the day the police officers were laughing and joking with some of the rally goers, taking pictures. Now they're asking that people in the crowd keep their distance. So this is certainly breaking news, or at least breaking in the sense of the first act of deviance displayed by the crowd. Okay and as you look here there are some men here wearing bandanas covering their faces in the crowd and if we could move the camera just a little more you will see women chanting "No Justice, No Peace" a very popular chant made famous in the Trayvon Martin protests. So ladies and gentlemen at home this is the first instance of 'violence', if you even want to call it that, during this gathering. Hopefully that's all that happens tonight, you sure don't wanna see any instance of violence or anti authoritarian deviance from a crowd this big. That would be very uhm.....very detrimental to the state as a whole and a bad reflection on such an eventful day. Just goes to show the strong social outreach of the state of California- wait what? Uhm it seems that we have a disturbance in the crowd- OH MY GOODNESS SOMEONE JUST SPRINTED TOWARDS THE POLICE!!! NO!!....... Lord have mercy, ladies and gentlemen someone from the crowd just ran towards the police and unfortunately after repeated pleas to stop; they shot him. We don't know who this man is but he looks to be rather young, and he was shirtless but wore a white hijab like head garb. The ground camera man is frantically telling me in my ear that the man was chanting words 'in another language, almost as if he were speaking in tongues'. He says that he then let out a primal like scream and proceeded to sprint towards the police where he was ultimately killed. It really is a bad occurrence because this protest up to this point was so peaceful- WHAT THE HELL? Switch to arial view, SWITCH TO ARIAL VIEW NOW!!! Folks watching at home I don't know what's going on; but another crowd of people have just formed in the middle of the original protest. It looks to be a group of men, all shirtless.....and all wearing white head garb. They seem to be.....taunting......the-the police!! Everyone else in the crowd are standing there watching- and they have weapons. They have weapons. Folks the group of men have just all pulled out an extensive collection of assault rifles, pistols, there's one with a machine gun. I just pray to God that this doesn't turn into what I think it's about to turn into. They seem to just be standing there waiting for an officer to fire a shot......and- OH MY LORD AN OFFICER IS DOWN!!! AN OFFICER IS DOWN AND IT LOOKS TO BE AN APPARENT SNIPER SOMEWHERE IN THIS CROWD BECAUSE THE BULLET PIERCED WITH THE OFFICER IN THE FACE!!! Oh my goodness the crowd of men have just started firing and everything had broken down. The protesters that have been here all day peacefully shouting for justice have now scattered and all Hell has broken loose. Oh my goodness, an officer is down...and another one there......that one is seemingly bleeding to death- cut the cameras. CUT THE CAMERAS NOW!! GO TO COMMERCIAL BREAK!!!!"

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"Ladies and Gentlemen......I'm at- uhm ....I'm at a loss for words. In my thirty plus year career as a news broadcaster I have never ever seen what has transpired in the last five minutes at a protest, in my life. The only thing we can tell you is that this group of men 'with the white head garbs' is an apparent underground cult but we do not know the reasoning behind the attacks on the police. Maybe it's the killing of Mr. Little or maybe it's just an apparent case of civil unrest, we just don't know at this point. We have uhm....cut the cameras because of how gruesome this act of violence is. This is....this is about a thousand times worse than the 1992 riots and with the structure of social media we do not wanna take risks of airing possible murders on national TV. We are being told that the LAPD has contacted the SWAT team and more state officials to try to calm this all down. All we can do is pray to the man upstairs that this doesn't get too out of hand, and trust in him that this will all be over in the next couple of hours. Right now it's just a bad dream that we all wish we could wake up from and an inexplicable instance of chaos.