HOUSTON—On Friday, August 28, 2015 a 47-year-old white Harris County sherriff’s deputy Darren Goforth was shot and killed at a local police hangout in Houston, Texas.
The police have subsequently charged 30-year-old Shannon Miles, an African man, with capital murder.
Shannon’s mother says there is no way he could have shot the cop because he was with her, shopping at the time of the shooting.
Now, even after being in police custody for ten days, Shannon himself says that he is not guilty.
Shannon’s arraignment is scheduled for October 5, 2015 at the Harris County courthouse in downtown Houston.
As Africans, however, we know from our historical experiences here in the U.S. the police will say anything – they lie all the time.
Examine the many murders they have committed and said they “feared for their lives.”
They frame Africans each and every day of the week. Check out our disproportionate numbers in the penitentiaries and the many innocents that have been murdered on death rows throughout this country.
Harris County leads the U.S. in legal executions. They are third in police executions.
The peoples’ narrative different from police narrative/media narrative
The August 31, 2015 New York Times announced with a big, bold headline: Prosecutors Say Shannon Miles Shot Texas Deputy 15 times writing that “police suspect Shannon Miles emptied his 15-round handgun into the back and the back of the head of the deputy, as witnesses watched in horror and surveillance cameras captured the shooting.”
In this long descriptive article, the NY Times never mentions Miles’ mother alibis for him..
There are no surveillance cameras of the shooting although cameras are all over the service station; and there is not a single witness that says Shannon Miles shot this cop.
The petty bourgeois black media is no exception when it comes to spewing out the narrative of the police. In big extra bold front page headlines, the September 2 Forward Times reads,
‘“Our assumption is that he (Goforth) was a target because he wore a uniform.” – Ron Hickman Harris County Sheriff. Then in a smaller header it reads “Harris County Sheriff Blames #BlackLivesMatter Movement on Officer’s Senseless Killing.”
These are damaging headlines. These headlines along with all the media, print, television and radio have all convicted Shannon Miles without even questioning the validity of the case against him.
They always criminalize the African
The media has also criminalized Shannon Miles. They accuse him of having a long and extensive “rap sheet.”
The truth is that the four or five arrests on Miles’ record are all misdemeanors, and three of them are for “resisting arrest” with no other charges attached.
Seems as though Shannon stood up for his rights and would get charged with “resisting arrest.”
Once he refused to let a cop search him with no probable cause. The question is: why and what was he being arrested for since no other charges were filed against him.
Like Sandra Bland in adjacent Waller county was murdered for just saying she did not have to put her cigarette out in her own vehicle.
They also went on to criminalize Sandy with charges of marijuana and mental instability as they have also done to Shannon.
They search for motive
Throughout the many press conferences district attorney Devon Anderson, a white woman and sheriff Hickman have claimed ignorance on the question of motive.
Why would Shannon shoot a cop 15 times? Anderson proclaimed that they have made capital murder cases in the past without motive and that they will do it again.
Since they don’t have a motive for Shannon shooting Goforth, it is impossible for them to make a criticism of themselves by admitting that Africans in the U.S. might have 400 years of slavery and oppression for motive.
That Africans in fact are a colonial people and that every act of the colonial subject is an act of self-defense when dealing with an oppressive occupying army which is what the Harris County sheriff’s department is in the black communities in Houston and Harris County.
The Black Lives Matter group in Houston held a press conference on September 8, 2015 and stated that the sole purpose of the press conference was to demand that Sheriff Hickman and district attorney Anderson apologize to them for associating Shannon Miles with their movement.
It seems that theBlack Lives Matter movement would have more in common with their brother Shannon Miles (whether he did it or not) than they would with proven enemies of African people as Anderson and Hickman have proven to be long before Shannon was accused of anything.
They are representatives of the colonial white power State. Anderson and Hickman lords over Harris County which sends more Africans to Death Row than any county in the U.S.
Funds exceeding $600,000 have been raised in Goforth’s name. Some of those funds being raised by Houston’s television militant Quannell X who held a fundraiser for Goforth, claiming how good a father he was.
Black folk in Houston, the U.S. and the world should stand with Shannon Miles if for no other reason than to keep the racist colonialist state of Texas from manufacturing a case and giving him the death penalty.
His legal defense will cost big money and it is up to our community to provide him with the best legal and political defense possible.
Free Shannon Miles!
Put the State on trial!