Roy Exum: "We Are Not Animals!"

  • Thursday, October 29, 2020
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

It is the saddest scene you can ever witness: The father of a mentally-ill son standing before the harsh lights of news cameras – this not 24 hours after his 27-year-old rushed the police with a knife and was killed by responding gunfire – and publicly begging for calm. “I don’t condone no violence – tearing up the city, looting in the stores – and all this chaos. This makes us look like animals, and we’re not animals … I need everybody to have respect for my family and stop this violence and chaos.”

His face awash with pain, Walter Wallace Sr.

told an overflow crowd of reporters, “People have businesses and we all got to eat … So, why would we hurt the resources that we have in the community instead of binding together? This is a SOS call for help, not hurt, and do not cause no chaos – violence, looting, fires – because I wasn’t brought up like that.”

Philadelphia wasn’t listening. Hours after the father’s plea, over 1,000 rioters increased the havoc that reigned over West Philly on Monday after his son was shot by police officers who approached them with a knife. On Tuesday night it was even worse. Thirteen looters were shot Tuesday night – by other rioters. One looter had methodically filled his car with stolen merchandise and as he stuffed his last armload into his car, another “partner in crime” calmly shot looter No. 1, and stole his car filled with the loot.

On Wednesday, a 9 p.m. curfew was ordered, and the state national guard was deployed. This was because the looters greatly outnumbered and overwhelmed the police on Tuesday. One officer was run over by a looter driving a truck in a way that shattered his leg, and 30 more officers were injured in the night-long melee. News outlets reported an absence of police at many crime sites. The rushing mob on Tuesday was clearly out of control for the second straight night and things don’t look promising in the “The City of Brotherly Love” going forward.

Back to Wallace: At the time of his death, Walter Jr. was well-known to the courts, where a parade of judges has each insisted on mental-illness counseling for the past 11 years. He has had numerous criminal charges and was awaiting trial for ‘criminal threats.’ He has fathered nine children – yes, at age 27 -- and was a part-time driver for “UBER Eats.” His mental diagnosis is a bipolar disorder and severe depression. There was a court order requiring him to take lithium, a prescription medication. As a rap singer, Walter Jr. allegedly wrote songs about jail time and killing policemen.

According to a 2015 report by the mental illness non-profit Treatment Advocacy Center, mental illness is present in one of every four fatal police shootings. Almost 50 percent of prisoners incarcerated in Hamilton County are prescribed psychotropic drugs. As Walter’s investigation widened, it was confirmed the Philly police had already been called twice on Monday due to Walter Jr’s raging demons. Those in the rowhouse where he lived could “not control him.” He was obviously not taking his medicine– and it was on the third visit by police on the same day that tragedy struck.

The family requested an ambulance, they said, but standard protocol calls for armed officers to get total control of a mental issue before calling for an ambulance where EMTs arrive unarmed and vulnerable. “You run into situations where someone has an illness that is impacting their brain, and (the police) can’t do anything unless they get sicker and act out in some way,” explained John Snook, the CEO of the Treatment Advocacy Center. “When that happens, police are called, so those situations are set up for violence. We are not responding in a way we should, so it is hard to expect any other results.”

Pennsylvania, like Tennessee, is so woefully unable to cope with the mental illness needs of its people. In both states, as with many others, you cannot hospitalize any mentally ill patient unless they are in a pronounced state of where they will “imminent” damage to themselves or others. Worst, and that’s only if the Moccasin Bend Hospital has 150 beds to serve 56 of Tennessee’s 95 counties and that – politely speaking – is a shameful joke.

In the deceased case, West Philly police have responded to 31 radio calls to William’s address since May. Dr. Katherine Kuhlman, writing on newsmax.com, spoke of the wide chasm on accountability that has plagued the news industry. “This ‘d******d if you do, d*****d if you don’t’ mentality, is actually a typical response to abuse.  You have three reactions,” she explained. “Tensions build, and then there is an ‘explosion,’ followed by a honeymoon period, and then the cycle repeated itself. American law enforcement has been trapped is this cycle for years. Very little changes.”

As a result, the honeymoon should be permanent but soon the public is led to believe by the liberal media betrayed. There are more police shootings, and with every outcry and non-enforced riots, law enforcement suffers fear, nightmares, burnout, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and … what’s worse, public distrust.

The nation’s liberal cities soon defund the police, the pompous and arrogant, pounding their chest for reform, but slowly they are facing the hard music. The far-left mayor of Seattle asks, “What do you mean … we don’t have the manpower to handle our normal 9-1-1 calls?” and now she is openly panicky. In New York police cuts caused the ‘Criminal Suppression Unit’ to close down but with shooting sky-rocketing over 40 percent, the liberals, the rioting blacks, and the waffling politicians are all aghast, now demanding more police presence and greater involvement than ever before.

Trust me, if you’ll look at the results of this summer’s rioting, you can easily see a distinct difference in cities run by Democrats and those with a more conservative, disciplined leadership. The rioting in West Philly this week should have never happened, nor should there be severely ominous warnings in every one of America’s major cities going into Tuesday’s election.

“We look like animals…and we are not.”

royexum@aol.com

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