We’re all familiar with the case of George Floyd, the man whose death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers inflamed leftists across the country, gave more prominence to BLM, and led to a summer of destruction across the country. We’re also familiar with the case of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who was found guilty of murdering Floyd.
But how many people are familiar with the case of Amir Locke? Locke’s death, and the relative lack of attention it has received, illustrates double standards all across the board.
BLM
The murder of Amir Locke, like that of Philando Castile in 2016, were cases of law-abiding young black men killed by police. Yet they never got nearly the same attention as the case of Floyd, who was accused of passing counterfeit currency and was under the influence of drugs when he was arrested by police.
Locke and Castile would have been perfect poster children for everything that is wrong with police and race relations in this country. Yet Black Lives Matter (BLM) instead decided to make Floyd its martyr. Just about every person BLM lionizes is some sort of criminal, just like the Nazis idolized criminals such as Horst Wessel.
If BLM really wanted to unite the country against racism and the excesses of the police state, it would make Amir Locke a household name. The fact that it doesn’t tells you everything you need to know about BLM’s real goals.
Prosecutors
What happened to George Floyd was inexcusable. Even after it was clear that he was unconscious, Officer Chauvin continued to kneel on him and failed to get him medical attention. But for that Chauvin was charged and convicted of murder.
The police in the Amir Locke case were looking for a murder suspect and executed no-knock raids at several different places simultaneously. They weren’t going in with known intelligence, just going on a fishing expedition, so they knew the odds of them running into an innocent person were high.
Amir Locke happened to be a law-abiding citizen sleeping in his cousin’s living room with a legally owned pistol with him, and for that he was killed in cold blood. Yet no charges will be filed against the police in this case.
If you watch the video, and imagine yourself in Amir Locke’s case, you can’t come to any other conclusion than that the cops were in the wrong. Yes, you can understand what they were thinking, but they were clearly in the wrong.
They don’t get to just burst into people’s houses and shoot people on sight just because they happen to have a gun or a knife, as that’s perfectly legitimate and Constitutionally-protected activity in one’s own home or in the home of a friend. But prosecutors inexplicably seem to think that the cops did nothing wrong, even though this case is far more black and white than that of George Floyd.
Conservatives
Thankfully there are some conservatives who are standing up for Amir Locke, particularly gun rights organizations such as Gun Owners of America. They understand that any one of us, black or white, could be the next Amir Locke, and they’re committed to making sure that injustices like this, in which law-abiding gun owners are gunned down in cold blood, don’t occur any more.
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of conservatives who have their head in the sand about this case. They see Al Sharpton or Ben Crump speaking with the Locke family and they automatically assume that Amir Locke was a ne’er-do-well who got what was coming to him.
That’s sad and unfortunate, and for people like that it probably would take an experience like Locke’s happening to them or to their loved ones to wake up and realize that Amir Locke was an innocent victim. No law-abiding citizen should have to suffer what he suffered. It’s up to true conservatives to make his name known far and wide, and to ensure that the abuses that led to his death will no longer be common practice among police forces in this country.