CW: Police Violence/Suicide

A man being pursued by police after a routine traffic stop fell to death from a rooftop in Midtown early this morning.

Police stopped Joley Aristhee for having tinted windows.

nypost.com/2022/02/06/man…
It really doesn't sound like this was a suicide, but @nypost have written it up that way, so I put a CW on the thread.

If you are having thoughts of suicide call the National Suicide Prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
But whether Mr. Aristhee did jump to his death or was simply trying to get away from police, he wouldn't have died but for them pursuing him.

For having tinted windows.
Yet of course despite him being the person who died for what was at most a traffic infraction, and we don't know if in fact his windows illegally tinted, @nypost describe him as a "suspect" exhibiting "suspicious behavior."
This brings back a horrible memory of a teenage boy I represented who died while being pursued by police when he leapt onto subway tracks and was electrocuted by the third rail.

To @NYPost he was a "thief," but he was brave, smart and immensely likeable nypost.com/2017/04/24/per…
Again to @nypost the sum total of who he was was a"thief" when the reason he died was because police chased him onto the subway tracks. For him ALLEGEDLY taking a small amount of $$$ from a newsstand.
If only all the cases where people die as a result of police violence garnered as much media attention as those where police were killed.
Appendix: @nypost has changed article to suggest more likely scenario is that Mr. Aristhee fell to his death rather than dying by suicide.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Rebecca Kavanagh

Rebecca Kavanagh Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @DrRJKavanagh

Feb 7
Police are 40 times more likely to kill civilians than they are to be killed by them.

Nationally about 60 members of law enforcement are killed each year.

By contrast, police shoot and kill as many as 2,000 people in an average year

Another 300 are killed in car police chases.
Law enforcement deaths: cnn.com/2022/01/13/us/…
Police killings of civilians (vastly underestimated count according to @nytimes).
Read 5 tweets
Feb 7
I can't stop thinking about this case, which literally only got covered by @nypost.

Police killed Joe Aristhee by pursuing him after a routine traffic stop - FOR TINTED PLATES - just as much as if they had shot him to death.

nypost.com/2022/02/06/man…
Pulling people over for tinted windows is a form of "broken windows" policing that targets Black drivers - see observations by @GangiFromProp and @MarshallProj .

themarshallproject.org/2015/08/17/whe…
Moreover, like most traffic stops (and indeed police pursuits for serious crimes) there are far better alternatives - police here had Mr. Aristhee's plates.

in other cases that are not traffic stops there are usually cameras that allow police to follow up.
Read 5 tweets
Jan 25
Lawyer here: if you purchased a Marc Jacobs bag today for a ridiculously low price because of a website glitch, they can't cancel the transaction.

It would be different if they just advertised the wrong price, but once you've completed the transaction, that's a binding contract.
Honestly I care zero about people buying Marc Jacobs bags, it's just so typical of a luxury brand trying to do something illegal by not honoring a valid sales contract.
Especially when these brands have been getting so much sympathetic coverage recently because of the "surge" in retail theft etc.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 22
Corrections officers killed 17-year-old Cedric Lofton last September, but the Wichita County DA says he will not charge them because of Kansas' Stand Your Ground Law - a law passed to allow homeowners to act in self defense not give law enforcement impunity to kill.
Cedric was experiencing a mental health crisis when his foster father locked him out of the house the night he died and called the police.

Police took him to a juvenile jail. Corrections officers placed him in ankle shackles, and handcuffed him. nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/…
The officers then pushed him face down into the ground, holding him down for half an hour until he stopped breathing. He died later at the hospital.

The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. Bodycam of the incident has been released. I am not posting.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 20
The three Pennsylvania police officers who killed 8-year-old Fanta Bility outside a high school football game in August have been charged with manslaughter.and reckless endangerment.

The first degree murder charges against two teenagers charged in the shooting have been dropped.
The officers, Devon Smith, Sean Dolan and Brian Devaney, fired a barrage of shots into the large crowd after they say they heard gunfire.

Blocks away two Black teenagers were engaged in an altercation, during which a gun was allegedly shot. nytimes.com/2022/01/18/us/…
There was never any question that it was one of the cop's guns that had killed Fanta, but the DA charged the two Black teenagers with first degree murder.

It was unclear how they could ever prove this charge since first degree murder requires intent. inquirer.com/news/angelo-fo…
Read 9 tweets
Nov 28, 2021
A group of young Black men known as "Groveland Four" were posthumously exonerated for the rape of a White woman in 1949 this week.

But this is mot just the story of a wrongful conviction, but a lynching and a White mob destroying a Black community.

nytimes.com/2021/11/22/us/…
Ernest Thomas, Samuel Shepherd, Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin were aged between 16 and 26 when Norma Padgett, a 17-year-old White woman, accused them of rape.
Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin were veterans of WW2 and had continued to wear their uniforms when they returned to the US.

(African American veterans were frequent targets for lynchings - a reminder their service did not affect their status at home.)
npr.org/2018/09/20/649…
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

:(