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Black man from Florida is shot and KILLED by police for refusing to drop pocket knife while eating dinner in his backyard after cops were called to defuse family row. That’s the headline at dailymail.co.uk. No doubt TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia can see the problem with this. Right from the git-go, the story leaves out the most important element of the story . . .

Was Gregory Frazier threatening the police officers’ lives with his pocket knife — which is still a knife — when they shot him? Just like you and me, cops can use deadly force when they (or other innocent life) face an imminent, credible threat of grievous bodily harm or death. The Daily Mail ignores that possibility completely. Instead, they blog the story with the express purpose of fanning the flames of racial hatred. Like this:

An African American man who was said to be eating chicken wings in the backyard of his home while holding a pocket knife was shot and killed by policeman in southern Florida.

The incident occurred at around 10:00 p.m. on Friday.

Gregory Frazier, 55, was reportedly using a small pocket knife to eat near his home in Pompano Beach when he was confronted by two men from the Broward Country Sheriff’s Office . . .

The argument between Frazier and his niece ended when the officers arrived. Still, they told Frazier to get down on the ground knowing that he had a knife.

‘Leave me alone,’ Frazier is reported to have replied.

Soon after, both of the deputies opened fire and killed him, according to Local 10 News.

Neighbors say that the officers shot him six times in the back, though this has yet to be confirmed.

The only thing missing: the ethnicity of the officers involved, a “detail” that Local 10 News also fails to include in its report. A Mail link to browardpalmbeach.com reveals that the trio of responding cops were, in fact, white. But you already knew that, right?

The Mail’s sin of omission — both in terms of how Mr. Frazier might have precipitated the shooting and the color of the cops’ skins — doesn’t stop the news org from connecting the dots for its readers. They make the entirely dubious but ever-so-trendy racial hatred case by finishing their article with a list of no less than six high-profile officer-involved homicides of black men.

It’s bad enough that Black Lives Matter and their ilk are vilifying police in general. It’s worse that the mainstream media has become their cheering section, facts be damned.

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79 COMMENTS

  1. Ridiculous….. The man was just trying to some some butter on his biscuit….and they shot him!

    My benchmade adamas folder is just a butter knife.

  2. So the knife was stuck to his hand, because of the sticky wing sauce?

    Cops tell you to “drop the knife”, you drop the knife, no matter how in the wrong the cops might be, or how absurd it seems, depending on the circumstances, in them telling you to drop the knife.

    Sort that sh!t out later, with a lawyer.

  3. RF you use the term ‘officer involved shooting’ rather than something like “officers shoot chicken wing muncher”. Do you harbor doubts that they shot him?

    • Just so I’m clear, you are suggesting that the officers arm themselves with non-lethal weapons when confronted with lethal weapons?

      I’m not sure I agree.

      • I don’t know anything about tactics, nor do I pretend to. But I would think of more than officer is on scene one of them should probably go less lethal. That won’t cover EVERY case, but in general….

        • Generally speaking in the situation of a knife if one officer has lethal cover and the other has less lethal, and the suspect needs to be taken into custody but isn’t advancing, the taser will be deployed. If the dude flipped out and started walking towards the PD, they both probably said the hell with it and shot him. Stupid games and all that.

        • Look up the Tueller Drill and then re-think your post.
          There are three officers, so one of them has to volunteer to risk his life confronting a man with a knife who refused to put it down.
          I doubt you’d volunteer.

        • The Tueller Drill is a red herring. Nobody is suggesting that covering officers must keep their weapons holstered unless the suspect charges.

    • If someone is threatening you with a knife and you are close enough to use a taser they are close enough to stab you.

      If someone is NOT threatening you with a knife you shouldn’t be shooting them with either a gun or taser

      No way to know which one this is, yet.

      • If the report comes back confirming 6 shots in the back, I’ll be ready to make my decision which in that case could only be altered by the body-cam video.

  4. Actually, the fact that the race of the officers wasn’t immediately mentioned made me assume they weren’t white. Usually that’s all over the headline… unless, like the Freddie Gray case, they’re mixed.

  5. Racial hatred case? Anything like the N word being left on the sept 8th Weingarten post about open carry that no one has seen fit to moderate here at ttag?

    Something, something, clean own house, something, something.

    • I’d like to see a better commenting system brought in – integration with proper forum software would be a big step forward and would at least make it easier to moderate as users even if the site can’t.

        • Disqus? VETO VETO VETO
          I will not use any such system that follows me from site to site. Grossly inappropriate, suitable only for the lazy.

  6. The press makes their money from lurid stories and an excited public. In their world, facts are for boring losers.

    On a different topic – if I sign up again for the TTAG digest, will the irritating pop up ad stop?

  7. Gotta love journalists.

    Neighbors say that the officers shot him six times in the back, though this has yet to be confirmed.

    Guaranteed 70-80% of their readership stops reading that sentence at the comma. Reporters get things wrong, sure, but I can’t find a viable reason to include that sentence at all. Except to advance an agenda.

    • Reason to include that in the story?
      How about because they interviewed bystanders and reported what the bystanders said?

      Or do you prefer the “reporting” that just quotes the department’s press release?

        • They were, at one point, weren’t they?
          Although that doesn’t have much bearing on the counter-story, that he forced his way into a vehicle with cop in it and changed a verbal confrontation into a physical felony assault on a cop. Yes, Wilson’s an asshole, but no, he’s not a murderer.

          (I tend to discount the ‘tried to grab Wilson’s sidearm’ part, because I strongly suspect Wilson pulled it out of the holster during a close quarters grapple, and of course the other guy’s going to put his hand on the gun under those circumstances)

        • He was 135′ from the cop car. The majority of the shell casings were found immediately around the body. That’s one HELL of an extractor.

      • How about not quoting any of this crap until they have the whole story rather than rushing to put out a story with a pack of lies from people who are typically looking to make bank off the event?

        I’m black, and I typically trust not a word of what such ‘bystanders’ say because they are nearly always looking to profit from the deaths of their loved ones. It would behoove the press to go with what’s provable in court, and if they have nothing, then don’t put out a story that you’ll have to walk back later.

  8. If you can’t handle a 55 year old man with a pocket knife without using a gun you have no business being a cop. I don’t care if he’s actively trying to stab you with it.

    • Depends what the knife is. If its a tiny swiss army knife sure I’ll go hands on, much more and its lethal. You must not have ever seen firsthand the results of someone being carved up with a freaking knife. Its gruesome. Go back to your couch.

      • I missed part where they said the Swiss Army Knife’s blade was “tiny”. there are many models of the SAK and some of them have 3-4″ blades: more than long enough to cut your carotid artery easily. Refusal to drop a knife when confronted with LEO guns is not a good sign the encounter will end peaceably.

        • And I’m sure the cops will claim that happened. But from the article I gathered the problem was with him refusing to get on the ground. Show me the video, there is no excuse for not having one.

    • The onus is on the suspect to comply with lawful commands, not on officers to win a hand to hand combat match.

      You only know he had “only” a pocket knife because this is all after fact. You couldn’t have known that as an officer in that moment. He coud have had rifles.

      At that moment, all you could have known was that someone had s domestic altercation sufficient to warrant summoning the police, that someone was refusing lawful commands, and that someone held a deadly weapon.

      I’ll wait for all the facts to come in, but so far it isn’t looking good for the deceased.

    • My wife’s brother was killed and he s friend was severely wounded (aka left for dead) by a man with a pocket knife. The knife’s blade was 3.76 inches long. My brother-in-law and his friend were construction workers in their late 20’s, early thirties. It was a surprise attack. However, the damage a knife can do is remarkable and should never be underestimated.

      Bottom line: Had the man in the story complied he would be alive.

      • “Bottom line: Had the man in the story complied he would be alive.”

        Plenty (at least one a month, anyway) of people get murdered in this country for complying with LEO orders to the best of their ability.

        In this case, if some asshole walks into my backyard in the middle of a family get-together, points a gun at me and screams at me to get on the ground, “Blow me, Cocksucker” would seem to be an appropriate response, rather than assuming that a “lawful command” had just been issued.

  9. It is laughable that UK media describes this knife as a “small pocket knife” and implies it was merely an eating implement…but only days ago, the UK msm was publishing a hysteria – inducing article about the “terrifying things Americans have in their pockets” and made a huge stink about an evil “lockback” pocket knife, during their analysis of a EDC forum. On top of that, the possession or carrying of nearly any common knife in the UK is felonious…

    So, which is it? Are the cops overreacting to a measly pen knife, or is the pen knife an evil WMD? I guess only The Narrative matters…

  10. “It’s bad enough that black lives matter.” – R. Farago, TTAG
    …Quoted from Mother Jones, Daily Mail, Slate, Mom’s Demand Action. Huff-Po, and my idiot co-worker.
    Lol.. J/K. But you see my point.

  11. The guy probably wasn’t shot in the back, although BLM will probably take that part and run with it, just like “hands up don’t shoot”.

    In any case, refusing to drop a weapon will get you shot, no matter what color you are. Also, there is the 21 foot rule with knives that they teach you in training.

  12. Not enough info here…but a cop in Chicago is being indicted on 1st degree murder charges for shooting 16year old Laquan McDonald who CLEARLY had a knife and was on a crime spree. THIS poor 55year old black dude was just eating chicken wings. In his backyard…BTW are we a little “slow on the trigger” not reporting on the hildebeast’s pneumonia? Potentially WAAAAY more important than any other subject.

  13. There should be some sort of protocol for handling a situation like this. Yes, if he’s actively trying to attack you, shoot. But if he’s just standing there daring you to approach I’d go with two cops with guns out on each side of a third cop with the taser. And maybe cops should have nets for standoffs that occur with non-projectile weapons. Or shields. Call the fire department and hose him down. Anyone else got any ideas?

    • If he is within 20 feet of you, he has a good chance of lunging and seriously injuring one of you plus, it is hard to shoo him right next to or over one of you without the risk of shooting your partner. Best defense when the perp indicates he’ll keep his weapons and not comply with lawful orders is a good offensive shoot. #Blue Lives Matter.

  14. Sorry we stopped hosing folks down in the ’60s. What pull up , put rig in pump , drag a couple hundred feet of attack line into back yard, call for line to be charged, bleed it off then try to control it as I try to hit one guy with a knife who can move 10xs faster then I can with the line ?

    That was tried in the ’60s and the guys were attacked with their own axes….. Lines cut , and we no,longer had the advantage of operating rather unscathed in the hood .

  15. “Small.”

    Define the term, please! Does that mean a less than two inch long blade? Was it larger than a chicken wing?

    “Leave me alone.” Did he lunge toward them and say that? Or perhaps hardly looked at them and paid attention to his chicken?

    Reporting isn’t reporting so much in this story.

  16. There’s plenty of REAL police misconduct to look at without the media wasting time on nonsense like this.

    I suggest that they start with the shooting of Charles Kinsey and the [multiple] attempts to shoot the autistic man he was trying to protect… along with the evasive, contradictory and deceitful “explanations” proffered for the entire pathetic debacle.

    Nah, that would require actual “journalism”…

  17. People have been shot for “threatening” cops with cell phones, tablets, combs and PDAs, but this is the first time that a guy’s been shot for threatening a cop with a chicken wing.

  18. As long as the government employees were armed and threatening the citizen, the citizen had the right to be armed and to defend himself. Citizens are more important than government employees. Better 1000 cops die than 1 citizen be harmed.

  19. I once saw a copy of the Daily Mail in the grocery store, and was totally amazed that it was considered to be some sort of newspaper! The National Enquirer is a similar POS, but at least they outed John Edwards and that femme fatale he had a kid with. If Daily Mail has a similar scalp I don’t know about it.

    Didn’t Piers Morgan work for that rag? lol

    Charlie

  20. I’m not sure what’s worse, an incendiary “news” article designed to foment anti-law enforcement sentiment, or the Monday morning quarterbacking that goes on in the comments of this site based on the mis-information of that same article.

  21. My comment is all should wait for more facts and investigation before praise or condemnation. We have no view of the event. No statements, no distances, no detail on why a call was made. Gut opinion???? This was a less than lethal option event.

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