Houston Policeman Shoots Another Unarmed Youth, in Bedroom

[lostnfound]

It seems a weekly event here. This week's event seems particularly atrocious: a 14-year old boy playing Nintendo games after school, with two other boys in his friend's bedroom.
Police burst in looking for someone who had broken a window -- not the kid that they eventually killed.

An innocent, frightened 14 year old yelling 'Help me! Help me!' as police are "trying to subdue him" because "he wasn't following their commands"; he's on the floor with a gun an inch from his head and the "gun goes off".

Eli Eloy Escobar II -- the only child for his parents; his mother calling him her 'miracle child' because they had tried for so long to have a child.

(Houston Chronicle wrote about it but you need a subscription; houston.indymedia.org has a brief story on it too.)

****************

[Nlighten1]

1. Land of the free...

home of the repressed.

[BootinUp]

2. Another tragedy

I usually try to give the police the benefit of the doubt, but the clip you posted makes it hard to do that.

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. Police can burst into a home looking for someone?

Someone who broke a fucking window? That's fucked. Even more so when they can hold a gun to a captive's child's head.

And Michael Jackson fiddling with little boy's peepees while they sleep is national news while this is barely a blip on the local city section.

Sheesh! Happy Thanksgiving people, but I'm finding it harder by the day to find things for which to be thankful.

Click Here To Find NO MICHAEL JACKSON Buttons, Stickers & Magnets

[pansypoo53219]

17. welcome

to george w Bush's ameruca

[whathappened]

4. this is a sad day

in this country , that our own protections we hire thru the police can't even handle them selfs as calm humen beings , why all the vilance first and then stop and see what they have done , sence when is a great crime to break a window , maybe we should all take a break from jr. shoot first and shoot to kill motto , to just backing off and start talking to one another again , my heart goes out to the family

[JaySherman]

5. Sad. Absolutely terrible.

This is what we've come to. The land of the free where an innocent kid playing Nintendo in his bedroom isn't even safe from the COPS. I can think of some nastier names to call them but I won't at the risk of offending. I really do hope they send the scum who did the shooting up the river and his partners are stripped of their badges. There's just no excuse for that. Of course they'll probably walk.

DUer cops (if there are any), let's hear from you. These are your peers, after all.

[Nlighten1]

6. A broken window warrants drawn weapon?

:wtf:

[Ilsa]

8. They drew them in a Junior high school last month for a drug raid.

Sick bastards.

I hope the family successfully gets the officers prosecuted and sues the city for this. Their lives have been ruined. I can't imagine the grief these poor people must be feeling right now.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. Nothing, absolutely nothing can make that up to them

What a sad, sad story. And one would think that having a kid stay at home in front of the TV is better than being on the streets. For that particular kid, it was more dangerous than the streets. I'm getting angry just thinking about it.

Click Here To Find NO MICHAEL JACKSON Buttons, Stickers & Magnets

[Wapsie B]

7. Jeezus H Christ!

I'm normally with the cops but on this one but this is a travesty. That cop needs to be fired and sterilized. Then charged with manslaughter.

[karlschneider]

11. This kind of thing was common in the early 60s in Tulsa-I worked for the

TPD to pay for college and saw a lot of this kind of stuff. I think it might be that the time's right for me to write a book about it. But I wonder if anybody would believe it wasn't fiction.

[Wapsie B]

13. I'd read it.

Truth IS stranger than fiction.

[ShaneGR]

10. That cop is going to the Big House

And it won't be a happy experience.

[DUreader]

14. Cops rarely do time

odds are against it

[DUreader]

12. Two links no subsription needed

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2247930


Man: Teen vowed to stop resisting

By DALE LEZON
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Moments before he was killed by
a Houston police officer's
bullet, 14-year-old Eli Eloy
Escobar II told two patrolmen
that he was going to cooperate
and stop resisting, a witness
said Monday.

But the officer who shot him
said his gun fired because the
teen kicked his hand.

As the youth's parents prepared
to bury their only child,
friends and family held a vigil at the site of
his death Monday, and the Police Department
continued investigating the second fatal
shooting of a teenager by an officer in less
than a month.

Escobar was killed about 5:30 p.m. Friday while
fighting with officers Arthur Carbonneau and
Ronald Olivo outside a friend's apartment at
3130 Mangum, in northwest Houston, police said.



http://www.news24houston.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=19383


Community reacts to latest shooting
involving HPD officers and teenagers
11/24/2003 11:05 PM
By: Blanco, Annie

The mother of Eli
Escobar begs for
some answers.

While friends and
residents of
Burnham Woods
Apartments demand
it.

"This is
outrageous,"
Travis Morales
says, "what they did to this young
man. This is cold-blooded murder."

As a community remembers a
14-year-old lost, authorities are
scrambling to figure out what
happened.

[Wapsie B]

16. Just what the hell

is going on in that dept.? My gut tells me there's something going on here other than trigger happy cops.

[Karenina]

15. Kinda like in Iraq, eh?

Goons bust into your house and murder your kid. Super. Welcome to BUSHWORLD!

[msmcghee]

18. Like he said . .

. . your either with him or against him.

What's happening is that Bush* has made it ethically OK for anyone to consider those of us on (what they define as) the margins - including liberals, GLBT, atheists, democrats in general, the handicapped, seniors, the poor, etc. - as subversives.

Now, many cops pulling over anybody of color or in any of these suspect groups - who Bush* has essentially said are for the terrorists because we disagree with the administration's policies - feels they have societal permission to do whatever the fuck they want - and get a pat on the back from their fellow officers.

If they get caught - they think they'll get off and if they get convicted they think they'll get pass on the sentence.

Such is the result when you take a huge free nation and divide it - rather than do everything you can to unite it in a time of great need.

[Eric J in MN]

19. I predict that

I predict that not only won't the police officer be convicted, but he'll stay a police officer.

[msmcghee]

20. I made business trip to Houston a few years ago.

I made the mistake of getting a hotel room downtown. - which is where I thought there'd be something to do in the evening.

To my surprise - the whole downtown area shut off the lights about 9:00. I remember looking out from my window (on about the 10th floor) and seeing the empty streets below - and the constant whirring of helicopters with search lights skirting the edge of the downtown area - the poor neighborhoods that surround much of Houston.

It was a little like sci-fi. Now its just sci.

[OneBlueSky]

21. I can't think of a word that captures the horror of this incident . . .

outrageous? . . . despicable? . . . disgusting? . . . unbelievable? . . . none of them do it justice . . . even collectively they don't capture the dimension of this tragedy . . . the likes of which are becoming more and more commonplace in our little pseudo-democracy . . . how important is defeating Bush in 2004? . . . there has never been anything more important in your lifetime or mine, and likely never will be . . .