In the aftermath of several high-profile incidents involving police shootings of black men, a demand went out far and wide to make body-worn cameras for police officers mandatory.
The thought that these anti-police zealots were trying to show that police were out hunting black men, primarily those in their teens and 20s. What we have learned in the years since the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, is that the narrative that police are out hunting black men to shoot them in cold blood has been overwhelmingly disproven.
More recently, in light of those body-worn camera videos showing that what we have been told- that police officers are not, in fact, engaged in a genocide against black men- we are now told not to believe what our eyes are seeing.
Last year in Aurora, Colorado, 37-year-old Rajan Belt Stubblefield was driving drunk with a blood alcohol content over three times the legal limit. Stubblefield, who has been portrayed as just a dad with some “issues,” taught his son a lesson. You see, when Stubblefield was getting pulled over for being blitzed, his son was in the car with him.
Just as we saw last year when a Tren de Aragua gang banger was being portrayed as simply a “Maryland dad,” Stubblefield is being lionized by the local media in Colorado as a husband and father of seven who made a “mistake” and paid with his life.
So, did this “father of the year” candidate follow the law and pull over when the police officer, Matthew Neely, activated his overhead lights to pull him over? Of course not. Stubblefield drove off at a high rate of speed after striking a car from behind, flew over the center median into oncoming traffic and hit another car, finally coming to a stop because his vehicle was disabled. Decision one.
According to Neely, Stubblefield exited his Jeep with a handgun and threw it towards nearby grass. Neely attempted to arrest Stubblefield and, in doing so, fell to the pavement as the two wrestled. After regaining his balance, Neely ordered Stubblefield to the ground. He refused and “squared up” to fight and began walking toward Neely. Decision two.
As Stubblefield approached Neely, he backed him into traffic. Being the “good dad” that he allegedly was, Stubblefield told his 19-year-old son to retrieve his firearm from the grass, then repeatedly taunted Neely, asking, “You ready for this?” Someone who is going to comply with the police does not act in such a manner. Stubblefield then rushed toward Neely, who shot him three times. Decision three.
Stubblefield died immediately. All the above were recorded on Neely’s body-worn camera and other cameras in the area. There is no dispute as to what happened.
At least five times, Stubblefield threatened Neely, taunting him with, “You ready for this?” Stubblefield attempted to convince his son to retrieve the gun he had thrown into the grass.
Stubblefield, who was intoxicated, was clearly a threat to Neely’s life. Neely had a split second to decide whether to use deadly physical force. Is Neely supposed to wait until Stubblefield starts physically beating him before he can use deadly force? What would happen if he got beaten nearly unconscious and Stubblefield, who already made at least three decisions to put himself in this situation, got his gun? Did Neely know the mindset of Stubblefield’s son? How was he to know if he was a threat? Would a reasonable and prudent person (Neely) believe he was at imminent risk for serious physical injury or death?
Obviously.
Despite having every opportunity to stand down and comply with Neely, Stubblefield refused. It was Stubblefield who put himself in this situation, not Neely.
This is a scenario we have seen repeatedly, from Michael Brown to George Floyd to numerous others, including several months ago in Hartford, CT.
In that case, Hartford police responded to a call involving a man having a mental health crisis who was armed with a butcher knife, threatening people on the streets of Hartford in the middle of the afternoon. He refused repeated commands to drop the knife. Officer Joseph Mangano arrived on the scene and the suspect, Steven Jones, turned his attention to Mangano. Despite repeated commands to drop the knife, Jones kept walking toward Mangano and other officers with the knife raised. Seeing no other options, Mangano fatally shot and killed Jones.
What did Mangano get for his trouble? He was fired without benefit of due process by Hartford’s anti-police, Zimbabwe-born mayor Arunan Arulapalam. He was subsequently arrested based on an “investigation” by Connecticut’s Inspector General. He is currently awaiting trial.
And what about Neely? Because he shot and killed an “unarmed” man, his case was referred to an Aurora grand jury, which indicted him on charges of second degree murder and reckless manslaughter, the lesson being if you are a police officer in Aurora, Colorado, even if someone has clearly indicated through words and actions that they intend to assault you and possibly kill you, you are not free to defend yourself.
Stubblefield clearly did not have any value for his own life. He had a police officer pointing a gun at him yet still made the conscious decision to attempt to attack him. The body camera shows that Stubblefield had no regard for human life, including his own.
As conservative podcaster Matt Walsh noted in his podcast on the subject, “the level of suicidal rage and aggression and violence to do something like that to completely override what should be just like your base level self-preservation instinct is hard to comprehend.” As Walsh observed, “If that’s how he’ll treat you when you have a gun pointed at him, then what would he do if you didn’t have a gun?”
So of course, the local Colorado media was all over this story, correct? They were questioning why a police officer who was clearly in fear for his life would get indicted on a murder charge, right?
You do not hate the media enough. Channel 9 News proceeded to show a puff piece on Stubblefield which would make CNN blush. The reporter made sure to refer to Stubblefield as “a black man,” because, you know, race.
“Belt Stubblefield gets out of the car and throws a gun into a nearby grassy area as the officer pushes him to the ground. The officer told him to get on the ground and punched him in the head. Eventually, the officer fires three shots,” the report says.
What is missing from that report is Stubblefield repeatedly asking Neely if “you ready for this?” while telling his son to retrieve the gun.
The report then goes on to interview Stubblefield’s son:
“For 19-year-old Zion Murphy, the moments with his father were quiet, everyday things. The kind of moments you never realize you will miss until they are gone,” the reporter gushed.
“The bond between a father and his firstborn son is forged in the everyday, the jokes and the lessons,” the nauseating segment continued.
Was one of those lessons not to drive drunk at three times the legal limit? Was it to pull over to the side of the highway when the police are trying to stop you? Was it to comply with lawful commands of police officers? Was it not to approach an armed police officer with your fists clenched in an obvious sign that you were going to attack him?
Zion was smart enough to tell his father to “chill” as he was approaching Neely, but then also admonished Neely to “chill.”
The reporter then interviews Stubblefield’s wife, who intimated that all he did was drive drunk, did not pull over, and for all of that, was summarily executed by Neely, which the astute reporter chose not to push back on.
Perhaps the biggest mistake made by this family was getting race-baiting, ambulance-chasing attorney Ben Crump involved. Any possible credibility of their complaint (which was basically zero) devolved into negative numbers by the involvement of Crump, who has never met a television camera he doesn't stop for.
As we have seen scores of times in the past, the news media refused to give any context to the incident, which unfortunately resulted in Stubblefield’s death and, more egregiously, is leading to a police officer fighting for his liberty. We saw this with Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and an innumerable number of others. The media is trying to portray this as yet another incident when a racist cop went to work that day and was hoping to hunt down a black man and kill him, video evidence be damned.
That brings us to the Aurora District Attorney Amy Padden, who Walsh notes looks exactly like you would expect. A white, liberal woman with the “important lady glasses” who was endorsed by Bernie the Red Sanders among other avowed leftists. As part of the Sanders coalition, Padden is a social justice warrior who does not believe in harsh sentences for real criminals but lives to prosecute police officers defending their lives, such as Matthew Neely.
In a typical use of force case, officers are supposed to implement a continuum of force, where practical. Depending on the circumstances, those steps in the continuum can be skipped. In the case of Neely, he told investigators that he believed Stubblefield was going to assault him and take his firearm. He said he did not have a taser on him and did not believe pepper spray would be effective, which often is not against a hyped-up drunk, and he believed it could incapacitate him as well as Stubblefield.
The indictment transcript says at one point that Neely “attempted to holster his pistol so that he could transition to his retractable baton, less lethal device, but he was unable to get the pistol in his holster. Defendant spent approximately 7 seconds trying to holster his weapon, but he was not successful in doing so. Stubblefield never threatened to harm defendant, nor made any overt acts to disarm the officer or to rearm himself.”
That flies in the face of Stubblefield’s own statements captured on Neely’s body-worn camera, which Padden conveniently ignored. “You ready for this?” What did that mean if not that Stubblefield was prepared to attack Neely? Padden told the grand jury that Neely was “never threatened.” If “you ready for this” while someone has their fists clenched is not a threat, what is?
Perhaps the most bizarre statement in the indictment is where Padden tries to claim that Neely wasn’t justified in using deadly physical force because he didn’t verbalize to Stubblefield that he was under arrest” nor did he “radio the police dispatcher that Stubblefield was not complying with his commands and that he threw a gun into the grass,” nor did he “tell Stubblefield he would shoot him immediately prior to firing.”
It is a miracle that anyone wants to be a police officer in a blue state, where there is some alternative universe where bad guys are good, and police officers are bad guys. Is it any wonder why cities like New York, Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, and others cannot get people to take the police exam?
It was not long ago that when even a small town advertised a police exam, thousands would apply. That is no longer the case.
As long as the media, far-left prosecutors, and radical leftist politicians keep demonizing the police and holding them to impossible standards, it will not be long before those same radicals get what they want: cities with no police departments at all. No one is going to risk their freedom and financial security defending communities that are actively looking for ways to put officers in prison.
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