A worker at a near by Burger King cries on the ground near where the New Orleans Police Department investigates the scene where two NOPD officers were shot and one suspect killed and another wounded on North Bernadotte near Toulouse Street early Thursday morning, March 1, 2012. According to restaurant employees, the slain suspect worked at the Burger King.

Early this morning, the police murdered another young black man in our community. His relatives say he and his brother who was also shot, were good young men. Both worked at Mid-City Burger King restaurants. Two police officers were also shot, presumably by the men they'd pulled over in a "proactive" traffic stop, i.e.- driving while black. This comes as no surprise, and is an inevitable result of the apartheid police state we live in.

Perhaps after being arrested and caged like animals several times at OPP only to have their charges later dropped the brothers vowed, like Truth Universal has, to never submit to NOPD taking them back to OPP on false pretenses yet again? It's very hard to climb out of the financial hole a false arrest can put a person in, especially on a Burger King salary. It's enough to make someone very angry, especially when they are pulled over mere blocks from their workplace.

No one knows exactly how or why 2 police officers and 2 young black men ended up shot this morning in Mid-City. But we do know that the NOPD arrests young black men at a rate that causes intense resentment in our community towards the cops. And we know that the NOPD shoots young black men dozens of times every year, making every encounter with law enforcement potentially deadly if you happen to be young and black.
Unsurprisingly, the corporate, police-guarded media has already begun defaming these young men's character, doing the indispensable job of slandering their lives that helps the NOPD make every police shooting seems justified. How else will the Times-Picayune get inside scoops and maintain friendly relationships with the police and those in power if they don't defend the NOPD's murderous actions? They are bringing up the victim's arrest records, even though they were not convicted. Such records are almost universal among young black men due to the nature of the Apartheid Police State we live in.

Pulled over for no reason on their way to work, these young men, already victims of the apartheid police state multiple times over by being locked up again and again while never convicted of any crime, no doubt felt targeted, harassed, and angry when they were pulled over for absolutely no reason this morning in Mid-City. One can only imagine their frustration and anger as the police made them late for work for a "pro-active traffic stop."

If people are angry that 2 police were shot, blame the system that pays them to harass, cage, and often to murder young black men in the streets, and engender the type of anger that could lead to such shootings. We have to get the NOPD to stop waging war on our fellow New Orleanians!

Jerome Simon, an uncle to the brothers, described his nephews as close knit and hard working. "They are home-body individuals. They go to work and come home, seriously. That’s a fact."
"They respect the law. I really, truly believe they won’t try to harm anybody," said Simon.

"They (NOPD) are supposed to be protecting around here, but they're not doing their job. 'Cause if they was, they would have all the ones they keep putting back out on the streets with these guns," said one of the victim's girlfriend. "It was a regular routine day...now all of the sudden this."