Why is the Pasco shooting becoming a race issue?

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

Before the Pasco Police Department can even talk with everyone involved in the shooting that left a homeless man dead, a local Latino group sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking for an investigation into the police shooting of Antonio Zambrano-Montes.

NBC News published a portion of the letter that says, “On behalf of the family of Antonio Zambrano Montes, I request the immediate intervention by the U.S. Department of Justice in the case involving the shooting by members of the Pasco, Washington police force of Mr. Zambrano.”

The first question I had when I saw this article on NBC News: Why exactly is a Latino group getting involved? Is it because the victim is Mexican-American?

The majority of the city of Pasco is Hispanic. If you have any sort of encounter with anyone, whether it’s a victim or just a random person, chances are you’re going to run into someone who is Latino, who is Hispanic. That’s just a likelihood based on the population.

But you have activists making this out to be an attack on Hispanics, specifically. They’re turning this into a racial issue. That seems to be based on nothing other than this guy being part Mexican.

This entire story is being framed as having everything to do with race because we have race-baiters in this country, including those people in the media who need a better angle to sell this particular story to you. In the aftermath of Ferguson and Garner case in New York, people have a higher appetite for that.

So you have this issue in Pasco, and all of the sudden the media is like, ‘Oh he’s Hispanic, he’s half Mexican, let’s turn this into something about race. Let’s forget that one of the officers is also Hispanic. Let’s not report that, but let’s report everything else.’

NBC News writes on their website, “The city of Pasco is almost 56 percent Latino, according to the latest census figures, yet community leaders cite virtually no representation in local government and agencies. Weeks before the shooting, community leaders had met with the police chief and stressed the need for further police training. The fatal shooting was the 4th police shooting in six months.”

Now, let’s go through some of that step-by-step just to get a full picture of the context in which that statement was written.

They say “community leaders cite virtually no representation.” Well, the first question is: Are Latinos running? If you’re in Pasco and you are Latino, are you actually running? And if you are, in fact running for office, are you getting Hispanics to go out there and vote?

Either Latinos aren’t running or Latinos aren’t voting for the Latino candidates. That’s not the white guy’s fault. Should white people not run in majority Hispanic areas?

If we’re not going to have white people run in majority Hispanic areas because that’s somehow a bad thing, should Hispanics or blacks or Asians be disallowed from running in white neighborhoods? No, of course not.

You presumably want the person to run who is best for that particular community, whether they be white or Hispanic. If the voters of Pasco are voting in someone who is white because they believe that white person is best for the community, why is that bad?

NBC News also points to the other shootings in the area since July, but of course they don’t give you any context. When you look at a population of 65,000 in Pasco and you’ve got four police shootings, I think one is reasonable to say that seems like a lot. If you look at some of the more populous areas, Seattle for example, you’re not getting that many police shootings in six months.

But let’s take a look at the context that NBC chooses not to give you. In one of the shootings, the guy reportedly pulled a kitchen knife on the cops. When you pull a kitchen knife on cops, chances are you are going to lose that battle because police are going to pull their guns on a deadly weapon. In another case, the guy pulled an Airsoft pistol. The bottom line is, in every single one of these shootings, all the officers were cleared of wrongdoing.

I look at the video of this shooting and I understand the perspective of the cops because when he turned around, it looked like he had something in his hand, they knew he was throwing rocks. You’ve got that rock, that’s a weapon, the officers are going to want to protect themselves. I understand that. But I also understand the perspective of people saying, that’s just a rock.

But a rock is a weapon. And if you’re using weapons, especially after you resist arrest, dare I say things are probably not going to end well for you. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up just being arrested. If you’re not, you end up being shot, and in this situation he ended up dying.

Will the officers be cleared of wrongdoing in this case? I have no idea. But I’m willing not to politicize this particular event and let them actually do an investigation.

Taken from Tuesday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

JS