TMR/Felony Friday: Man Arrested For Pointing Banana At Police
This is a busy time of the year for the Lions of Liberty! Much like you, our time is consumed by visiting with family and friends, or for our editor-in-chief, working through the holiday weekend. Because of these circumstances, The Morning Roar and Felony Friday are combined into one feature today!Man Arrested For Pointing Banana At PoliceBe careful if you see a police officer in the produce section of your local grocery store, there’s a chance they could mistake fruits and vegetables for a deadly weapon.Nathan Rolf Channing, twenty-seven-years-old, was arrested this past week in Grand Junction, Colorado after Mesa County deputies claimed Channing pointed a banana at them. He is now facing felony menacing charges.According to an arrest affidavit, Channing pointed the fruit at the officers while he was crossing the street.In the affidavit, Officer Joshua Bunch wrote that he was driving along when he noticed Channing walking on the sidewalk. Bunch wrote that Channing “reached into the left side of his coat and pulled out a yellow object, pointing it into the air then in my direction as I approached him.”Fox 31 Denver reports:
“Fearing it was a weapon,” Bunch wrote that he sped off. And knowing Love was traveling behind him, Bunch said he radioed his fellow deputy to warn him. As he returned to the area, Bunch wrote he witnessed Channing point the same object at Love.As Love got out of his vehicle and approached Channing, Bunch wrote his fellow deputy said he “observed what appeared to be a yellow tube with a black center” and also stated he “thought it was a gun.”“Deputy Love stated he was in fear for his life at this point and was in the process of pulling out his handgun when Nathen yelled, ‘It’s a banana!'” Bunch wrote.In describing his own misinterpretation of the object, Bunch wrote that “based on training and experience, I have seen handguns in many shapes and colors and perceived this to be a handgun.”
This story seems comical and harmless on the surface, but how many stories have we seen recently where a police officer mistakes an object for a gun and the outcome has resulted in the death of a citizen?One tragic story occurred in Cleveland almost a week ago. A police officer shot and killed a twelve-year-old boy in a park because the officer mistook the child’s airsoft gun for a deadly weapon. In response to the death of this child one busybody legislator in the state of Ohio plans to introduce legislation that would place restrictions on BB guns, air rifles, and airsoft guns. The legislation would require these guns to be brightly colored.The officer’s comments in the story quoted above expose the flaws in this legislator’s proposed regulation. The training police receive and the experience they have accumulated teaches officers to look for guns in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Simply making “fake” guns brightly colored will not solve any problem. In fact, it could make the problem worse as criminals look to deceive officers by coloring their real guns in order to deceive law enforcement.There is no easy solution to this problem, but the death of twelve-year-old Tamir E. Rice reminds us police need to exercise restraint and not come in guns blazing. The video of police shooting Tamir E. Rice, which was recently released, reveals the most striking aspect of the tragedy, the speed the shooting occurred.Full disclosure, I can’t bring myself to watch the video myself, but the New York Post reported on the details of the video.
At one moment, Tamir is sitting at a picnic table in a gazebo. He stands, and a police car zooms into the frame from the right and stops on the grass, just a few feet from him. The passenger door opens and Loehmann shoots Tamir before Garmback can get out the driver’s side door.It’s unclear how far Tamir was from Loehmann when the officer shot him, but Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said it was less than 10 feet.The low-resolution video shows Tamir reaching to his waistband and then bending over after being shot. His body is mostly obscured by the patrol car when he falls to the ground. Garmback can be seen walking around the car and kicking what is said to be the airsoft gun away from Tamir.
We don’t need legislation that forces manufacturers to make toy guns appear less like real guns. This only assigns blame to an inanimate object, rather than penalizing the human being whose error resulted in a senseless death. We need a complete overhaul of the current mindset and the system it produces. Police need to be held accountable for their actions and the onus of identifying a deadly weapon needs to be placed on the police officers doing the shooting.Check out our past editions of Felony Friday!The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday right here at Lions of Liberty!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
