Another Step Closer to the You'e-On-Your-Own Thunderdome Future the Repugs Want

The knee-jerk reaction to stories like this is to say "Don't call the police when you're in trouble. Get your own arsenal, shoot anybody who looks at you cross-eyed and claim stand-your-ground."

But of course that's what they want: a non-society, non-community of non-citizens all at each other's throats all the time. That's the real Galtian paradise for the one percent.

Aviva Shen at The Nation:

A 911 call for medical assistance ended in the fatal shooting of Georgia resident Jack Lamar Roberson Friday. Roberson was acting erratically after possibly overdosing on his diabetes medication, leading his fiancé to call for paramedics and an ambulance. Instead, Roberson’s family charges that police showed up and killed the 43-year-old in front of his mother, fiancé, and 8-year-old daughter.

Waycross Police said they were responding to reports of a man trying to commit suicide and that he had become combative. Police Chief Tony Tanner said Roberson lunged at officers with weapons and refused to drop them. Roberson’s fiancé, Alcia Herron, disputes the police story, comparing the scene to a “silent movie.”

“He didn’t have nothing in his hands at any time or period at all before they came, any time while they were here, anything. They just came in and shot him,” Herron told First Coast News. “He didn’t say nothing, the police didn’t say nothing, anything, it was like a silent movie. You couldn’t hear anything, all you could hear were the gun shots go off and I seen them going into his body and he just fell down.”

Roberson’s mother, Diane, lamented, “I saw my son go down with his hands up in the air, Lord Jesus, he had nothing in his in hands, we don’t even own a decent kitchen knife and they shot my baby down.”

An autopsy was performed Monday, but results have not yet been released. If Roberson did indeed overdose on his diabetes medication, he may well have been experiencing the tell-tale symptoms of intense anxiety and a general sense of confusion.

The two officers involved have been placed on administrative leave.

As in similar cases of unjustified tasing, the solution is not abandoning community law enforcement but rather improving it with large infusions of taxpayer cash for raising salaries that attract more stable candidates, massive training in non-violent response and a return to community policing that encourages communication rather than confrontation.

Civilization costs money. Either you're willing to pay for it or you're not.

Repugs who tell you we don't need government, or that government doesn't need money - lots of money - are barbarians.