Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Charlotte, NC — A community and family is mourning the loss of Daniel Kevin Harris, whose life was taken this week by a State Trooper who apparently fears sign language. Harris, who is deaf and mute, was gunned down in front of his house.
According to police, trooper Jermaine Saunders attempted to pull Harris over around 6:14 p.m. on Thursday. For an unknown reason, Harris did not stop and, instead, drove to his home.
During the pursuit, both cars became damaged and eventually came to a stop near Harris’ home.
“I was here in my driveway and I saw the highway patrol car come through and it was smoking really bad,” said neighbor Mark Barringer. “About 10 seconds later, I heard one gunshot.”
According to WCNC, Barringer says when he went to take a closer look, he saw Harris in the middle of the street. He died just a few feet from his front door. Several neighbors have put flowers near where Harris took his final breaths.
“It was surreal, you just don’t expect to see something like that,” said Barringer. “When the gunshot went off, it was scary.”
According to police, detectives say Saunders and Harris got into “an encounter” before the officer killed him. However, according to neighbors, as soon as Harris got out of his vehicle, Saunders fired.
“While on Seven Oaks Drive, the driver exited his vehicle and an encounter took place between the driver and the trooper causing a shot to be fired,” according to a statement from the State Highway Patrol.
Detectives say Harris was trying to communicate with the trooper using sign language before he was killed.
Harris died on the scene. He was 28-years-old.
“They should’ve deescalated and been trained to realize that this is an entirely different situation, you’re pulling someone over who is deaf, they are handicapped,” said Barringer. “To me, what happened is totally unacceptable.”
Neighbor Ryan Russell said he’d see the man out in the neighborhood speaking in sign language with his family. “It seemed like a very peaceful family,” Russell told WBTV. “These things are always heartbreaking.”
Audria Bridges, special agent in charge of the SBI office that covers the Charlotte region, said Saunders has been placed on administrative leave and an investigation is underway.
“The SBI is in the process of obtaining all available dash cam or body camera video present on the scene from the State Highway Patrol as well as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, as CMPD responded to the scene immediately after the shooting,” Bridges said.
According to the Charlotte Observer, public records show an interpreter provided sign language for Harris at a court hearing in Florida in 2010. At the hearing, he was found not guilty of misdemeanor larceny and had a charge of misdemeanor resisting property recovery dismissed, records show.
Harris was found guilty of resisting an officer in 2010 when he lived in Connecticut, according to public records. However, this resisting charge was likely due to the fact that Harris could not hear the officer’s commands.
In the land of the free, a deaf man suspected of driving too fast can be killed in cold blood. Unfortunately, as we’ve shown time and again, this type of mistreatment and attacks on the deaf by police are all too common.
Reblogged this on Today,s Thought.
This story, while important, is a bit slanted and it is NOT an independent work – the contents are taken almost entirely from news posted on various outlets.
“Cops” didn’t shoot this person, one State Trooper did.
The suspect refused to be pulled over for speeding and was involved in a police chase that caused damage to both vehicles. The suspect took the chase back to his house – was he set to barricade himself (and perhaps others) in the house? Was the “encounter” an attempt by the officer to stop the situation from getting worse?
This fellow had prior contacts with the courts system – he had been arrested before? So, he should know the routine.
Was the car stolen? Did it belong to his parents? A deaf individual must have a special driver’s license – as mine says “vision impaired – corrective lenses”, deaf persons also have a designation. When the officer called in the plate – if the car was his – the dispatcher would’ve alerted the officer about the deaf driver.
Without knowing all of the variables or witnessing the situation first hand, I’m not going to judge the officer or the system until all of the facts and circumstances are brought under a bright light.
With the benefit of hindsight that we enjoy speculating about criminality seems to be justifying extra-judicial punishment. An escalating series of negative consequences can possibly be legitimized by due process and protocols, so how can deadly force be justified if the victim has exited the car and hasn’t another weapon?
I am judging this to be a totally unacceptable outcome for an incident where the victim of the police shooting is said to have been disabled and unarmed.
I don’t see any extenuating circumstances if the police did not have a reason to fear for their lives.
Maybe the cops should not be allowed to carry guns?
That is your right, of course. I prefer to reserve judgment until all of the facts and circumstances come to light about the “encounter” before the suspect was shot.
You are assuming that what you are given regarding the event will be the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right? You will place all your faith into the hands of the , say, Washington Post, right?
Facts can be in short supply these days, don’t get your hopes too high regarding your securing of them.
I understand your points – I do not believe everything I read. Quite the opposite – hence my disdain for this post and the “author”.
The readers of this article and other faked, sensationalized news stories posted all over the Internet from the “Free Thought Project” need to be aware that this crew makes money from their 1/2 truth, biased, over-sensationalized stories.
They are worse than the “National Enquirer”.
Beth is quick to defend the lethal action regardless of the facts, which are clear to anyone with commonsense, but Beth appears to think the best thing when in doubt is to get behind your warriors or risk being called a liberal. Trump voter perhaps?
Gordon is quick to defend the guilty, regardless of the facts and circumstances…Clinton voter perhaps? No, Hillary isn’t guilty of anything at all (snickers).
Hard to know what a cop with his brains up his ass and fear meter between 9 and 11 going off .
Given the fear reaction on the part of the constabulary (search how many police shooting deaths this year as an example)it isn’t a surprise they elect to shoot before they appreciate what they are enforcing- officials authorized to carry lethal weapons have a special duty to appreciate their behavior rather react with fight or flight impulses.
Unfortunately the last 20 years or so the police have been trained it’s either you or me. There are a lot of great police officers like the good old days when thay actually had a conversation with you and be cool, it’s just the media is making them all out to be psychopaths. Yep there’s some crazy ones, I’ve met a few, luckily he was in training with his sergeant when he flipped out on me. I think a bigger fear is Obama trying to federalize and put the police under the UN, that is the truth Stasi state. They’re just as afraid of being shot as you are but they have to live it every day. I find it ironic if you’re in the military they have to ask or be shot at first before you can shoot back. The stupid rules the Bush administration and the Obama administration is still implementing to this day. And that’s in the middle of war. I do agree the police need to run for cover before they shoot too easily. And that’s easy for me to say because I don’t have a gun point in my face. I just wish we go back to the days when the police were friendsand not masked military man as we see with the swat outfits are.
What a strange article for MHB
Agree, sunaJAeon.
The person who created this article by copying news reports – also inserted a video clip with a title stating “Cops Shoot Unarmed Man.”
The problems with the video?
The YouTube video maker decided to add a title and change the facts.
A singular cop becomes plural (“Cops”) and the suspect “unarmed”. However, the actual video clip used is from CBS News and in it the news readers NEVER state the suspect was unarmed. In fact, to date – No large or local news outlets have yet to say that the suspect was unarmed. Maybe he was….or not. I’ll be interested to hear. Only some of the sketchy “news” blogs on the Internet. So, I’ll look forward to what the formal findings might be.
Question what you see / read! Even if it fits the narrative you want to believe – always question. Don’t let these people “play” you.
Memory Hole Blog was always a great place to visit and QUESTION what we see in the news – legit news or not. There were always a lively bunch of intelligent folks who engaged in debates – without stooping to political or personal attacks (only the trolls did that and Dr. Tracy would get all over them).
Personal attacks are not to be denigrated. I fail to see how people that voted for Obama can look at themselves in the mirror. I also fail to see how people could actually vote for the reptiliian Clinton.
Ah, the dangers of copying others’ works…
It appears the suspect was arrested on 2 counts in a county in FL. The charges in the theft case were NOT dropped as is stated by person submitting this story. He was given probation. A few months later, the suspect violated his probation and a warrant was issued. There is no record of any action following the warrant issued —
Could it be the suspect knew there was an outstanding warrant on him in FL and that’s brought him to run and subsequently have an “encounter” with the trooper? I’m sad a taser didn’t end the “encounter”.
Disclaimer to above comment: Tasers don’t always work, We just had an issue in our area with a body-builder type on some kind of crazy drug….no taser would’ve worked…EMS used multiple heavy-duty drugs that would knock down an elephant with little impact.
They used to be called ‘peace officers’ and their usual weapon was a night stick. In the past 40 years the agenda has been to turn them into bullying, swat-team, robocops, who are above-the-law, ‘law enforcers’ and the rest of the ‘citizens’ are the enemy, not their neighbors or townfolk.
Think about all the movies and t.v. ‘dramas’ whose ‘heroes’ were cops and what they did over and over and over on screen, week after interminable week. Those dramas were not put out there for your ‘entertainment’. It was to get you ready for this part of the agenda.
And when you read the word ‘citizen’, you want to hear it being barked out just as though a drill sergeant were barking out orders in boot camp.
We are traveling down a fearsome path.
I say we make them go back to 38 Special revolvers
Sun, I understand your point but it would be too dangerous in today’s environment.
Na-na Roc,
cops are supposed to be Peace officers, not military soldiers,
it would go a long way in adjusting their attitudes,
you don’t go in with military force,
you deal with the situation like a peace officer should-its not about “their safety,” its about ours, always has been
It would certainly “slow’ them down on firing so many bullets because they must re-load as opposed to just putting in an other clip.
From Media Bias Fact Checker (about the poster of this story’s group):
Subject: Free Thought Project
LEFT BIAS
Highly biased toward liberal causes. They utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) , publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage liberal causes. Highly untrustworthy.
Notes: Conspiracy and sensationalism.
This is a Great Article.
The liberals have NO Shame.
The End justifies everything…
http://nypost.com/2016/08/21/american-journalism-is-collapsing-before-our-eyes/
Indeed Rick or ROC. It is completely scary. Great link – thank you!
Too many uneducated and uninformed readers out there will believe anything and everything they read without question.
Get the feeling that the NYPost is trying to redeem itself.
http://nypost.com/2016/08/21/huma-abedin-worked-at-a-radical-muslim-journal-for-10-years/
Indeed!
They keep this up — I won’t refer to them as “The NY COMPOST” quite so often.
So it has finally come to this. We can’t believe our own eyes when an article such as this gets printed in an msm publication. Perhaps the tide is turning in the right direction. Thanks Ric aka Roc.
The “unheard” in this instance are 2 publicized deaf Americans who didn’t even see the events in Nice but they were there.
It is a coincidence I made this vid 2 days ago.The government is using handicapped people in the hoax events.I guess it happened again.
NICE’s UnHeard Witnesses,a Mormon, A Balless Bull,E. Drattell & The Actual Carnage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnA8oigUO0
Hey, I could’nt resist. No worries.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XXq5VvYAI1Q
I thought Bowie had 2 different colored eyes like my dog.He actually had an eye injury from a fight when he was a kid.His pupil bled into his iris.Shows you how much I knew.The Diamond Dogs album is a good take on “1984”
This is sad and surreal. It almost sounds cinematic. Except very few auteurs would attempt to capture this symbolic event in all its fuzzy ignominy.
Reminds me in a weird way of the Rachel Corrie story: run over by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of a house near Rafah, Gaza Strip.
Or the person killed in 5 Broken Cameras when a teargas canister was fired directly into his chest. At least that’s the explanation I found. This was the repugnant IDF (presumably) guarding the 440 mile-long wall between the West Bank and Israel near the Palestinian town of Bil’in. About 7.5 miles west of Ramallah.
I’m guessing these two Israeli incidents were frustration murders. I wonder if that’s what we had in North Carolina?
I could see Harmony Korine directing the story in question. Just seems up his alley. Same region. Tennessee. Florida. North Carolina.
–Paul
Heyyyyy, that guy isn’t black. What the hell is going on?
#DeafLivesMatter
A photographer activist friend of mine caught some LAPD officers ditching their body cameras after they shot a suspect in East Hollywood on Friday night.
http://www.blacklistednews.com/BUSTED%3A_LAPD_Cops_Ditched_Cameras_After_Shooting%2C_Killing_Mentally_Ill_Father_Holding_Bayonet_from_Photography_is_Not_a_Crime/53623/0/38/38/Y/M.html
From the video you can tell that the cops don’t take him seriously, but “Discarted” is a long-time activist who has made a mission of “encountering” cops with his camera in places where they illegally clamp down on photography, like subways and outside buildings. Then he takes it to the Department. He’s gotten written apologies from the cops who gave him trouble, and when have you ever heard that? He’s done a lot to educate the LAPD, as well as security companies in the area, on photographers’ rights over the last few years.
Now this incident happened in his neighborhood and he has fortuitously taped it.
Here’s his video
https://youtu.be/KxX9OVPlvXQ
Is this a “Sign” of the Luciferian take over and corruption of our Govt. or from Chem-Trails or Both?
Slimed! Gross ‘black slime’ creeps over Washington DC’s most famous monuments – and no one knows how to get rid of it
A mysterious black slime has been steadily oozing over Washington DC’s most famous monuments, including the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3751208/Slimed-Gross-black-slime-creeps-Washington-DC-s-famous-monuments-no-one-knows-rid-it.html
Black slime matters.
There are some who speculate that this rather common bio-film is not being cleaned up in order to use it soon as evidence of a supposed cause – Climate change. We shall see.
Seems to me some diluted bleach and sprayers should take care of it. Either that or some white vinegar, rubbing alcohol and a dash of soap in some water. Add a brush and get to work city workers.
Seriously, how hard can it be? 🙂
I find it fascinating this so called Bio-Film was only discovered in 2006,
I think it started growing on September 1st, 2001…
I meant September 11th, 2001…911
The Day the beginning of the end started….
An absolutely heartbreaking story and totally absolutely deplorable behaviour. I would hope the cop in question will be severely dealt with.