August 08, 2019 10:05 AM UTC

Springs Police Killing Rocks Colorado Politics

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Saja Hindi reports:

The father of a 19-year-old man shot and killed by Colorado Springs police last week says a surveillance video clearly shows his son was shot in the back while running, and he wants justice.

De’Von Bailey, 19, was shot by at least one Colorado Springs police officer Saturday in the 2400 block of East Fountain Boulevard when police were responding to a report of a personal robbery, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday. The person who reported being robbed identified two suspects, and one of the suspects — Bailey — allegedly reached for a gun before police shot him, according to the sheriff’s office. Police said they recovered a gun at the scene.

Bailey was transported to a hospital, where police said he later died of his injuries. The two Colorado Springs police officers involved in the shooting, who have not been publicly identified, are on administrative leave, per protocol.

The killing of De’Von Bailey by Colorado Springs police resulted in protests that turned violent Monday after two white “fugitive recovery agents” pulled guns during a scuffle with protesters–Denver7:

Protesters Monday claimed to represent Black Lives Matter, Moms Demand Action, and friends and family of Bailey. Signs read ‘Cops + Klan hand in hand’, ‘Guns have changed, so should the Second Amendment’, ‘Blue Lives Murder’, ‘CSPD condones murder’, ‘A badge is not a free pass for murder’, and ‘Justice for Devon.’

…Additional footage from a few minutes later shows a crowd approaching two men who just arrived on motorcycles. Officers with weapons drawn detained the two men after a few minutes of shouting between the men and protesters. As officers worked to control the situation, at least one protester pushed over the motorcycles, while others continued shouting.

CSPD later identified the two men as Dustin Brooks and Justin Brooks, both bail bondsmen. CSPD said they drew handguns after one of them was struck by a protester in the crowd. Both men were taken into custody for disorderly conduct.

According to KOAA-TV in Colorado Springs, the pair of would-be bounty hunter types Justin and Dustin Brooks showed up to the protest to voice their support of law enforcement and to say that ‘All Lives Matter.'” In other words, they were looking for a fight:

“As soon as we got off the bike we went over straight to the crowd and we heard chanting of ‘Black Lives Matter’. We then said ‘All Lives Matter’ and within two or three seconds we were run up on really, really fast,” explains Justin Brooks.

Can’t imagine why! That’s all the time we care to spend discussing these two clowns, except to note their typicality in terms of the average El Paso County conservative’s viewpoint on police violence against people of color. Not every rock-ribbed El Paso County bounty hunter has a portfolio of didymophile Glamour Shots, but the attitude is pretty consistent.

What these bootylicious bounty hunter brothers did manage to do by pulling guns on protesters of a police shooting in the back of an African American teenager is help show again how pervasive the problem of racism and racial disparity in police violence really is. It takes a lot of nerve to show up at a protest against a kid shot in the back to start trouble–but more than that, it takes a culture to enable this kind of behavior.

And we all need to do better.