Found this video at a controversial website I choose not to link.
First thing we should notice is this is likely your standard issue gang-banger. Likely a high school dropout, and probably somebody with some heavy black-market ties, but he’s all cleaned up and appears to be HEAVILY coached in what he’s saying. Also for such a short video there are a ton of editor’s cuts, it could be to thin down a long story, it could be breaks to re-coach the boy, or get him to stick with the script. I doubt he’s familiar with many of the words he’s saying, and describing a shooting as “Shots was fired”, is a common legal euphemism allowing the person to tell an account without lying OR admitting to discharging a weapon.
But all that bullshit aside let’s look at his little sob story, and discuss how he could have avoided ending up in prison.
Step 1, don’t be involved in Gangs. Some people use the metric of “Gun Death” as if it is relevant, but never actually break down demographics and the situations of the majority of people who become “Gun Death” statistics. Its not John Q. Salary-Man who shoots his kid who’s using the bathroom in the middle of the night because he mistakes him for an intruder. Its not Little-Tommy Booger-eater who finds Daddy’s pistol while looking for Christmas presents and decides that playing with a gun is a smart idea and ends up killing himself or others. Its also not psychos like Sung Cho, or Jared Laughner, they get a lot of media play, but really they’re such a statistical anomaly while they create a lot of bodies, the deaths aren’t statistically relevant.
Nope the “Gun Deaths” in America are from Suicides (more than half, and we’ve talked about this before) and from Drug dealers and street soldiers engaged in criminal acts. If you aren’t part of this demographic you’re already in good shape to not murder anybody, gun, knife, pipe, unimportant.
Step 2: Don’t hang out with these criminals. He was with a “Mutual Friend that everybody knows” hanging out and smoking marijuana, and several of these people were illegally carrying guns. I think we all know this is distilled trouble on the hoof.
Step 3: Don’t illegally carry guns around, most certainly if you’re impaired by drugs and alcohol. You’re one traffic stop away from prison right there!
Step 4: Don’t interact with gangs on the streets. Those “Guys none of us got along with”, that’s coached code speak for “Rival Gang”, and those words you exchanged were likely you picking a fight like the good tribalist thug you are.
Step 5: If you see trouble brewing but aren’t in immediate danger GET AWAY! Tough-Guy Jiyaad shot a guy because he was running away with an illegally owned, carried and used gun, all while under the influence of an illegal drug.
This was all mocked-up as some sort of sob story somehow claiming that somehow everybody is susceptible to such human fallibility. BULLSHIT!
It is EASY to avoid such troubles, and Jiyaad made no such efforts. I’m glad he’s in prison, and I’m afraid he won’t be in prison forever, because do you think he’ll really make different choices if he’s let out?
Wow, what a con job video.
The coaching was obvious throughout as you say. I did catch a couple of things.
First, he ‘borrowed’ a gun from a friend. That certainly supports your argument of ‘community guns’ and reduces the percentage of firearms being legally owned and used in crime.
Some of the other phrasing jumped out at me; “had words” — picked a fight or at least didn’t walk away from a fight; ‘ran to a friend’s car’ — tells me it was more than just a ‘mutual friend’ that went out, probably half a dozen or more.
I’m really wondering why “something that should have just been a fistfight” escalated into a gun battle. Could it be they aren’t playing fair?
The other aspect of that propaganda piece was the ‘mis-communication’ angle. There was no mis-communication at all. They expressed themselves quite well and deliberately.
No the issue is the values and principles that they were raised with. Notice how the mama still let him go ‘chill out’ even when she said he doesn’t do that?
Who taught him to use violence as the first solution to a problem? His parents, his friends, his family, the neighborhood he lived in?
Yes.
I listened to this clown yesterday and all I could think was, “it’s a good thing he’s in jail.”
“Everything happens for a reason…there’s a reason you are going through this…”
Yep. The reason is that you shot someone.
The criminals never seem to take personal responsibility for bad choices or bad outcomes. Defense lawyers have to work with statements like, “He ran into my knife.” and yet that would have to have been 22 times given the number of fatal wounds.
My parents told me to not hang out with low-lifes and that is sound advice. You never raise them up, they just pull you down. Also, “the apple does not fall far from the tree” so I bet his family is a mess. I have some pity for him, but more pity for victims, so let him rot in jail.