UPDATED @ Noon 08.26.2020: for the overnight murders of two protesters, by a white man (likely at least tacitly approved by some of the police on scene) with an AR-15. He’s 17. He will be in custody shortly. And John will say… zip about it. End update.

As it happens, the original police shooting victim in Kenosha is a fine young man… he went to the same large public high school as all three of my kids — and his student time was bookended, by my own two boys — one of mine, two years ahead of him, and one more, two behind him. [Let me say at the head: he, and his family, would want no violence done in his or their names. So please people, protest — march — chant — but do not commit violence. That is not the answer. Three more shot overnight, two fatally — this will not help him walk again. Please leave the guns at home.]

In high school, he was a great athlete, played varsity football and basketball — and took on community leadership projects in his spare time. His family is well-known here for their long-standing aid to the limited means community, and their civil rights activism — going back three generations — in our town. His grandfather (after whom he is named), was revered, as the long-term pastor of Ebenezer A.M.E. on Emerson, and helped build the first primarily low income serving senior home in the center of town — inside the Fifth Ward (historically, heavily African American), acquiring the land in a smart deal, from Northwestern University, to do so. I know them going back several decades… I do.

This family (very much like the one I married into, in truth, here — my own father in law is the dark-skinned man in the far upper left of this pair of sepia-tone images at right, a Northwestern educated medical doctor — who indeed hosted Dr. King, in our home-town) — the young man’s family was, and still is everything Dr. King ever preached about. This young man moved to Wisconsin just a few years ago. All of that does not completely rule out any possibility that the young man was the aggressor, but in my estimation… it makes it very unlikely (based on thirty years‘ of knowledge — of this family).

The word from the generally reliable folks in the ‘hood, in town, from his cousins, aunts, uncles and father… is that he was trying to break up an emerging violent domestic abuse situation (one that did not involve him directly, they say), when the Kenosha police arrived. He was, in sum, caught in the middle — as a peace-maker. This information has not yet been made public (as the investigation is just beginning to unfold), but John Hinderaker will learn it in time, and he will owe this man, and his family, a very deep and humble… apology. Not that he’s a big enough man to offer one.

And, to explain Hinderaker’s other primary libel, tonight — the alleged third degree (misdemeanor) sexual assault claim is from early July — an unwanted touching claim, from his ex- — the mother of two of the boys. He was not being sought on a warrant — as John falsely and recklessly claims, tonight. There was no felony warrant — at all. [So trying to arrest a misdemeanor offender, at most — NEVER allows lethal force, even if “the suspect” runs. Case citations on request.]

Oh. And his kids were in the car, which is why he was heading back there — to make sure they knew he was okay. So they wouldn’t be traumatized. Instead, sitting inside the car, they saw the officer fire into his back three times, hesitate, then fire four more times. In all, the officer struck him five times — missed twice. And his babies were in that car.

These are all facts — facts John will ignore, to try to demonize a man who was the clear victim of an attempted “murder by cop situation“.

He will likely never walk again. John — you are very depraved, sad, bitter old fart — one who cannot reserve judgment — even for a few days, when it comes to racial matters.

So I have “over-shared” — from my own life — to shut John the F#CK up.

Shut up John. Just shut up, you racist tool.