The infinite number of police brutality stories like this one

tl;dr: Definitely accurate in message, less accurate in details.

Since I don't get my news from memes:

The man's name is Kenneth Vinyard. The incident occurred in Monaca, PA, on November 6, 2022. The gunshot victim, Rashaun Smith, was airlifted, but ultimately died. The shooter, Yeshua Bratcher, was charged with (among other things) homicide. As of January 2023, Bratcher was scheduled to go to trial in May 2023, but that's all I can find about that.

Vinyard was in the vicinity of a gunshot victim when the off-duty Center Township (just minutes from Monaca) police officer John Hawk did indeed push Vinyard to the ground, and Vinyard did indeed die. There is cell phone video of all this, but I haven't found it yet.

I said "vicinity of a gunshot victim" because different articles describe Vinyard as "rushing to the victim's side" and "rendering aid", or approaching on-duty, uniformed police near the crime scene to offer evidence. The two scenarios seem mutually exclusive, but because the latter description is what the AG ultimately based their charges against Hawk on in late 2023, I tend to believe that.

In May 2023, the Beaver County coroner ruled Vinyard's death an accident, saying that the cause of death was "was hypertensive and atherosclerotic disease and said, 'blunt force trauma of the head and associated stress that occurred during the confrontation contributed to his demise.'" In the same month, a lawsuit by Vinyard's family against Center Township was settled for $950K.

Hawk was charged in December 2023 with "involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, and simple assault."

The article just linked seems to contain the most cogent description of events on November 6, 2022, in Monaca:

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office said Vinyard, 48, approached an officer who responded to a shooting scene to offer potential evidence he wanted to provide to police. The AG's office said Hawk, an off-duty Center Township Police Department officer in casual clothes, confronted Vinyard and "pulled him away from the officer."

The AG's office alleged that a short time later, Hawk struck the victim in the chest — while performing a leg-sweep maneuver — which knocked the Vinyard to the ground.

Vinyard was later pronounced dead at a hospital. A medical examiner concluded that the blunt-force trauma and accompanying stress contributed to Vinyard's death.

The AG's office also said that Hawk did not announce himself as a police officer and was not heard or seen announcing Vinyard under arrest. Hawk also did not have the authority at the time to arrest Vinyard, according to the AG's office.

Anyway - there's a ton of articles out there if you want to dig deeper on this case.

https://youtu.be/QFeewU0HhNE

• Several days of peaceful protests
• Leading to police shoving a 75yo
• Old man cracks his skull on the pavement and starts bleeding from the ear
• Gang keeps moving, "some medics will take care of it lol"
• Two guys get suspended
• Police union shuts everything down
• 57 police resign from having to deal with protests
• The two guys are eventually cleared, because they did what they were supposed to do
• people are outraged, which is to say, nothing happened

Just another slice of American life

Cop in Oklahoma slammed a 71 year old Vietnamese man, who barely understand English, into the ground (cops in OKC are really resentful of the “the gays, the Mexicans and the Asians”). He had a brain bleed and some other injuries. Oklahoma’s attorney general, who is the more “reasonable” pick for next governor between him and Ryan Walters, refused to press charges.

I have had no positive experiences with cops, even when asking for help, in earnest. One tried to fight me once while on duty. The worst person I know married a corrupt cop. I honestly think hating cops is just logical from my perspective, even if I didn't see videos and stories about the absolutely morally garbage things they do all the time.

They need to actually be held accountable directly and we need better training.

Oh and we need to have regular fitness testing. It blows my mind how many spherical cops I see. You think they are gonna chase someone or maybe just whip out the ol 9mm problem solver and start blasting?

Like I am in support of police from a societal need standpoint but the police we got right now ain't it.

Unfortunately it's easy for me to sit here in bed and point out all the problems. I have no idea how the fuck you even begin tearing down a problem that big with that many people involved across so many states. Like we would need to completely overhaul everything from the ground up.

ACAB

I get what you're trying to get across but the meme format is not the best way to present actual information. How about linking an actual article instead?

Jesus fucking Christ...

The text from the image:

KENNETH WAS AT WALMART WITH HIS FIANCÉ WHEN GUNFIRE ERUPTED IN THE PARKING LOT. INSTEAD OF CALLING 911, KENNETH BEGAN REDERING[sic] AID TO ONE OF THE VICTIMS UNTIL A MAN CAME OVER AND TOLD HIM TO STOP. SECONDS LATER THAT MAN, WHO IT TURNS OUT WAS A PLAINCLOTHES COP, SHOVED KENNETH SO HARD THAT HE FELL BACKWARDS, HIT HIS HEAD AND WAS RUSHED TO THE HOSPITAL WHERE HE DIED.

The font makes this very, very hard to read

Basically don't share memes with badly researched text instead of articles. The actual facts are just as infuriating, its trivially dismissed for its flaws when again the actual facts are of vital import, and it trains stupid people to believe such posts when they are often used to spread lies.

This issue should be more known but this post should be more down voted.