Black Woman Shot By Police In Bronx
The NYPD is currently investigating circumstances surrounding the death of 66-year old Deborah Danner, a Black woman shot by police in her bedroom.
The bizarre incidence which occurred in the Pugsley Ave. building on Tuesday still leaves residents in a state of shock and sorrow. The police in America have permanently resorted to the use of lethal force when dealing with Black people even in the most unneeded circumstances. The death of a Black woman shot by police in her bedroom remains the latest of police brutality cases to be recorded in our country. We have gathered the most insightful facts about the entire incidence from a couple of resources:
The Grio
On Tuesday, a 66-year-old Black woman was shot by police and killed after she allegedly attacked police with a baseball bat. Police are now investigating why the sergeant who shot her used a gun instead of a Taser.
A neighbor had complained about Deborah Danner behaving “in an irrational manner,” and authorities said that they had been to the address before for similar calls.
When they arrived, Danner was in the bedroom threatening police with a pair of scissors. Although Sgt. Hugh Barry convinced her to drop the scissors, she then picked up a baseball bat and came toward him to a “close distance of an amount of feet.”
“As she attempted to strike the sergeant, he fired two shots from his service revolver, striking her in the torso,” said Assistant Chief Larry Nikunen, the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Bronx. Read more.
RT KeeganNYC: NYPD shot dead 66-year-old #DeborahDanner in her apt last night, allegedly “armed” w/a bat: … pic.twitter.com/GL6uFkY7EY
— Our Revolution! (@OurRevolution2) October 19, 2016
Daily News
Her neighbors knew she was unstable. The police had visited her home on many prior calls.
That a cop shot and killed this woman is absolutely preposterous. While I am encouraged that NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill suggested it was a bad shooting when he said, “We do have policies and procedures for emotionally disturbed people and it appears those procedures weren’t followed,” I also know that Officer Daniel Pantaleo applied a banned chokehold on Eric Garner before killing him.
Pantaleo is an NYPD officer to this very day.
Barry was armed with a Taser, but didn’t use it. Any available option would’ve been better than what he did.
He didn’t think the baseball bat was an assault rifle.
He didn’t think her purse was a bomb.
He didn’t think her cell phone was a gun.
He shot and killed Deborah Danner because that’s what police seem to have been taught they should do the moment they get scared. Read more.
Justice for #DeborahDanner 66 year-old woman killed by the NYPD last night. This is a on-going shame, with no accountability @BilldeBlasio
— JusticeNeverSleeps (@angelopinto720) October 19, 2016
Heavy
The Wall Street Journal reported that Raphelle Gundy, who lives in the building, “said she thought the woman had mental issues and neighbors often heard violent noises coming from her home.”
The neighbor said the woman became more disturbed when her mother died and told The Wall Street Journal that neighbors “would think somebody’s in there fighting her or attacking this lady. She’s hollering and screaming and talking like she’s going to hurt somebody.”
ABC7 said, “The cops were there practically once a month when she was off the meds.” Another neighbor told The New York Post, “She’s always screaming every day. Cursing and screaming. She’s just very angry when she’s not on her medication.”
On Twitter, Danner described herself as “a work in progress, I am a gem in the rough. I’ll smooth out soon..”
Some of her posts were political. She wrote, “With so much GUN VIOLENCE around us innocents, would someone PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE sponsor AMENDING THE 2ND AMENDMENT to reflect the 21s…”
She also wrote about police: “BEWARE: OFFICER(s) / PROVOCATEUR(s) + ANGER = RIOT(s)” and “WHAT A WORLD TO LIVE IN WHERE IT’S NECESSARY TO PUT POLICE IN JAIL…HAIL UTOPIA.” She also wrote: “Point of the Conversation: How’d U like to move about w/a TARGET on you because of the color of your skin? BLACK LIVES MATTER!And” she tweeted: “Wherever this Life’s Journey leads and whatever happens, I GO DOWN FIGHTING!!!!”
The wound, RACISM, continues to fester. PRAY for healing.
— Deborah Danner (@DeborahDanner01) July 8, 2016
State Senator Ruben Diaz, Bronx Borough president, condemned the shooting as “indefensible” and an “outrage.”
“While I certainly understand the hard work that our police officers undertake to keep the streets of our city safe every single day, I also know what excessive force looks like,” Diaz said. “This elderly woman was known to the police department, yet the officer involved in this shooting failed to use discretion to either talk her down from her episode or, barring that, to use his stun gun.”
Diaz compared the shooting to the Bumpurs’ slaying and lamented that the city had learned little in three decades.
The NYPD says the shooting is under investigation.
Bumpurs had a knife and threatened to throw lye, and her case is often listed in New York cases of police interaction with emotionally disturbed people. Read more.
What is the use of the money spent to train officers if they are not able to handle situations but rather aggravate them? Are they trained to protect lives or destroy it? It seems when it is about the Black person, the police aren’t there to protect lives. It is even shameful how an experienced officer couldn’t have termed an aged Black woman who needed help but rather, shot her to death. It is obvious that the police seem to be on a mission to annihilate Black lives in America. This is unacceptable! Danner is now listed as a Black woman shot by police. This is appalling! The officer needs to face the full rigorous of the law.
