Rhetoric Race and Religion
On July 17, 2015, Officer Conner Schilling shot and killed Darrius Stewart after a routine traffic stop for a busted tail light. We here at R3 are following the story in an attempt to keep our readers informed and to report how the media is framing the story. The reporting here is from July 27-August 1.
At a recent Darrius Stewart rally, Ronald Herd of WeAllBeTV , interviewed Tami Sawyer, Paul Garner, R3 Contributor Earle Fisher and R3 Founder and Managing Editor Andre E. Johnson. The interviews focused on the movement building in Memphis around police misconduct.
According to the Memphis Daily News, Memphis Police Department (MPD) says that they now will turn over all officer related shootings to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) for investigation.
“It’s so that it won’t look like it’s something out of the ordinary,” Wharton said. “(TBI director) Mark Gwyn and (Shelby County District Attorney General) Amy Weirich have been considering it for some time. This was simply a time that we felt it should be expedited so we will have a set protocol on that. I support him in that.”
According to the Commercial Appeal, Rep. Brian Kelsey-R (Germantown) will join Rep. G.A. Hardaway’s legislative effort to require the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to conduct investigations when someone is critically injured or killed in an incident involving a law enforcement officer.
Kelsey, R-Germantown, said the bill would “allow” disclosure of the results of the TBI investigations. Those files are currently sealed, which has led to criticism on transparency grounds. Hardaway, D-Memphis, said Saturday there must be transparency and the public should be able to view the results of the investigations to ensure justice.
According to the Commercial Appeal’s Kyle Veasey, when speaking about benefits cuts for police officers, mayoral candidate Harold Collins responded,
“We’re just blessed that we hadn’t had an incident other than what we had a couple of nights ago,” apparently referring to the Darrius Stewart shooting.
There is a GoFundMe page set up for expenses pertaining to the death of Darrius Stewart.
This fund will be used to help finance the affairs of Darrius Stewart who suffered a premature death. We all know that death is costly and the arrangements necessary to bury a loved one with dignity is often expensive. This fund is in no way an attempt to garner supporters in the fight to uncover the truth about the 19-year- old’s death, but only an effort to get communal support during the Stewart family’s time of need.
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