Houston Police Kill Two Unarmed Men in Two Days
April 20, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On the night of April 13, Houston pig D. Sudderth shot and murdered an unarmed Black man whose name still has not been released by authorities. Police claim the man was a “suspect” in a robbery at a gas station, but they have released no evidence to demonstrate that. Police also claimed that the man had a shotgun in his lap as he sat in a truck when Sudderth approached him, a charge echoed word-for-word by the few Houston news outlets that ran small online stories of the killing.
The Houston Chronicle wrote that Sudderth “looked inside [the truck] and saw a man with a shotgun in his lap” and quotes an HPD spokesman saying that the man “raises it towards the officer.” The cop stepped back and fired into the truck, killing the man. But it turned out the man, who according to a witness was talking to himself and “acting erratically” before the cop came at him, had a welding tool in his hand. Sudderth fired what one witness said seemed like 15 bullets in two volleys at the man while he sat in the truck.
Two days later, on April 15, HPD shot and killed another unarmed Black man, 41-year-old Frank “Trey” Shephard. Police had chased Shephard through a semi-rural community after he tried to avoid being pulled over. He had warrants out for minor violations. But he was portrayed as a big-time criminal, and the scene of pigs chasing and murdering Shephard after he collided with another car was broadcast live on local TV.
HPD claims that Shephard said he had a child in the car with him, and the video of his murder shows him getting out of his car and reaching back into it after it came to a stop. At this point, the cops unloaded their guns on Shephard and killed him. No weapon was found. There was no child in the car. And think about it—these pigs fired over a dozen bullets into a car they claimed had a child they were trying to save in it.
Lushondra Glover, Frank Shephard’s cousin, said, “He was loved, he had life, he was a really good person; and everybody has their mistakes, but overall he was a hard working person.”
The demonstrations on April 14 against police murder marked a new beginning for the struggle against these outrages—and the continuing killings by police in Houston and across the country underscore the urgency of retaking the offensive in this fight.
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