Angry Marchers Take to the Streets:

No Conviction for Cincinnati Pig Who Murdered Samuel DuBose

November 14, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On November 12, Judge Megan Shanahan declared a mistrial for University of Cincinnati (UC) cop Ray Tensing. Tensing was charged with the July 2015 killing of Samuel DuBose, a 43-year-old Black man, after pulling him over for failure to display a front license plate. (See “The Police Murder of Sam DuBose and the Coverup: EXPOSED”)

This was not the first time Samuel DuBose had been stopped for Driving While Black. In the past 20 years he had been charged more than 75 times in Hamilton County (which includes Cincinnati), mostly for minor traffic and other violations.

Unarmed and posing no threat to the cop, DuBose tried to defuse the situation. He spoke calmly, showed Tensing the missing plate sitting on his dashboard, and pointed out that he had a valid rear plate. And yet this pig shot Samuel DuBose in the head, killing him.

Drawing from the playbook of so many pigs who have murdered Black people, Tensing claimed he feared for his life. He claimed DuBose tried to run him over. Other cops on the scene signed on to these lies. The DuBose family fought for Tensing’s bodycam video to be released. When it was, the video showed Tensing’s story to be bullshit. DuBose never threatened Tensing in any way. After the video, and large protests, Tensing was indicted on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges.

During the trial, more damning exposure of the murder, and Tensing’s history of racism, were exposed. It came out that neither Tensing’s body nor uniform showed any injury or damage. And, it came out that Tensing had a history of racial profiling, with the highest rate of any officer on the UC police force for pulling over Black people. On the day he murdered Sam DuBose, Tensing was wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt under his uniform!

In spite of all this, the injustice system still did not convict Tensing! The jury of 10 whites and two Blacks deadlocked (reportedly, four wanted to convict on murder and eight on voluntary manslaughter). The judge declared a mistrial early Saturday morning, on very short notice—so short that Samuel’s family didn’t even have time to get to the courthouse. But a crowd of 50 people was at the courthouse anyway and it grew as word of the mistrial spread. Anger was intense. A young Black woman outside the courthouse said, “This verdict further confirms that the criminal justice system is designed to insure that victims of state sanctioned murder have no recourse. A system which does not respect Black lives does not deserve respect in return.”

A crowd of people, mostly Black, then marched from the courthouse through the downtown business district and the oppressed Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. The march merged with a mostly white protest against Donald Trump, and together grew to something like 1,000 people.

Once again: A Black man, murdered by this system's police. One of so many murdered because they reached for their license... or made eye contact with a pig... or put their hands up. Or... did nothing at all.

Once again: the pig who did it is walking the streets, a free man.

Once again: bitter proof that when pigs murder Black and Brown people, they are doing their job.

And once again: damning evidence that this system needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time.

 

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