A man named Oscar Carillo called 911 this past Saturday night, and told Pasadena, CA police that 19-year-old Kendrec McDade and a younger companion had put a gun in his face and robbed him of his backpack (which the companion later admitted). On Wednesday, Pasadena police arrested Carillo on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, since he lied about the weapon, and now McDade is dead:
When officers responded to the scene, they shot Kendrec McDade, a 19-year-old black man from the nearby city of Azusa, who died of his injuries at a local hospital…
Lt. Phlunte Riddle said the police now believe that neither Mr. McDade nor his 17-year-old companion was armed. But when officers saw Mr. McDade reach for his waistband, she said, they believed that he was armed and that “their lives were in jeopardy.”
“Mr. Carrillo is partly responsible for creating that situation,” Lieutenant Riddle said.
Carillo may not have been the only one dealing in untruths: a lawyer for McDade’s parents alleges inconsistencies in the police account of the shooting, including the number of shots fired. According to the New York Times report, the Los Angeles Office of Independent Review will be investigating the shooting.
Two things: that Carillo felt compelled to falsify the bit about a weapon in order to expedite the police response speaks volumes. Apparently, Carillo didn’t feel it was enough to complain that he got mugged for his backpack by two black guys — they had to be pointing guns. And given that McDade was a young black man and how our media works, we won’t escape the comparisons to Trayvon Martin’s killing in Florida.
Some might say that “other Trayvons” should only refer to other “Stand Your Ground” cases. I’d argue differently, but by that standard, there are two names you should know more about. The first is Bo Morrison, a 20-year-old shot and killed about three weeks ago while hiding, intoxicated, on the shooter’s porch:









