One dead, three wounded in night of terror
When shots rang out around 11:53 pm, Saturday night, November 2, 2013, at the Epic nightclub in downtown Minneapolis (or 1 am; reports vary as this is written just two days after the shooting) the crowd of over 2,500 partygoers disbursed in panic.
The concert featured Yo Gotti, a prominent and legendary rapper. Because of violence associated with his concertgoers, the Minneapolis Police Department prepared for violence outside Epic with pepper spray and riot equipment, but not inside, as there were 40 well-trained security personnel inside along with six off-duty Minneapolis police officers.
The assassin was able to approach the VIP section, gun down and kill 27-year-old Tyrone Washington with precision and dispatch, and then leave, unnoticed and unapprehended. Clearly this was not a shooting of random victims (as at schools, theaters and workplaces). This was a well-planned, well-coordinated, purposeful murder by assassination of a gang world individual. The precision suggests this had nothing to do with the concert or African Americans, just the victim.
A chilling question: Why was Mr. Washington picked up and removed to the sidewalk outside the club, where he expired, instead of being given him first aid medical attention? The attacker’s precision raises questions about complicity and conspiracy.
How the city will address this is not yet clear. Politically, since Mr. Washington’s death, the question has been raised whether Black groups should be allowed to perform in the City of Minneapolis. Too many of these statements are painting the entire Black community with a broad brush of recrimination and lawlessness. Why aren’t Whites painted the same way for their behavior at heavy metal concerts?
The city goes to great lengths to maintain that when a peace officer is out of control — be it Apple Valley or Green Bay or in the death of TT Franklin — that the department should not be painted with a similar broad brush. It is vastly unfair to incriminate many for the actions of a single individual. I’m told the downtown Council and others in the business leadership are pressuring the city to stop allowing entertainment engagements that will attract large numbers of African Americans. Shame on Don Samuels for saying the same thing, sacrificing our community in order to obtain White votes.
The lack of leadership in the White and Black communities and the lack of adequate debate about the issue of racial, economic, and entertainment profiling, is drawing attention away from all events that took place prior to and leading up to the death, as this death is not considered relevant to the bigger picture: a safe downtown for White citizens.
Needed is a commitment to end racial, economic and entertainment apartheid by Whites. Needed is the admitting of the fact that there are a lot of problems brought to town by White, heavy metal and other kinds of entertainment groups. The popular and effective attack on the character of our Black community and fear of a Black presence in downtown and the city as a whole must stop.
It would be unfair for the new mayor and new council to strip the license of the club and close the property down. It is a very economically attractive property across from the Twins ball park. Whites will be able to do all kinds of things with it once it is racially cleansed.
It is unfortunate that this agenda continues. Sadly, it is questionable whether the assassin of the African American will be apprehended. We can only hope that racial, economic, and entertainment profiling will be ended.
Stay tuned.
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You keep mentioning whites at heavy metal concerts. Can you please document any killings at metal concerts in the twin cities over the last decade? If not, then what is the point?
So, it has been a day and it appears you can not come up with a single killing which happened at a heavy metal concert. Then let me answer my own question: you kept falsely repeating that violence is also prevalent at heavy metal concerts so as to deflect attention from the truth: there is a crisis of violence unique to the black community and it frequently comes to the fore at rap and hip hop concerts. By attempting to spread the blame for violence to the larger society you are doing nobody- least of all African Americans a favor. The sooner the black community admits that the need to change, the sooner the endless black on black violence can be controlled. Making up facts (such as that the audience of Metal shows are as violent as those of hip hop) is dishonest and counterproductive.