This Is What Unconscious Racism Looks Like

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The below man being interviewed below is the man who called the police and claimed that John Crawford, III, the Black, BB gun wielding innocent who was killed by police officers in a Dayton, OH Walmart, was threatening people with what, at the time he says he believed to be an AR-15. His name is Ronald Ritchie. He and his wife April, who was in an electric wheelchair at the time because of a foot injury, followed Crawford all over the Dayton Walmart before eventually calling 911 and telling officers Crawford was threatening people with a weapon, thus giving them the impression that an impending active shooter situation was brewing.

Ritchie gave the below interview to local and national news outlets after Crawford was killed by police at that Walmart but before video evidence had been released. He’s also a liar, claiming to be a former Marine when he wasn’t. New York Daily News reports that he was actually drummed out of basic training for “fraudulent enlistment” which means he lied to the Marine Corps on his application or interview or both. Ritchie maintains that there was “a problem with his paperwork” which sounds like another lie.

Check out the interview and then come back after the jump.

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Very confident of what he saw there isn’t he? So proud to have finally done something of note, worthy of respect. Well, he changed his story when spoke with the Guardian:

One month later, Ritchie puts it differently. “At no point did he shoulder the rifle and point it at somebody,” the 24-year-old said, in an interview with the Guardian. He maintained that Crawford was “waving it around”, which attorneys for Crawford’s family deny.

Waving around, in this case, being the standard motion that the human arm makes when a person walks. Video evidence has since revealed his entire story is fabricated. So the below video of John Crawford walking around Walmart in a completely normal way.

Ritchie, and this is my estimation and opinion, is a poster boy for the kind of person who has racist tendencies combined with a little man complex. He lies and claims he’s a marine so he can appear competent and tough even though he doesn’t know the difference between a BB gun and an AR-15 after close and continuous observation. He considered Crawford so dangerous that he was willing to tail a supposed dangerous gunman with his wife in tow in a motorized wheelchair. And then he lied to police dispatch about what was actually occurring after assuming that a Black man who, from his optic, is only exercising his 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, walks around Walmart talking on the phone.

It’s insanity and I’m still amazed that a grand jury let the officers that killed John Crawford go free without so much as a trial. But, as hastily incompetent as I believe their actions were, Ritchie’s were arguably worse. By lying to 911 dispatch he created a situation that wound up the officers arriving on the scene and likely had them believing they were facing an impending active shooter situation. And while they clearly took no time to ascertain whether that was the case or not, Ritchie is the one that wound their springs in the first place.

featured image – New York Daily News