Video Footage Shows Officers Standing Around As Teens Drown – blogged by @niksofly

“Cops will give their life for you!” “The police are here to protect and serve!” These very statements swirl in my head as I struggle with coming to grips with the reality of three young #Florida girls who wished those statements would have rang true for them.

#DomoniqueBattle, #AshauntiButler and #LaniyaMiller lost their lives last month as deputy officers (according to the recently released dashcam) watched the #HondaAccord they were in get swallowed by a cemetery pond. “They’re done. They’re six, seven deep. I hear them yelling I think” are words that cavalierly dance of the tongue of an officer.

Moments before, the young girls evaded the police in a chase when the driver missed a sharp turn near a cemetery, careening the car into the pond. The Pinellas County Sheriff Office previously stated that the officers did everything to save the girls citing they “took off their gun belts”, but the video doesn’t show them doing anything, but watching and commenting how done the teens are. There is footage of the chase , but no footage of rescue efforts has been released or emerged.

What is more disturbing than the lack of effort is the justification for such disregard of human life.  “They’ve been arrested seven times in the last year on just auto theft charges…These are not good kids. These are kids who are heavily engaged in criminal activity. I didn’t make it up. I didn’t make it up that at 4 o’clock in the morning they were driving a stolen car (Gualtieri)”. Gualtieri also stated that because there was no video evidence of the rescue efforts, it didn’t mean the rescue efforts did not happen. According his logic, can’t it be said, just because the girls had a record, it doesn’t mean they weren’t good kids? We all have a chapter in our life we don’t want read out loud. Some of us write it ourselves while others just live script written for them.

I honestly want to know if that makes their life worth less?  No, I don’t think it’s cool to break the law, but why is it a factor when human decency is brought into account.? Why does their criminal history come into play? Why are some teens “misguided” or “A good kid that had family problems” and others “thugs” and “criminals”? I honestly want to know at what point does any individual witnessing the loss of human life feel it is appropriate to watch and speak on it matter-of-factly? How do you call someone a hero who did nothing heroic?

-NikoRose

P.S. Why are the mugshots the only pictures used for these kids? Smh