A police murder twice on the same street

When a pattern upsets the "suicide by cop" narrative

Last week, Kitchener police shot and killed a 31 year old man. His family had called for police for help and were waiting together when they heard the gunshots. The man was Andre Nembhard’s brother. Their father was on vacation in Jamaica and he had asked the family to watch over their brother. The brother had schizophrenia and wasn’t taking his medication. It caused him to be afraid and in great distress and his family needed help.

They had been there before — two years ago, police tasered the man when they responded to a mental health call.

The incident happened on Brybeck Crescent in Kitchener. A decade ago, a similar thing happened on Brybeck Crescent. Kitchener police shot and killed Beau Baker while he was having a mental health crisis.

It took nine years for a coroner’s inquest. Last April the jury decided to label Baker’s death a suicide, even though he was shot and killed by police. He didn’t take a police gun and shoot himself, he didn’t have a gun to his head and pull the trigger as police tried to talk him out of what he was doing — no, they shot and killed him.

But here we have a pattern that demonstrates that the whole suicide-by-cop argument is total bullshit copaganda that justifies police murder by arguing that the victim wanted to die anyway. And so, I’m sharing again what I wrote after Beau Baker’s death was deemed a suicide:

It tells the story of Beau Baker, a man who was in a mental health crisis and who police murdered outside of his apartment.