He was a father of four and a wealth manager at Fremont Bank. He was 44, married and he, and his wife were expecting another child. He was born and raised in New York and was a die-hard Giants fan. He now lived in Oakland, Ca. He was active at his church. He was Black. He was chased down in his own front yard and shot dead.
The man arrested for shooting Miles Armstead was an alleged “squatter” living in the house next door. For six months, the Armsteads called 911. A total of 23 calls in all. The squatter allegedly banged on their front door at all hours, screaming about various imagined wrongs.
He threw rocks at Armstead’s home and threatened to burn it down, according to one police report. After Miles’ wife, Melina Armstead, was cut with shards of glass when a brick exploded through her front window, the family filed a restraining order against the man next door.
This man, Jamal Thomas, is also Black. And it matters.
The local authorities dismissed and mocked both Jamal Thomas and Miles Armstead as “two twelve-year-old girls.” Armstead’s pleas for help were ignored. Thomas’ own need for aid – for reported addiction and mental-health issues – was also ignored.
And earlier this month, Miles Armstead’s widow filed a wrongful death suit against the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County probation officers who, per the suit, failed to protect their family.
“Black Lives Matter” looks good on a banner, especially for those on “The Left” – but we need to be more honest about whether liberal-led cities like Oakland – or New York or Chicago, or Baltimore or – actually believe it.
Back in 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that 89% of Black murder victims were killed by Black offenders nationwide. Look closely at specific cities and the numbers are almost identical. In Chicago. where I’m from, the vast majority of homicide victims in 2022 (more than three out of every four) were Black, and the majority were killed by other Blacks.
These are more than just statistics: My teenage baby brother Christian was murdered last summer, innocently caught in a drive-by shooting. A Black-on-Black bloodbath.
What about New York City? According to New York Police Department reports, a mere eight low-income neighborhoods, including six in Brooklyn and two in the Bronx, accounted for the vast majority of gun shootings in the city between 1993 and 2019.
Similar stats were also reported in 2020 and 2021. And guess what? Nearly all victims were either black or Hispanic – as were the perpetrators, as well. Even more sobering: The vast majority of gun deaths among Black teens and children also came from our own community.
Much of the blame lies with soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – who has downgraded more than half of his felony cases to misdemeanors, while also managing to lose half of the felony cases that do reach court. In Chicago, progressive prosecutor Kim Fox dropped 25 thousand cases including rape and murder.
And in California’s Alameda County, where Miles Amstead lived and died, new DA Pamela Price is already facing the threat of a recall for her apparent willingness to cut plea deals with murders. All three are also black – and all should be held accountable for the mounting bloodshed amongst their own.
Being black in urban America shouldn’t come with a death sentence. But too many African-Americans live under the constant threat of dying from a stray bullet fired from a black-held gun. And that threat is only compounded by the refusal of most progressives to deal with these issues head-on.
Why all the progressive silence around black-on-black violence? It mostly comes down to votes: Nearly a quarter of folks in Oakland, Ca are black and the majority voted Democrat in the last presidential election. Most major US cities can claim similar numbers. So the silence persists as the pandering for black votes clearly outweighs the value of black lives.
This means that for the silence to end, for black lives to truly matter, we must now speak up for our own survival. We must call out injustice even if it demands difficult discussions about race and class.
We must also work with police to identify and lock up shooters, yes black shooters. Such suggestions are typically met with looks of disdain and legitimate fear for one’s safety. However, much as we did during the Civil Rights Movement, we must rise as a community to end even the most seemingly intractable challenges. And this includes speaking about how our own folks are killing us.
“The County is complicit in the killing of Mr. Armstead,” declared his family’s lawyer Adante Pointer earlier this month. But we are also complicit if we allow deaths like Miles Armstead’s to be silenced and dismissed simply because all sides were black.
Gianno Caldwell is a Fox News political analyst and the author of “Taken for Granted: How Conservatism Can Win Back the Americans That Liberalism Failed” (Crown Forum). @GiannoCaldwell
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