In response to the outright lies and misinformation that NBC6 “reporter” Willard Shepard said about the North Miami Beach Police Department yesterday, Major Kathy Katerman issued two press releases today.
The first release is a Statement Regarding Sniper Training from Chief Scott Dennis, which explains that the NMBPD’s sniper team is comprised of one Hispanic male and one Haitian American male (who is the team leader). He also describes in detail how the snipers are trained. In addition, he said that only two members of the 95 officers in the department are snipers, and that no other officers use mug shots for target practice.
Chief Scott Dennis then stated that he “immediately suspended the sniper training program,” he will “conduct a thorough review,” and that he “opened an investigation into the matter.”
Those last comments rendered me speechless. So speechless, in fact, that I am compelled to issue this Public Service Announcement:
Attention all residents of North Miami Beach: Under no circumstances are you to engage in the act of being held hostage until further notice as there will be no sniper team on duty to save your sorry asses. Thank you for your cooperation.
The second simultaneously issued press release is the Police Chief’s Response to Sniper Target Story, in which the Chief provides the media “with some clarifying facts.” The Chief then made a list of 22 statements of fact, as opposed to Willard Shepard’s fictional account, including a detailed explanation of what occurred at sniper training on December 5, 2014.
For the benefit of the terminally stupid members of the so-called media, the Chief also attached legitimate photographs of the actual targets that the NMBPD sniper team has used during training sessions for more than a decade.
Chief Dennis carefully explained that “real photo targets are used because snipers are taught in schools by the experts to train as real as possible.” He also revealed that a “renowned sniper expert was INTERVIEWED BY THE MEDIA, but the footage was NOT USED IN YESTERDAY’S STORY.”
But there was absolutely no media bias whatsoever in your “news” story, right Willard?
The Chief also explained that during sniper training, the “sniper team leader is the one who chooses the targets,” and that “on December 5, 2014 that was a BLACK MALE officer from our Special Response Team.” (Emphasis mine.)
AHA! THE PLOT THICKENS!
Now that we know for sure that since a BLACK MALE randomly chose the mug shots of BLACK MALES for sniper training, it was absolutely racially motivated!
There you go, Willard! You must have missed that clue!
Willard also decided to leave out the rest of the mug shots in the sniper team’s inventory. Showing all of these pictures on his broadcast would have contradicted the covert “racist cop” agenda he was slyly pushing.
In the interest of Truth, Justice and the Politically Incorrect American Way, I’m publishing them all here.
As Paul Harvey says, “Now you know the rest of the story.”
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
I find it utterly offensive and blatantly disrespectful to use any deceased person’s face or body parts for target practice or firearms training. Flip the script…would you want your deceased mom, dad, sister, brother, grandchild, etc’s face on a target for firearms practice and/or qualification just because they were felons? Is that the best resource we can find…that brings more grief to a family? If it was a relative of mine, I would be extremely upset and I truly love the law enforcement profession. However, this one went over the top!! Firearms proficiency is not going to improve significantly just by having any ethnic/gender person’s face mounted for “shoot,” “don’t shoot.” AND, IT CERTAINLY IS NOT GOING TO IMPROVE POLICE/COMMUNITY RELATIONS WHEN WE’RE DOING TARGET PRACTICE AT SOMEONE’S DECEASED “LOVED ONE!” WHAT WOULD YOU DO?!
Take this a step further. DID YOU GET PERMISSION FROM THE FAMILY TO USE THESE PEOPLE’S BODIES FOR TARGET PRACTICE? AND/OR, WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO USE THESE PEOPLE’S BODIES FOR TARGET PRACTICE??!! YOU CANNOT JUST TAKE A DEAD BODY AND VIOLATE IT WITHOUT SOMEONE GIVING YOU AUTHORIZATION TO DO SO!! IF YOU DIDN’T GET IT OR YOU DON’T KNOW, BEND OVER NOW!!
I’m glad you didn’t try to say the NMBPD only used mug shots of black men, like most “news” stations are reporting.
That being said, I can understand how a person might be upset that his or her mug shot was used for target practice. However, to be clear, we are talking about a piece of paper, not a real live human being.
Personally, I couldn’t care less what someone does with a picture of me. It’s just paper.
If he could actually cause me harm, my ex-husband would have taken some of my old photos to a voodoo doctor and try to burn me in effigy. I’m sure he’s probably already tried, but guess what? I’m still here. Much to his dismay, I’m sure.
They weren’t pictures of dead people, either. I’m not sure if that’s what you were inferring, but they were 15 year old mug shots of live people. I’m guessing most, if not all, are still alive. Many of them are also probably out of jail by now.
Where did you get that they were using actual body part Gwen Boyd??? They were using Mugshots you know pictures on paper for target practice… OMG this is what’s wrong with this world!
I see dead people