Waffle House Shooting: A Hate Crime?

FEATURING MELINA ABDULLAH – A judge in the case of suspected shooter Travis Reinking has responded to public outrage over a $2 million bond, and decided to revoke the bond. Reinking is being held in the case of a brutal mass shooting at a Waffle House eatery in Antioch, Tennessee that claimed the lives of four black and brown patrons. Reinking used an AR-15 rifle, which was wrested away by an unarmed bystander, and then fled until police managed to capture him alive. He was previously arrested trying to enter the White House and has been found to be a member of an anti-government group of people that consider themselves “sovereign citizens.”

Meanwhile at another Waffle House in the neighboring state of Alabama, a Black woman was brutally arrested by multiple male officers in an incident that was captured on video. Chikesia Clemons was not only wrestled to the ground, but was partially disrobed by officers and threatened to have her arm broken. At one point in the video an officer can be seen attempting to strangle her. The Saraland Police Department said her treatment was justified.

The two Waffle House incidents come right after two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks for doing absolutely nothing, and five black women playing golf in Pennsylvania had the cops called on them after being accused of playing too slowly.

Melina Abdullah, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pan African Studies at California State University of Los Angeles, active with the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter.