It didn’t take long before Prince George’s County police were blaming William Green for his own death, suggesting to the media hours after the shooting that the father of two was high on PCP when he engaged in a “struggle” with a cop while sitting in the front seat of a patrol car with his hands cuffed behind him.
But that turned out to be nothing but a cheap attempt to destroy Green’s character in order to gain control of the narrative which is what we have come to expect from police after every questionable shooting.
Houston police did the same following the botched raid last January that left two innocent people dead, hailing the cops as heroes and the victims as cop killers – only to arrest the two leading cops on murder charges seven months later.
And Dallas police did the same in 2018 when they leaked a search warrant stating marijuana was found in the apartment of Botham Jean after he was shot and killed by a cop who mistakenly walked into his apartment thinking it was her apartment. Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was indicted two-and-a-half months later and is now serving a ten-year prison sentence.
New Orleans police even tried to destroy the character of a loyal service dog they had killed earlier this month, claiming it had bitten an officer, only to admit a week later the dog never bit the officer. But that update to the “premature” report only came out after it was revealed the dog, Hilo, was a trained service dog owned by a devastated veteran with PTSD who said his dog had never bitten anybody in its life.
The Police PR Spin Machine never stops churning out false narratives which is why it is important to recognize and understand it in order to cut through the lies.
What makes this case unique is that it took less than 24 hours for Prince George’s County Police Corporal Michael Owen to be arrested and charged with second degree murder and manslaughter, breaking the unwritten rule that cops must be granted a lengthy “investigation” before any charges can be filed.
It’s also unique in how Prince George’s County Police Henry P. Stawinski III contradicted the initial police narrative with facts instead of turning the narrative into the “investigation” they cannot comment on, which is dragged out for as long as possible in the hopes the public will forget about it.
“I have concluded that what happened last night is a crime,” the chief said during a press conference Tuesday. “There are no circumstances under which this outcome is acceptable.”
Chief Stawinski also said the initial police narrative of the PCP “did not appear to the case” and the “two independent witnesses” that reportedly viewed the struggle was “not corroborated.”
In other words, somebody within his department deliberately crafted a lie for the media and now they are trying to play off the initial report as being “preliminary.”
In her preliminary report, media spokesperson Cristina Cotterman stated that Green was driving his car and struck several vehicles before coming to a stop Monday evening. She said Corporal Owen and the other cop who responded “smelled what they believed to be PCP” from Green’s vehicle.
But she also said the two cops had to wait for a “drug recognition expert” to confirm their suspicions who is a cop that has received specialized training in how to recognize drugs as opposed to just going on an uneducated hunch as these cops apparently did.
PCP is a hallucinogenic associated with violent tendencies with a chemical smell compared to permanent markers or copy toner. Unlike marijuana, it is not widely used, so it is not widely recognized. And it is much more stigmatized. If these cops had no training in how to smell PCP (and presumably no prior usage), how could they have reasonably come to that conclusion?
And even if they did, why would Cotterman relay that information to reporters unless she wanted to manipulate the media?
Cotterman is not a cop but a former television reporter who joined the Prince George’s County Police Department in 2012. The decision to push a false narrative likely came from somebody with a badge.
Cotterman also claimed that “two independent witnesses” saw a struggle before hearing gunshots which continues to build on the narrative that Green was some out-of-control drug addict fighting with the cops who were only to keep him safe. And it was important to point out they were “independent” because that creates the narrative that somebody other than a cop is relaying that information.
Cotterman also claimed Green had been wearing a seatbelt as if the cop was concerned for his safety before he shot him to death but that also appears doubtful, the chief said.
That one never made any sense because cops never use seat belts when transporting inmates or suspects. And they rarely use seatbelts themselves because they claim the belts hinder their ability to hop out of their car quickly, so they have convinced themselves that seatbelts are unsafe which may explain why an average of two cops a month die in automobile accidents, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. Cops only care about seatbelts when it comes to ticketing people.
What also did not make sense is the fact that Green was placed in the front seat of the car instead of the back but police say that was because the patrol car did not have a partition separating front and back, turning it into yet another safety issue for the cop.
Cotterman also danced around the issue as to whether Corporal Owen pulled the trigger that killed Green by telling reporters the “suspect was struck multiple times by the officer’s handgun” as if maybe Owen beat him with it.
What Owen really did was shoot him seven times at close range while Green’s hands were cuffed behind his back which is a bit extreme even among the today’s crop of hyper-violent, trigger-happy cops that dominate our headlines.
Owen, a ten-year veteran, is being held without bail after a judge declared he is a danger to the community.
Watch the two portions of contradicting statements from police.
