Correction: A charging knife-wielding domestic-disturbance suspect with a track record of stabbing people. Police got called out to a domestic disturbance yesterday and were immediately confronted by Ricardo Munoz, who chased after the officers with a knife. The police officer’s body cam shows how quickly the call turned deadly (caution — disturbing):
The Lancaster District Attorney’s Office is investigating the shooting but has said that Munoz was acting in a threatening manner toward police who had been called over a domestic disturbance.
Officers arrived at the home in the 300 block of Laurel Street in Lancaster around 4:15 p.m., the DA’s office said. The video released Sunday night shows an officer approaching the home and asking a woman who answered the door “where’d he go?”
After a moment, a man can be heard saying something as the woman says “ay Dios” or “oh god” in Spanish. While she goes to a side porch, the officer tells her to get back as a man comes running out of the home with a knife.
The officer runs, as the man chases him with the knife raised, and shots can be heard in the footage. The man can then be seen lying on the sidewalk.
Perhaps unknown to officers at that time, this wasn’t Munoz’ first time attacking people with a knife. In early 2019, police had arrested Munoz after a stabbing spree that injured four people and a standoff during which Munoz threatened to slice his own throat (via Twitchy):
Ricardo Munoz, the man who died in the officer-involved shooting in Lancaster today that Black Lives Matter is rioting over, has a history of stabbing people. In 2019, he stabbed four people, including a teenager. pic.twitter.com/8SA9UwtPqy
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 14, 2020
Even if the officers involved didn’t know Munoz’ history, the body cam footage makes it crystal clear that Munoz was a deadly threat. It takes almost no time whatsoever for a knife-wielding attacker to kill someone if they get within 20 feet of their intended victim, and Munoz clearly intended to attack the police officer, who was retreating the entire time. Even if the shooter was a civilian, this would be a clear case of self-defense.
Police released this footage as soon as possible to head off riots in Lancaster. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Black Lives Matter staged protests over the shooting, and those quickly turned into rioting, necessitating the use of gas to clear the street. That only came after significant damage around the police station:
Hundreds of people gathered at the scene of the shooting on Sunday evening before marching to the city’s police station, according to WGAL-TV. The windows of police vehicles were smashed at one point, the station reported.
Several posts on social media suggested protesters were angered by Munoz’s body being left, reportedly uncovered, on the street for hours after the shooting. …
Pictures posted on Twitter by Lancaster Online reporter Carter Walker showed damage to the vehicle and others showed that protesters also made a barricade out of street signs, trash and other items. Later, a dumpster was set on fire.
Here are a few of the images taken by Walker during the riots:
The scene in front of the Lancaster city police station at 12:22 AM pic.twitter.com/88EXjkkNsM
— Carter Walker (@CarterLNP) September 14, 2020
— Carter Walker (@CarterLNP) September 14, 2020
Damage to police station and post office pic.twitter.com/2fvdzU3xnm
— Carter Walker (@CarterLNP) September 14, 2020
And more from Blaze TV’s Elijah Riot, which makes the intent to riot pretty clear:
LANCASTER: BLM riots kick off in Lancaster, PA after an officer involved shooting of a man armed with a knife
— ELIJAH SCHAFFER (@ElijahSchaffer) September 14, 2020
Police said protesters ignored multiple warnings that chemical munitions would be deployed if they did not move from the ramp. When they didn’t move, chemical agents including pepper spray was used to disperse the crowd, police said
“People on the ramp, W. Chestnut St. and the park adjacent to the station threw water bottles, glass bottles, rocks, bricks, gallon jugs of liquids and parts of plastic road barricades at Officers,” police said.
“OC spray was also deployed at protestors that refused to move from the ramp and were physically challenging Officers that were moving to clear people from the ramp.”
All of this erupted over a shooting that appears entirely justified — but of course, that isn’t the point. If that was the point, people would have waited for the evidence to emerge before deciding whether Munoz’ death required any public protest at all. It is clear that rioters are looking for any pretext, real or imagined, to destroy property and terrorize communities as a means to advance their radical political agenda. This isn’t a social-justice movement; it’s the brownshirts all over again.
Now that BLM riots have come to Lancaster, one has to wonder how Pennsylvania voters will react to this. Suddenly, that law-and-order issue won’t seem anywhere near as academic as it might have last week in the Keystone State.
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