Darrien Hunt, may have been killed by police in a predominately white community in Utah for engaging in “Cosplay.” Cosplay is short for Costume Play, a form of dressing up as a comic book character (in this case a Japanese Manga character). The Guardian reports that this may indeed be the reason why two cops decided to gun down Mr. Hunt, because he was dressed as “Mugen, a swordsman character in the short-lived Japanese anime series Samurai Champloo.” It’s a show I have seen, because my son is a big manga and anime fan. Here’s a photo of him taken on that day shortly before he was shot six times and died of his wounds, and yes he is dressed like Mugen. Even his hair is standing up, worn in the style of the Mugen character.
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Mr Hunt, the young African American man killed in Saratoga Springs, Utah allegedly lunged at police officers that day with a blunt Katana style vanity sword (that very much resembles the one my son owns). Authorities in Utah claim his sword was a deadly weapon which he swing violently at the police and that this justified them to shoot him down outside a mall, despite the fact that an autopsy by the family revealed all six bullets that hit Darrien’s body hit him from behind, strongly suggesting he was shot while running for his life and away from the police.
So, why was Darrien Hunt carrying that blunt vanity sword around in the first place? It appears he was a fan a Japanese manga comic books, and was likely role playing as a character from one of those comics when someone called 911 and police responded by confronting him and then killing him:
The family of a young black man shot dead by police in Utah after walking around a strip mall with a replica samurai-style sword say they have discovered sketchbooks in which he left drawings of manga-like characters and fantasy scenes.
Relatives of Darrien Hunt are taking increasingly seriously the possibility that he was engaged in cosplay – dressing up as comic book character for a kind of performance art – on the morning earlier this month when he was killed in Saratoga Springs, according to their attorney. […]
Family and friends have struggled to explain why Hunt wandered around the neighbourhood with the two-to-three-foot metal sword, which they say was bought from a gift shop and did not have a sharp edge. Police say that it had a sharpened point and appeared to have a dangerous blade.
Attention was swiftly drawn online to Hunt’s remarkable resemblance as he walked around on the morning of 10 September to Mugen, a swordsman character in the short-lived Japanese anime series Samurai Champloo. The Comic Con convention had also taken place in Salt Lake City, about 35 miles to the north, the weekend before the shooting.
Hunt’s aunt, Cindy Moss, previously told the Guardian that a witness to the confrontation with police had told the family that Hunt “had his earbuds in, and was kind of doing spins and stuff, like pretending he’s a samurai”.
The family has asked for the Justice Department to open an investigation, since it appears the local authorities are refusing to disclose all that they know about the incident, including the fact that one officer may have been wearing a body camera that may contain footage of the incident. Various authorities have given different answers to whether the police officers involved wore such cameras.
It all comes back to motive. What motive would the Darrien Hunt have had for lunging at police with a sword he knew had a blunt edge (like my son’s sword) after he was confronted by two armed police officers? Nothing I’ve read suggests he was a candidate for suicide by cop? He was dressed up as a comic book character. Would anyone in that community called the cops if a white male of his age was walking around dressed up the same way? Would police have reacted the same way to a young white male doing the same thing, i.e., cosplaying? Hunt was near a store that sold manga books and anime films. The witness who saw him and the police right before the shooting started said Hunt appeared calm.
Just moments before Hunt’s killing, a woman at a nearby gas station photographed the young man, with his towering Afro, speaking with the cops as they appear relaxed and at ease, not in any defensive position, but it’s unclear if Hunt’s hands were occupied.
“She says that within seconds, she looked down to finish pumping her gas and he was on the run and they are shooting at him,” Edwards stated. Adding that from where she snapped the photo to the Panda Express, where Hunt’s body collapsed, is about 100 to 150 yards apart.
I’m sorry, but this stinks to whatever Mormon heaven exists in the minds of the good folks of Saratoga Springs, Utah, a wealthy enclave where 93 percent of the people are white and only 1 percent at most are black. But likely he will just be another instance of a young black man shot dead by police whose case will not be investigated by anyone. Unlike the Michael Brown case where multiple witnesses described the cold blooded actions of Officer Wilson, or the case in Ohio, where surveillance video exists that shows clearly John Crawford III posed no threat to anyone (though that didn’t help convince a Grand Jury to indict John Crawford’s killer), there is no video and the only eyewitnesses to what caused the police to shoot Mr. Hunt in the back are the two police officers who killed him.
My condolences to the family. Meanwhile, more police shootings of people of color will continue unabated, it seems.
How could somebody in a samurai costume in 21st-century Utah possibly be a threat or anything other than what Darrien Hunt was, a silly kid? Cops are becoming literally insane with fear, and it’s hard to understand why.
..because ONE ninja could single-handedly kill every single cop in Utah. I saw it in a movie, it must be true.
Speed the day.
Yes, they’ve gone mad. Soon they’ll start shooting each other. This isn’t even a stiuation sane people can reasonably comment on. It’s so sad. There seems to be no way back.
Black man and Utah-this was never going to end well.can’t even be a nerd if you are Black
No indictments for the cop who shot the young black man in our local Walmart, surprise, surprise. In an Open Carry state, with a BB gun in hand, the victim was still gunned down. White suburb, white police, Black Man Shopping.
Off now to let the Feds sort it out, but on the local level, it was a righteous shoot and that’s that.
No indictment of the fraudulent 911 caller either.
He should be in jail, most definitely. His lies led to the panic and he walked away with blood on his hands.
The police need to state a reason anymore?
At what point do we tell the nice white suburbanites what the meaning of “lynching” is.
Makes one wonder the real reason for Holder’s leaving. To maybe have a “white good ole boy go to China” on holding police accountable? Bubba, you available to be Attorney General (oh, that’s right, that disbarment thing). Sorry, Roy Cooper is not available; he’s running to take down Pat McCrory in 2016. I don’t know who’s politically correct here.
But Col. Morris Davis of Howard University Law School could certainly do the job. But might have trouble in confirmation with the GOP.
Or are we going to move Jeh Johnson from DHS to DOJ? Not a “white good ole boy” but used to hobnobbing with the police guys. And has a bunch of Twitter recommendations for his appointment.
So Holder has to get voting rights implemented through this election cycle.
For all the failures with Wall Street, this could get very interesting and have implications beyond any of the single cases since Trayvon Martin was killed.
I hope Holder’s leaving so he can be nominated to the SCOTUS
and give GOTV a push on the Senate races
People in Ferguson are back on the street today. No arrest of Darren Wilson. No grand jury indictment. No incident report on the shooting.
I guess some more people will rack up some more jail time for whatever charges St. Louis County arrests them for protesting.
Someone out there in St. Louis (ACLU-MO?) should know how to get jail assistance legal aid to these folks.
NC Inmate Died of Thirst After 35 Days In Solitary
May I rant?
Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill was supposed to be accompanied with community mental health facilities. Instead untrained cops and prison officials are given the responsibility of “dealing with them”. This is the inevitable result. A schizophrenic given no medication and punished for flooding his cell, then neglected during transport, not to a mental health facility but to Central Prison, dies of dehydration. All of North Carolina’s legislators have this on them for being too cheap to follow through on funding community mental health services. Because they might have to raise taxes of not extend mulit-million-dollar subsidies to bribe the industries that wine and dine them. A return to barbarism.
And North Carolina is by far not the only state this is happening in. Rahm Emanuel has closed at least half (I don’t know how many he’s closed since 2012) of the mental health clinics in Chicago, for example. Cook County Jail is becoming a detention facility for the mentally ill.
In this case, the legislative malpractice is not limited to Republicans or even Blue Dog Democrats. There has been total inaction.
US jails became detention facilities for the seriously mentally ill when state mental health hospitals began closing in the 1970s. A joint effort of liberals and Reaganites.
Exactly. It is not recent. But the Chicago mental health clinics were keeping a lot of people functioning who would otherwise have ended up at Cook County Jail. That is no longer true.
As I ranted, a return to barbarity.
Increasing barbarity. All part of the government “austerity” fetish that manages to spend more than a dollar (often substantially more than than dollar) for each dollar cut to deliver cruelty instead of kindness.
Meanwhile, the corporate welfare state flourishes.