Funny how a guy in full body armor who had been arrested once before for violent threats and who was known to be associated with the OathKeepers and Sovereign Citizens movement didn't receive the same snap judgment that unarmed African American men do.
Not that it's a bad thing. It simply illustrates the double standard in play. I'd like to see police use similar techiques on African-American suspects rather than shooting them dead in cold blood.
Wearing full body armor with a knife strapped to his chest, a Kevlar helmet with a face mask and armed with pepper spray, Brandon D. Gibbs, 29, had to be coaxed out of his home and subdued by officers, police said Friday.
An officer was able to fire pepper spray under Gibbs’ face shield while another officer talked to him, Charlotte Guedry, police spokeswoman, said in a news release.
City Clerk Clay Stafford said the city filed a police report last week after Gibbs called the city’s utility department Dec. 1 and threatened a clerk over his water service. It was turned off the same day for nonpayment of his bill.
Stafford said Gibbs threatened that “if you come back on my property, I’m going to put a bullet in a tire or in somebody’s head.”
Three Gonzales Police officers served Gibbs with an arrest warrant Dec. 2, one day after the threatening call, Guedry said.
Gibbs, 413 W. Pine St., Apt. A, was booked into the Ascension Parish Prison near Donaldsonville on four counts of attempted aggravated battery, resisting an officer, possession of marijuana, illegal possession of body armor in the presence of narcotics and improper telephone communications, Guedry said. Gibbs remained in jail Friday evening with bail set at $13,064.50.
Even before his arrest Dec. 2, Gibbs was known to city officers for his anti-authority beliefs, violent tendencies and harsh feelings about city government, according to a police detective and a police report.
In May 2013, Gibbs was arrested on counts of resisting an officer and aggravated assault after he allegedly pulled a knife on two people in front of his West Pine home and threatened to “blow” them away with an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle if they ever returned, a police report says.
Maybe the Gonzales police could give lessons to Ferguson officers?
