When Cops Lie Like This It Puts Black Lives At Risk

via Wikimedia

PushBlack
August 13, 2019

Birmingham Police Department’s Officer Keith Buchanan pulled a hoax that will leave you wondering why. It doesn’t make sense, and he ended up losing his job and being taken into custody because of it. 

How it happened will leave you feeling confused. 

Officer Buchanan faked a call for help, claiming there were injuries and even a shooting. He placed a phony distress call that led officers into a frenzy searching for him. When they found him, he appeared to be unconscious, injured and uncommunicative. 

However, that wasn’t the case. 

When Buchanan was transferred to the hospital after police blocked off interstates to get him there ASAP, they found no significant injuries. The shots fired and injuries were fake!

Now, he’s been relieved of his job for staging it all… and it’s still not clear why he did it. 

His chief called it “stolen valor” and talked about how he tried to make himself look like a hero. But we can’t ignore the fact that this put lives at risk. Imagine how alert officers were. Any random Black person could have made the wrong move and ended up dead as a potential suspect. 

Keith Buchanan is “charged with false reporting, criminal mischief and discharging a firearm in city limits,” according to CNN. 

When it comes to policing, we should still ask questions no matter who the cop is. Anyone can tell a lie, even the police and even a Black officer.

We have a quick favor to ask:

PushBlack is a nonprofit dedicated to raising up Black voices. We are a small team but we have an outsized impact:

  • We reach tens of millions of people with our BLACK NEWS & HISTORY STORIES every year.
  • We fight for CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM to protect our community.
  • We run VOTING CAMPAIGNS that reach over 10 million African-Americans across the country.

And as a nonprofit, we rely on small donations from subscribers like you.

With as little as $5 a month, you can help PushBlack raise up Black voices. It only takes a minute, so will you please ?

Share This Article: