I listened to the 911 tape in its entirety. The operator tries to reason with Omar, telling him to surrender peacefully. Now listen carefully at around the 3:51 mark of the video provided by WFSB (just click to the link above to watch this). I believe that's when Omar Thornton shot himself dead.
I don't buy the story that Omar, who shot eight people before killing himself, was the subject of racism. Of course, every workplace has its share of racist knuckleheads of all stripes, but likely, such conduct gets dealt with one way or another. Whatever problems Thornton had at the job, he should have dealt with them in a more reasonable manner. He did talk to his supervisors about some racist graffiti he saw in the men's room, but knowing that the supervisors didn't deal with it, he should have went to some kind of state agency- or somewhere- and told them about his problems.
Co-workers, I understand, describe him as someone who stayed to himself, and at times disgruntled. Of course, the video evidence of him stealing beer from the warehouse doesn't help his case any. As far as this goes, his argument of being racially targeted is flushed down the loo by such evidence. What I think is that Mr. Thornton himself was the racist, and that many of his co-workers had tried to reach out to him. Now understand that I don't work for Hartford Distributors, and I can't speak for them. Nor did I know Mr. Thornton, obviously, so again, his stories of racial harassment may have had merit. Otherwise, he just simply used the race card, and subsequently a bullet to his own head, as excuses not to face up to the discipline he had just faced.
I'm sorry, Omar Thornton, but I just can't accept your soliloquy about being treating bad on the basis that you're black. As I- an African-American- has said often times, playing the race card is a good way to lose an argument.
Copyright 2010 by Darren W. Alexander. All Rights Reserved.
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