ALPHARETTA, GA – A routine traffic stop on August 20, 2020 turned fatal for the driver and injured a deputy. The driver’s family doesn’t blame the police officer, but rather praises him.
Dante Parara, the 22 year old driver, was pulled over on Mansell Road from GA 400 SB. He was headed to a birthday party.
The police pulled him over to check the level of tint on his car windows. The officer approached Parara, and everything began cordially. The officer debated on giving Parara a ticket, but before he could decide, he smelled something that resembled marijuana.
The officer asks Parara to step out of the car.
Parara, instead, drove off with the officer’s arm still inside the car. He dragged the officer down Mansell Road before he was finally able to get free. As the officer fell onto the roadway, Parara never slowed down.
A second officer at the scene notified dispatch, and then went to help the injured officer to provide assistance. The injured officer was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital to treat his significant injuries.
Somewhere, Parara found a handgun, and responding officers found him dead, inside his vehicle on the roadway.
The Alpharetta Department of Public Safety wrote on its Facebook page:
“What we’d like you to know is that our officer was treated and released from the hospital last night from significant injuries he received from being dragged and the fall,”
It continued:
“He’s home recovering. We’d also like to express our sympathy to the suspect’s family and ask everyone to keep all involved in your thoughts.”
So grateful our officer is going to be alright. Please join me in continuing to pray for the Parara family. https://t.co/hNQ4eVr9mK
— Chief John Robison (@ChiefRobison) August 27, 2020
This situation leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Why did Parara run in the first place?
The answer came from Kendrick McWilliams, a family friend, a former coach, and lawyer for the Parara family, who suggested that the man had gotten scared, and panicked when asked to leave the vehicle, Morse Diggs, of Fox 5 Atlanta reports.
[embedded content]McWilliams said at the Alpharetta Police Department Press Conference:
“The police did absolutely nothing wrong in this situation,”
She went on to say:
“The climate in our country is horrible. The distrust of police is fueling a lot of things going on. We need to get to a point where families, the public and police officers can have some confidence that a simple police stop can be just that, a simple police stop.”
Another question comes to mind: Why didn’t the officer pull his gun? He had a legal right to pull a gun and force Perera out of the car. You may recall the story of the fallout of Rayshard Brook’s murder in Atlanta. During the protests, police called out sick in Atlanta, It was known as “the blue flu.”
Was The officer afraid of the future outcry or the backlash?
The Washington post started recording the number of police shootings in 2015. It was updated on August 28, 2020, According to the Post, the number of fatal police shootings have risen about 1,000 people annually. The claim is also that Black and Hispanic males aged 20-34 are usually the victims of police crime.
However, Reuters debunked this theory as comparing apples to oranges by asking Lucas Mentch, Ph.D., from the American Statistical Association
He said:
“Per 1,000,000 members of the murderer’s race” [label at the top of the chart means that] “you’re changing what you’re standardizing by in each of those bar charts,” [which] “doesn’t seem appropriate in this circumstance.
In other words, the numbers are presented side by side as if directly comparable, but are based on different benchmarks (per million black people or per million white people).”
To further simplify, this means white people are counted as a general statistic. Black people are counted as a statistic within their community.
According to Gallup, the results still remain the same that confidence in Police has dropped to 48 percent. This is the first time that confidence in police has dropped to below 50 percent in the 27 years the polling that has taken place shows.
Why did the officer not pull his gun to stop Parara?
The answer is, he may not have seen a need too, or it happened so quickly he didn’t have time.
As the family thanks the officer and the Alpharetta Police for doing the right thing, the fact of the matter is a man is dead by suicide.
The family doesn’t know what else could’ve troubled him, and a police officer is still injured.
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