A brutal natural experiment is underway demonstrating the role of race, riots, and radicals in determining whose death is noted, and whose ignored in racialized America when unarmed young men are shot and killed by police. While American and world media, along with the President and Attorney General of the United States, obsess over the death of Michael Brown at the hands of the Ferguson, Missouri police, few people outside of Utah have heard of the remarkably parallel and contemporaneous death of Dillon Taylor, an unarmed young man (and father-to-be) from a gun shot by a Salt Lake City policeman, whose name has not been released, but who has been identified the SLC chief of police as nonwhite.

Dillon Taylor, 20, who is from Salt Lake, was exiting 7-Eleven with his brother and cousin, Adam Thayne, around 7 p.m. on Monday, when Salt Lake City police arrived, responding to a report of a man waving a gun in the area.



The officers ordered the men to the ground. Two of them complied, but Dillon, who police say matched the suspect's description, did not go down.



"It came in as a 911 call that there was a man with a gun," said South Salt Lake Police Sgt. Darrin Sweeten. "He was verbally challenged and ultimately was shot."



Sweeten did not release further details on the shooting….

No one has suggested that Taylor was involved in the commission of any crime, unlike Brown who was captured on surveillance camera robbing a convenience store shortly before his death.

Dillon's brother and cousin claim they were on their way to visit his parents' graves and that Dillon was surprised by the police presence. He was not aggressive, they said.



"He had headphones in, and he couldn't hear [anything], and then they finally surrounded him," Jerrail said. "They're like, 'Get on the ground,' and [he] pulled up his pants and [they] shot him."



Thayne believes police might have thought his cousin was reaching for a gun when, in reality, he grabbed his cell phone.



"I was in shock, because he was wearing a white t-shirt and there was blood all over it," Thayne said. "They ran up and handcuffed him. He wasn't moving."



A witness's video shows police yelling for the two men to remain on the ground as Thayne repeatedly screams that they have shot his cousin.



The two men were taken to the police station, but released hours later without being charged or cited.

Unlike the Ferguson Police, Salt Lake City Police wear body video cameras, so footage of the entire incident is available to the police and the chief of police has watched it. But so far there has been no release of the tape.

[Chief of PoliceChris] Burbank has watched the video but would not comment on whether he thought the Aug. 11 shooting in a 7-Eleven parking lot was justified. Burbank also would not comment on whether the 20-year-old Taylor had a gun. The man's family has said he was not armed.

And while friends of Taylor and some others have protested the shooting, there have been no riots or violence, no radicals streaming in to agitate, no national media interest at all, and complete indifference from the AG and POTUS, in stark contrast to their concern for the late strong-arm robber Michael Brown.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that some unarmed victims of police shooting are more important to the political and media leadership of America than others.

For the record, Taylor is what the New York Times would call a “white Hispanic”:

Taylor's brother, Jerrail Taylor, raised issues last week about racial profiling. He said his brother was Hispanic.

As with the case of George Zimmerman, Hispanic grievance groups have remained silent.

Hat tip: Jack Hellner