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Alabama Mayor Kills Self After Right-Wing Blog Outs His Cross-Dressing (www.thedailybeast.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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A small-town Alabama pastor and mayor killed himself Friday, days after a local conservative news website published a story that included photos of him wearing women’s clothing and makeup.

F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, who was the mayor of Smiths Station and the pastor at First Baptist Church in Phenix City, shot himself in front of police during a welfare check, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said.

Copeland’s private life was exposed Wednesday by the conservative blog 1819 News, which was once owned by the right-wing Alabama Policy Institute and whose top editor is a former Breitbart News contributor.

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[–] 100 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I fully agree with your comment. That said:

Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said that deputies who tried to pull Copeland over for a welfare check witnessed Copeland step out of his car and shoot himself.

Why are we taking the word of the cops for what happened? We know the right-wingers don't distinguish between cross-dressers and pedophiles. We know that some of them find great satisfaction in abusing, torturing and even killing those that they consider "other". And we know that cops cover for other cops.

Yes, it's entirely possible and plausible that this guy killed himself, but why are we just blindly accepting the cops' version of events here?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    I more or less trust the cops in this case. There's really no reason to say he killed himself if they killed him, and in doing so create a whole bunch of evidence to cover up. They could just as easily say he was armed and they were scared so they shot him. That's enough for them to get away with murder, so why would they put themselves in a position that could be proven as a lie later?

    Never take a cops words at face value, but also recognize they can freely murder if they want to, so if they aren't taking credit for a kill, especially someone armed, they probably didn't do it.

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  • [+] -8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    We're taking the cops word because this was the damned mayor, not some random person (or minority) they pulled over, fucked up and decided they could hide it.

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  • [–] 69 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Counterpoint: it's the mayor of a small town in Alabama. The same Alabama that locked the new mayor out of City Hall because the mayor was Black, and they'd simply been passing the mayorship down through generations without actually bothering to hold elections or anything. Alabama is all sorts of fucked up, and their state motto is "Thank God for Mississippi".

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  • [–] 40 points 2 years ago

    Being mayor of a small town doesn't buy you much with the police. The mayor of a small town near where I grew up got swatted by police after someone sent weed to his address that the police were following. The mayor had nothing to do with the weed they just happened to pick his house. The cops didn't even check who lived at the address and shot the family's two golden retrievers.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor%27s_residence_drug_raid

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  • [+] -11 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    This is ridiculous. You're assuming

    1 That because they are officers, they are republican.

    They may be, but that's one assumption.

    2 That they are the kind of republican who equates cross dressing with pedophilia.

    Happens, but it is another assumption.

    3 They would act on that belief with murder. Of an elected official, on duty, on a welfare check.

    Sure .. could happen. But you see why this is becoming less rational as we go right.

    Yes, it's entirely possible that they killed someone because they cross dressed, but we just blindly accept this random comments version of events here?

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Honestly? Yes, I'm assuming there's a decent chance that they're bigots. And that's mostly because they're (1) small-town (2) cops in (3) Alabama. I'm not saying that this is what did happen, but I am saying that we just shouldn't take their word for what happened either.

    Also? In absolutely no part of my comment did I ever use the word "Republican".

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    blindly accept this random comments version of events here?

    Pretty sure that's exactly the opposite of that comments intent. They're providing another unfortunately likely possibility to encourage us to question the version of events that we're being told by the cops.

    We shouldn't just immediately believe either scenario is 100% true. But maybe we can ask for body cam footage to confirm the cops version of events

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