INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Missing 24: Isaiah Washington Calls For ‘Stay Home September 26’ Protest To Fight Police Brutality [Updated]

By Scott Hough
Published on: 08:00 PST, Sep 22, 2016

Update 7:15 p.m. ET September 23: Madelon Blue McCullough has made a statement to the Inquisitr with regard to the September 26 boycott.

“We are not protesting,” McCullough’s statement reads. “We are boycotting. We are encouraging [Americans] to support and buy from black owned businesses only in order to increase the amount of time our money circulates in our community and lower the unemployment rate. We have an agenda it’s not just a boycott. We will be moving forward with demands.”

Update 2:10 a.m. ET September 23: Yesterday, Isaiah Washington spoke with Karen Hunter about the planned boycott for Monday, September 26. Audio of their conversation has been uploaded to SoundCloud.

Original article: Actor Isaiah Washington, known for his role as Dr. Preston Burke on Grey’s Anatomy and activist Madelon Blue McCullough, have started the #missing24 and #stayhomeSeptember262016 hashtags on Twitter and Facebook and “united” efforts aimed at “boycotting the very system that was built on the backs of black people here in America,” according to posts on the Facebook pages of each.

The boycott is planned for 24 hours on Monday, September 26, the day of the first presidential debate. Isaiah Washington has endorsed third-party Green nominee Dr. Jill Stein for president.

According to TMZ, Washington told Star Jones of his father, whose name he bears, being murdered in the mid-seventies when he was only 13-years-old.

Washington and McCullough are calling for a complete economic shutdown on September 26, including staying home from work and school and not buying and, presumably, selling anything.

Isaiah Washington wrote on his verified Facebook page that “every African born in America is fed up, hurt, confused, saddened and angry” about the seemingly summary executions of African-Americans in the streets of America at the hands of police officers.

[Image by Michael Yarish/Getty Images]

Washington’s Facebook posts also include the hashtags #RIPTerenceCrutcher and #HandsUpDontShoot, which refer to the tragic deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police. Recently, video footage of Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officer Betty Shelby was released that showed unarmed 40-year-old father Terence Crutcher being gunned down after his SUV stalled in the middle of the highway, as reported by the Inquisitr. Shortly after, news came of violent protests sweeping through a Charlotte, North Carolina, neighborhood in the aftermath of the shooting death of Keith Lamont Scott, who had seven children, at the hands of Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer Brentley Vinson, as reported by the Inquisitr.

“If there’s a war going on outside why dont we stay inside, be safe and withhold our $1.7 trillion dollar buying power?” asks a post on Madelon Blue McCullough’s Facebook page.

[Image by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]

Attention has been called to the fact that the use of body cams has been implemented by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, yet footage from the body cams of officers involved in fatal shooting deaths over the past year is missing in the majority of cases.

Violent protests were reported in Charlotte for the second night with Governor Pat McCrory declaring a state of emergency in summoning the National Guard, as reported by WSOCTV.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have continued to assert that Scott was armed with a handgun and that he presented an imminent danger to officers.

At least one eyewitness, Taheshia Williams, claims that Scott was holding a book, that he had no gun, and that the officer who shot him was white, as reported by the Root. Brentley Vinson, the officer being reported as Keith Lamont Scott’s killer, is African-American.

There appears to be questions as to whether the gun Keith Lamont Scott was allegedly holding was loaded, whether it was registered, and if he was legally entitled to carry a firearm.

“Before we had the body cameras and the videos everyone is shooting, cops would always say he was armed, or he had this,” Cenk Uygur with the Young Turks stated in a recent YouTube broadcast concerning both the lack of footage available in the Keith Lamont Scott case and the seemingly incriminating footage available in the Terence Crutcher case. “And now we see the footage.”

The CBC is reporting that footage of Keith Lamont Scott being shot is available and will be shown to his family today, but that it will not be available to the public unless Charlotte police feel that there is a “compelling” reason to make it so.

“We have shown your multiple videos of people restrained on the ground, being shot in the back,” John Iadarola with TYT added.

“I’m very sure that within 72 hours from Wall Street to the NFL… Black Lives Would Matter. September 26, 2016 is THE DAY,” Isaiah Washington has challenged America.

[Feature Image by Mike Coppola/Getty Images]

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