Police Officer Robert German was killed early Saturday morning in the affluent Central Florida (Orange County) town of Windermere on March 22, 2014 at approximately 3:30 a.m.
Robert German’s killers, two obviously troubled teens named Brandon Goode, 18 and Alexandria Hollinghurst, 17, were walking along Apopka-Vineland Road when Officer German spotted the couple and called for backup, when they arrived they found German with a gunshot wound and after rushing him to the Orlando Regional Medical Center he was pronounced dead from the wound.
At the time of this writing the suspects died of gunshot wounds in what appeared to be a suicide not too far from the scene where they were stopped by Officer German.
Alexandria Hollinghurst was from England and was most likely an innocent abused girlfriend to the troubled Brandon Goode who has an extensive history of bizarre behavior and prior brushes with the law.
At the time of this incident they were considered missing by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and earlier during that week Officers there were on the lookout for Goode’s vehicle. They found them at a Walgreen’s parking lot in Goode’s SUV, tried to question them and get them out of the vehicle, but lost them as Goode sped away almost striking an officer and several pedestrian’s. There was a warrant for his arrest for Resisting Arrest without Violence and Reckless Driving.
That’s the basic rundown on this unfortunate happening and there is a whole lot more about the strange behavior of Brandon Goode who has a history of drug abuse, but the point of where I’m going with this article is that murder, tragedy and danger is everywhere no matter WHAT zip code that you happen to reside in!
But since I relocated to Orlando back in early 2001, I discovered that the general attitude about certain particular areas in Orlando made for the separation that most people refuse to speak about directly but seem to acknowledge in a non verbal manner as though it is an unwritten rule.
But as you all know, I’m not afraid to speak on any topic and would like to talk about the age old order of division here in Orange County and beyond.
Most who arrive here on vacation from elsewhere are usually bedazzled but the great weather, the palm trees and the artificially concocted attractions that cause those same tourists to believe that Central Florida is some type of Utopia where the living must be the closest thing to Heaven on Earth!
And I must admit, when you learn the ropes down here you CAN live a very good life but the bottom line is that you will have to endure some very rude awakenings in order for you to arrive to that point of awareness here.
Rude awakenings?
Yes, once you spend any measure of time here beyond that of a typical vacation, you will learn that off of the beaten path of what is considered the tourist corridor, that there exists an entirely different world beyond the plastic Colgate smiles that exist out of the fear of one losing their low paying jobs and the illusion of happiness that most pay for to experience whether it is authentic or not.
You have to understand that Orlando is a place that grew up too fast for its own good. Orlando is actually just another nondescript hick town that had to deal with the surge of growth that came from Walt Disney’s dominance and dream to turn this place into the number one tourist destination in the entire world.
He succeeded.
But he forgot to banish all remnants of the old order that still thrives “under the covers” in still quite a blatant way today.
Why am I saying all of this in relation to a slain Police Officer?
…….bear with me as you all know that I’m long winded.
Central Florida as you all know is in the south.
But for some reason many people have felt before relocating here that Florida would be quite different from the rest of the south and the blood soaked history that its become known for.
Somehow we thought that Florida would be like that one law abiding son who came out of a criminal family of law breakers and just might be the one to not adhere to the family legacy.
Well how wrong we were!
Florida is not only just as historically bad as any of the worst racist States in the Union, but it’s even WORSE in my opinion because it has learned to be a very deceptive place if you don’t understand how things work here.
That being said, there is still a lot of pronounced racial separation here as well as the ignorance to go along with it.
While the change for the better is inevitable over time as the old guard always dies out to be replaced by the new thinkers, there are still too many people alive and well in strategic government positions and in law enforcement who are hellbent on keeping things the way they always have been while masquerading as an agent for positive change for ALL PEOPLE!
That’s a DAMN LIE and if you believe that then I have some very promising swampland to sell you in Brevard County!
So the general consensus is that there are still neighborhoods here that are drawn up along strict racial lines and those lines are supported by the Media who continue the ignorance to make those unsuspecting viewers believe the negative tales that they are told without ever having any experience in living in the so called downtrodden Black neighborhoods.
…….let’s call it for what it is!
Let me get right into the meat of the matter…….
The Town of Windermere, where Officer Robert German was killed, is considered to be the cream of the crop here in the Orlando area and nothing of this sort is supposed to happen there like that.
This is what many of the residents there feel, that a cop being murdered on their doorstep simply is not supposed to take place there.
Well if it’s not supposed to take place there, then where IS IT supposed to happen?
Well let me tell it, it’s supposed to happen in the Black neighborhood where the “undesirables” live.
Where the poor people live.
Where the dope boys live and ply their trade on the corners with their pants sagging damn near on the ground and where most Black men there are probably felons who are in and out of the system!
Not here in Windermere, but only in that GOD AWFUL place called Pine Hills where the Black people live, whose crime statistics are perceived to be the worst that many refer to it as Crime Hills!
That’s what most think, and that is what most feel that they’ve paid for when they move to these ritzy secluded exclusive haunts that are pretty much guaranteed to be rid of any undesirable elements.
But fate has a way of bringing the very thing right to your doorstep when you feel that you have successfully avoided the criminal elements that are associated with the Bogeyman of our society.
I can’t actually recall ANY Police Officer EVER getting killed in Pine Hills except for the case where off-duty Orlando police Officer Alfred L. Gordon was killed at the ATM here at The Bank Of America in June of 2007.
Yes, let me correct myself, there was a more recent incident of Deputy Hope Cieszynski getting shot here, but THAT officer was shot by another officer and not by a Black street thug back in June of 2009. So we don’t have a reputation of killing cops over here in Pine Hills.
And in the case of Orlando police Officer Alfred L. Gordon, he was off duty and out of uniform when his life came to an end. I don’t believe his killers would have done the unthinkable when they took his life for the 20 dollars that he had in his possession for lunch the next day because most know that to intentionally kill a cop would land them UNDER the jail!
So if Pine Hills is supposed to be that bad then why doesn’t its history reflect it when it comes down to a track record of slain officers?
Yes, there is crime here in Pine Hills!
There IS drugs here and lots of them in Pine Hills.
Yes, there are lots of addicts here in Pine Hills!
But you know what?
There are even MORE hard working, law abiding, God fearing people here who are honestly pursuing the American dream but if you depended on the Orlando Sentinel or the various Television News Reporting Stations to tell you that then you’ll be waiting for a very long time because it is their job and ORDER to perpetuate a reality that doesn’t exist!
But can I tell you a little secret about Windermere and the other affluent places like it here in Central Florida?
Well, believe it or not, there IS crime in Windermere!
There IS drugs there and lots of them in Windermere.
Yes, there are LOTS of “over the counter” prescription drug addicts there in Windermere who have their well paid doctors write out prescriptions so they can legally get any type of high that they choose right from the neighborhood Walgreen’s or CVS drug store!
Even worse, you couldn’t imagine the amount of affluent addicts who come from the more prosperous zip codes that come into the Orlando/Orange County ‘hoods to purchase large amounts of drugs from the Black dope boys.
They quickly go back into those mini mansions to get high safely and away from public scrutiny as the rich turn their nose up to those downtrodden addicts on the notorious Orange Blossom Trail while financing their sons and daughters stay at a luxury rehab center to purge them of those same drugs that they now have in their system from the ‘hood.
But while the residents of Pine Hills who are addicts pretty much have to go to the 33rd Street County Jail to go through their withdrawals in what is really the public rehab of a jail that blasts their arrests all over the news, the Windermere residents have the funds to discreetly check in to the exclusive luxury Rehab centers that look like a vacation resort without any of their neighbors being any the wiser.
But the difference between the ‘Hood called Windermere and the ‘Hood called Pine Hills is that the crimes that transpire in Windermere are hushed by the Media and overlooked whenever possible while the crimes in Pine Hills are blown well out of proportion in order to maintain the negative imagery and bad reputation going that affect property values and the desirability of Pine hills in order to keep Windermere looking so good and exclusive.
It’s as simple as that!
But what happened unfortunately to Officer Robert German couldn’t be swept under the rug because of the magnitude of a law enforcement officer being slain. Something like that is ALWAYS big news as it should be rightfully.
But several weeks before one mile away in the same area in another gated community yet another Officer was slain.
Officer Jonathan Scott Pine, 34, was killed while investigating car burglaries in the area.
In BOTH of these cases not one person who was involved was Black! Why am I pointing this out?
Well almost ALWAYS, we are considered that suspicious person when walking along and minding our business even when it’s in our OWN NEIGHBORHOODS!
It’s a shame that you can’t even take a walk at night to the store without the fear and apprehension of being stopped by the police and possibly being harassed or shot because you are deemed to be a suspicious person.
This is what the News reporting agencies DON’T tell you about living your life as a hard working, law abiding tax paying Black man disrespected in your own demonized neighborhood and I don’t believe that they ever will.
Allow me to share my thoughts on how messed up the racism and bigotry has made a mockery of a world that God created equally regardless as to what man has deemed otherwise…….
God never designated ANYPLACE in this world to be a ‘Hood!
Man did that and when you dig a little deeper below the surface you have to ask yourself WHAT man did this?
Not only that that, what KIND OF MAN would work so hard to make one area of God’s land more preferential than another because of the feeling of entitlement and exclusivity merely because of the size of their bank accounts and the color of their skin?
And what baffles me here in this part of the world is that you have these foot shuffling apologetic Knee-grows who are too afraid to say a damn thing about the everyday slights and injustices that transpire here everyday as they live in a place where the courage to stand up and tell the truth is often compromised!
Compromise?
YES! By a payoff, paycheck, a government job or position that renders them ineffective to stop them from being the opportunistic punks that they are and breaking free to do the revolutionary work that is needed to leave this world a better place for their offspring!
So as long as you have a government whose main concern is to profit off of the tourist industry in building Soccer Stadiums and Creative Villages over the quality of life for ALL PEOPLE, you will continue to live in a place where the people of Color are demonized along with their neighborhoods and others are exalted because of an artificially manufactured illusion of an affluent zip code.
Buddy Dyer
But the recent events have shown that NO ONE is sheltered from tragedy and no amount of great press and money can shield any neighborhood from a bad incident no matter how much you demonize those who are supposed to be living in the area of the undesirables!
Peace & Righteous Love Always,
Your Revolutionary Brother,
LanceScurv
407.590.0755
