Alabama’s nationally syndicated radio duo of Rick Burgess and Bill “Bubba” Bussey are handing out some of their vintage commonsense this holiday season, this time in the aftermath of the Riverchase Galleria shooting on Thanksgiving night that resulted in Emantic “E.J.” Bradford’s death in an officer-involved shooting.
Monday morning, before the worst-yet protests erupted that night advocating violence against law enforcement and endangering bystanders, “The Rick & Bubba Show” tackled the sensitive issue, preaching patience, sympathy and fair-mindedness.
Burgess said, “[W]e don’t know what happened,” and Bussey added, “Until [we do], all the sideshows do not help the situation at all.”
“I have no idea what happened, I wasn’t there,” Burgess outlined. “People were there – sadly you can’t trust that testimony like you once could because sometimes people have agendas going, and then you have witnesses that disagree on what happened, too.”
“The bottom line is this: we don’t know what happened,” he added.
Burgess expressed that it is disappointing in modern times, with social media and the 24/7 cable news atmosphere, that people have to immediately jump to conclusions without waiting for the facts to come out.
He said he wishes that we could go back to the time “where we could say ‘let’s let the investigation finish, there’s all sorts of witnesses, there’s all sorts of cameras, there’s investigations going on.’”
“Before we declare, ‘this is the narrative,’ we [should] wait and see what actually happened. And then, we can respond appropriately to that conclusion,” Burgess remarked.
Bussey echoed his co-host’s sentiments, expressing confidence in the State Bureau of Investigation’s ability to get to the bottom of the situation.
While sympathizing with the family for their tragic loss, Bussey added that “we just don’t have the facts” to assign blame to or vilify law enforcement.
Bussey outlined that while misinformation, in this case, started with Hoover PD prematurely calling Bradford the shooter of the 18-year-old victim (for which the department readily apologized), the table has flipped, with media outlets and activists now muddying the waters without any evidence, documentation or public witness statements to back their claims.
With all of the conspiracy theories from protesters and noise on social media flying around, just “let the people who investigate this do their job, put the pieces together,” Bussey advised.
He continued, “Everybody stay calm and let’s work this out. Find the evidence, follow the evidence and then we can make a decision about what happened and what needs to be done. Until then, all the sideshows do not help the situation at all. It only makes it worse.”
After the volatile protest that erupted Monday night, however, people will fear that this situation will indeed get worse before it gets better.
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
