I’m getting sick of folks denying, minimizing and rationalizing death by cop.
“He pointed a taser at police, what were they supposed to do?”
“He was shoplifting and ran. What were they supposed to do?”
“One little incident and now outside agitators are making fake riots.”
Let me tell you about a recent personal incident. About six weeks ago, my friend Karen pulled up in her wheelchair and said, “My son has been just been killed. I sent him a birthday card and now he will never get it.” Predictably, she broke down crying and predictably, we gathered around to comfort her. By the way, Karen and her son are (were) white people.
It took awhile to find out what happened. Her son and his sister were both drunk and arguing loudly. Sis called 911. Three cops responded. He was belligerent and profane, turned to walk away and was shot in the back. So we’ve got drunk and disorderly, which is not a capital offense. Even if it were, cops are not judges, juries and executioners. The first few little news items mentioned the possibility? that he was armed, then they let that drop. Was he maybe going toward the knife drawer? The whole thing went silent, because he was unarmed and shot in the back and shhh…
It was a white guy. There is such a thing as de-escalating tense situations. I’m a small women and when I worked in a jail setting, I paid attention in de-escalation class. Do cops get de-escalation class? Or just lots of practice shooting targets in the heart? I used de-escalation techniques on two occasions and they worked. They work.
Why all the criticism of protesters instead of intelligent problem solving? Why are cops above the law? Imagine those “few bad apples” who can be violent whenever they feel like it, knowing they will get away with it.
Reform and retrain the cops, most of whom are decent human beings. It’s that simple. And LONG overdue.
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