re: #278 lawhawk

The statistics of excessive force and police brutality have always been incomplete. The statistics on racial profiling far less so - and they show that there’s been a long-held policy of racial profiling around the country, so now that technology allows us to see these police confrontations, the fact that racial profiling is onerous and pervasive gets a face to go along with the statistcs.

Now we’re also starting to see these officer-involved shootings and excessive force incidents in video within hours or days of the events. And the police don’t like that one bit, because it shows that there are far too many in law enforcement who are willing to cross the line, and there are far too many good police in law enforcement who wont speak out against it; their silence is complicity with those who engage in excessive force.

Prosecutors likewise have to do better - justice demands it, and yet they keep falling back on the “officer feared for his life” justification, even when the officer had a gun, and the suspect didn’t (or the gun was toy fake or air gun had the officer ever bothered to actually speak with the suspect before opening fire as in the Crawford or Rice cases).

After the Eric Garner no indictment, I had a very good conversation with my wife (who is White) and other very close White friends. They all felt that the Garner no indictment was a worse situation than the Mike Brown no indictment, because of the video. I feel the opposite way, but not because of the video. I wouldn’t presume to speak for all Black people, but I wonder if my feelings are shared. It was worse in Ferguson because of how I see the prosecutors being such a joke. There is no attempt at justice. I’ve read through some of the GJ transcripts, and it makes me want to puke. As Johnny Cochran said in the OJ case: “Who police the police? You police the police.” Of course this is to a trial jury, and we’ve seen how many of these Officer involved shootings don’t get to be policed.