Charles Blow: "The end of the line has come for hoping alone-Now is the time for fundamental change"

[kpete]

In South Carolina, Shot in the Back as He Ran



I am truly weary, deep in my bones, of writing these columns about the killings of unarmed people of color by the police. Indeed, you may be weary of reading them. Still, our weariness is but a dim shadow that falls near the darkness of despair that a family is thrust into when a child or parent or sibling is lost, and that family must wonder if the use of deadly force was appropriate and whether justice will be served.

.......................


After the video surfaces, the officer is charged with murder and fired from the police force. In a news conference, the mayor of the city, Keith Summey, says of the incident: “When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And if you make a bad decision, don’t care if you’re behind the shield or just a citizen on the street, you have to live by that decision.”

But even the phrase “bad decision” seems to diminish the severity of what has happened. A life has been taken. And, if the video shows what it appears to show, there may have been some attempts by the officer to “misrepresent the truth,” a phrase that one could also argue may diminish the severity of what is alleged to have happened.


.................


.......... it seems to me that the end of the line has come for hoping alone. Now is the time for fundamental change: not just in one particular case or with one particular officer, but also systemically. (The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing has already recommended some policy changes.)

And now is the time for not only considering the interplay of race and power in these cases, but also the ability to register and respect humanity itself. That requires a change of culture.



MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/opinion/charles-blow-walter-scott-video-south-carolina-shooting-michael-slager.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region%C2%AEion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=1

[rhett o rick]

1. What hasn't been emphasised enough is that apparently the training of our police

doesn't make it crystal clear that they are not kill people just because they think they are thugs or just because they don't obey. Only a small minority of police are bad (some probably psychopathic) but they apparently are given the impression that if they kill without legal provocation they will be exonerated. While most police are good honest citizens, do they enable the killers? I think so.

[phantom power]

2. That video made it clear, what Slager did *is* their "procedure"

But there is a video and Slager is shown both killing Scott, and appearing to try to cover it up in that most ancient of cop ways -- with a drop piece. He is seen handcuffing a dying man. So let us not have any explanation containing the phrase "isolated incident." Let us have no talk of "split-second decisions" or the "heat of the moment." What we see in the video is Slager's almost instantaneous response to what he's done. Drop a weapon. Concoct a story. Rely on your brother officers and ginned-up public opinion to mount your defense. Rely on the fact that you're a white man with a badge and the person you killed was clearly neither one. In everything we see on the video, Michael Slager was following...procedure.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a34212/the-south-carolina-police-shooting/

[valerief]

3. Which makes the enablers BAD.

It's like the code of silence among doctors which protects dangerous doctors.

But we all know cops exist to protect the interests of the very wealthy. Like our laws.