Now I have long said that this is more than an isolated event. I have mentioned that this is a national policy, in at least that under duress the rules are bendable. And I noted that the offenders tend to be forgiven or barely touched by their actions. That is exactly what I perceive to be happening now.
Of all the officers involved, 4 will get fired. Additionally 1 will be demoted and 3 will be suspended. That’s it.
Look at the video in my previous post. Of all the officers involved I see none that are trying to stop any of the police brutality that occurred. Not a single police officer is being stopped as they kick and beat on the 3 men lying on the ground and surrounded by multiple officers each. In what way are they not complicit?
If I were to stand by and watch several African Americans beat a White American and it was video taped, I would be charged with conspiracy to commit a crime. I would be attacked by the media for not doing something to stop the obvious violence and overkill occurring. Yet officers of the law are not held to that same standard. Why?
But there is something else that is happening, and it is as critical as the actions of the police. It’s the reporting and words’ being used to describe what has happened.
On Yahoo you can read this statement right now
“The beating occurred at the same time police were conducting an intense manhunt for a suspect in the slaying two days earlier of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, but Ramsey said Monday that there was no indication that any of the officers thought the suspect was among the three men in the car.”
That sentence, the last in the article, is powerful. It implies that the manhunt for the criminal that killed an officer involved these men. That their actions were motivated by the belief these men were involved in that shooting in some way. That is the only purpose of this sentence. Especially since earlier in the article is clearly states that the police alleged these men were suspects in an unrelated shooting, which occurred the same night as the video.
That last statement, that I have heard cable news reporter repeat in some form, is the beginning of a defense of any potential charges on the officers. It is the seed of a subliminal excuse for all that read this. And it will become more prominent as the case moves forward. This always happens.
Is it a big deal? Yes, because a potential jury will hear this defense of the officers perhaps dozens of times. The fact that credible authorities, major media of multiple formats, have said this over and over means it must be true. Because anything the media says is thought to always be true. And this is the thought process being embedded. This is one reason that a jury could find Rodney King’s assailants innocent of any charge. It’s why the Sean Bell murderers were found innocent, thought the official police story on events changed dramatically.
Add to that the fact that the major media is trying very hard to prevent the average person from connecting how law enforcement acts on a regular basis. At least once every year the national media reports on an event where police officers use unwarranted extreme violence against African Americans – usually males. That’s at least once a year for probably decades now. But they are unconnected. And it’s never racial.
I feel that is a lie. It’s racial because it’s something that happens to only people of color. You have never heard of, nor has it ever happened that, a White male was shot 20, 30, 40, 50+ times in front of their home. You have never heard, or seen 5 or 10 or 15 officers beating on subdued White suspects. Because of this it is racial. And it’s connected.
We need to break this mindset in the law enforcement of this nation. We need to remove the permissive environment that exists allowing people of color to be victims of acts that would never be tolerated if done to White Americans. The statue of Justice is said to be blindfolded because Justice has no bias, But the more I pay attention I tend to believe she is blindfolded to not see the abuse and injustice being enacted in this nation – just as she remained blind to slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and the various disparities found in inner cities as opposed to everywhere else.
2 comments:
Yes. I agree with you. Blacks should have the right to have shootouts and not be arrested or harrassed. The police should try to stop them without any use of force. I know they were restrained and I'm sure there was nothing naughty coming out of their mouths. They are probably good church going folks.
I love the Anonymous people that try to belittle a serious issue with sarcasm that does not advance the conversation.
First, there is a major question on whether or not these men were involved with any crime that night. In fact I have yet to hear of any of the men having any criminal past whatsoever.
Another fact, the men never have been accused of shooting anyone. The original police report identified a 4th man, presumed to have been in the car at one point that was on foot and made the shooting. That 4th man ran off, armed, and is still at large.
Now pay attention because you seemed to miss my point, as well as the facts of this case. I have never advocated criminals, and I do believe the police serve a beneficial purpose. Yet that does not take away from my point that the police are likely and regularly inflict extreme violence against African Americans in unjustified acts.
Sean Bell and the other 2 men in the car never had a weapon. Amidou Diallo never had a weapon. Do I need to go on? I will. Name any White American that was shot, by accident or on purpose, by police while unarmed more than 5 times. Name one White American that was shot more than 10 times without being in the middle of a crime (i.e. bank robbers or a shootout with police does not count). Tell me the last time a police officer stuck a plunger up a White man’s a** in a police station.
By the way, if you can’t see it in the video, the men were all subdued. Each of them was on the ground and not resisting the officers. Yet they were being kicked and beaten as officers were handcuffing them. So with minimal force these men could have been brought in, but the use of excessive force is not important in your eyes it seems. I wonder if you would feel the same if it was your brother, son, or father. I bet you’d be screaming about the lawsuit you’d be filing.
Again you confuse situations and reveal a desire to enact violence. You state that these men may have been saying bad things to the officers. Well in the 3 seconds it took to remove them from the car and have them on the ground, they may have. How does that justify the officer’s actions? How injured were the officers by those words, which I’m sure, they have heard before. I bet that you are the type that would slap a woman for saying something you don’t like, because it’s the same type of logic. Warped in my opinion.
By the way, how do you know these men don’t go to church? You don’t know them. You haven’t lived their lives. How can you try to sit in judgment of them, which I believe is something only God is supposed to do?
And you avoid my point that this is a recurring event. Something that is very evident and troubling. That the media promotes the defense of these officers and vilifies the men. That it does this on a regular basis. That the legal system is biased.
You seek to attack the character and actions of men you do not know, in a situation that is questionable at best. You seek to divert the question of the fact that is life in America. You try to justify acts that have no justification because I would guess this is something that would never happen to you. But I see that for what it is.
I will not ignore what I see, or what has happened in my life and those of my friends. I will not be distracted from the situation at hand and the precedence that stands before us. I will not turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the media’s actions. You may not feel comfortable with what I have said because you can see the truth of it, I think. But I suggest that rather than avoiding it, or trying to justify this to save your image of the fairness of law, you seek to help create a real just system.
When you go to sleep tonight you can either sleep well believing that the police are always justified in using this kind of force on people of color, or you can go to sleep knowing that this kind of force is wrong and that you need to help to prevent this from happening again. <>Because if the law and its enforcement is unjust for one American, it is and will become unjust for us all.
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