“In the Back” Is Not “Back” Because It Never Left

Dear Readers:

Just when I was anxiously awaiting Madame’s reply to all of what I wrote on Sunday, she is off to a pleasant locale for a wedding weekend.    Guess I’ll have to wait. :)

In the meantime, of course, we have, as I said, other matters to discuss.  Mere days ago, another unarmed African-American man was shot and killed by a police officer.

And there’s video of at least the latter parts of the incident.  Another incident that once again appears to have escalated because a police officer pulled someone over for a minor thing—a busted tail light in this instance—and somehow things turned violent.

The now dead man appears to have been in a scuffle with the officer, appears to be have been shot at or actually shot by the officer with a taser.  The taser appears to have been discarded at that point, contrary to the officer’s story that the man took his taser.  The man attempts to run away from the officer.  The video does not record that the officer ever told the man to stop or surrender. 

Eight shots are fired by the officer at the 50 year old man attempting to run away.  At least three (and probably all eight; the forensics aren’t final yet) strike the man in the back, killing him.   The officer appears to then put HANDCUFFS on the dead man (what kind of CRAZY paranoiac fear causes that?).  The officer is recorded by the secret video as dropping something (appears to be the taser) by the dead man’s body.  Second cop, an African-American, arrives on the scene and goes to the body.  First cop appears to pick up an object (the dropped taser), violating crime scene protocol at least. 

First, my (Shameless plug!) 4+ piece post-Ferguson decision from several months ago would make for good reviewing here. 

In the North Charleston case, the police officer has been fired and charged with murder, albeit only after the evidence (from the video) was so damning even the man’s lawyer dropped him.

Many activists are suspicious of a local racist pattern, but it’s possible that the mayor and police chief are being sincere in their remorse and determination to take positive action over the incident. 

Some now familiar questions get asked:  When did running away from the police, especially when you aren’t wanted for a deadly force offense, become an automatic capital offense, carried out extrajudicially and immediately?

Do the police get to hire the best?  Do they get to give their officers the best training?  Even when resources actually get sent their way, isn’t it seldom for increases in salaries or training, but only for weapons and militarization and the like?

What are the effects on police who spend too much of their day looking at and dealing with the worst aspects of a disconnected society that they themselves are disconnected from?  Doesn’t it distort their views and feelings immensely, far worse than jaded teachers get about students?

Don’t incidents like this initiate cycles of violence?  Siege mentalities where arrogant, perhaps even racist, police shoot an unarmed black man for failing to instantly obey ANY command from police overlords?  Violence somewhere else that erupts in response?  Instigating police to then be even more trigger prone? Repeat?

And the now familiar refrain from the unrepentant, resentful segment of the white population who blamed the victim for his own death?  Has the changing demographic landscape frightened people that much?  Has the often degraded economics of their own situations made them, unlike during the middle-class centric (and white prosperous) 1950s and 1960s  that enveloped the Civil Rights Movement, less sympathetic to the plights of others?

And are we so blind to the plutocratic economy and social implications thereof, that we don’t see the irony of relatively poorly paid and trained police officers killing those also poor and poorly trained?  That some are just more put upon than others? 

Since at least the days of plantation owners, racist actions and racist policies have served intensely the interests of a few.    Getting angry because one points out racist incidents is reactionary.  People who want these things to stop being talked about need to help make them stop happening.

And for further irony, both the dead man and the police officer were Coast Guard veterans.

Or is it just tragedy?