Sick to my stomach....

[osodecanela]

Yet another man of color is dead at the hands of a white police officer.

This time the man's death was captured on a cell phone video and because of it the office who clearly appears to have murdered the victim is behind bars and charged with the man's murder. Walter Scott was stopped for a broken tail light on the Mercedes he was driving. He was not stopped for suspicion of a violent crime. It was a bloody traffic stop.

What transpired between the stopping of the victim's car and him running away from the police officer, BUT the video showed the man who was unarmed, running from the police officer with nothing apparently in his hands and the office firing at him from behind 8 times. Forty to fifty feet away from the officer, the victim fell face forward on the ground and did not move again. The video then showed the office walking to the man's body and handcuffing him with his arms behind him. He was then seen walking to where he was first standing, picking up an object, then returning to the body and dropping the item next to it. He then called 911 and reported he had shot a suspect who had taken his tazer, which is apparently what he had dropped next to the body. Even more disturbing to me is when the office dropped the item, there was already another officer standing next to the deceased. That second office had to have seen the officer planting the item next to the man's body.

Had this not been caught on video, would this man be behind bars?

The pain of this family and their grace in front of TV cameras is amazing. I doubt I would have as much composure as they, were I in their shoes.

I don't believe in the death penalty, but after seeing what this office did on camera, I truly hope he is put away for a very, very long time.

Comments

[blktalon.livejournal.com]

a long history that can't be hidden forever

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

All the more sickening and all the more poisonous. It must not be allowed to continue.

[trulygrateful.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in the death penalty as well; however, instead of putting him away (as in locked behind bars) I would sentence him to tell his story (once he figured it out) and go into communities, beg for forgiveness, and continue telling his story.

At night he would be incarcerated and, of course, escorted during the day.

I also believe one of the reasons why things can get so bad is that once someone is locked-up (or even before they are) we tend to forget what happened, as if it's magically swept under the invisible carpet. If the perpetrator were forced to recant his story over and over again, it would serve (at least) dual purposes: (1) he won't forget; and (2) we won't, either.

Anyway... it was and is another sad day in Murca.

!

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

You are a better man than I. This is the kind of like thinking that's helped lead South Africa out of its era of apartheid.

I want to see this man made an example of; it's imperative that police realize they cannot take a life unjustly with impunity. For gods sake, the man was stopped for a broken tail light and it ended with his murder. Was he stopped for a tail light or for driving while black? It's as imperative that everyone understands that black lives, that all lives do matter.

Re: !

[mlknchz.livejournal.com]

I know that there will be people who will say "why did he run, if he wasn't doing something wrong?" in a smarmy self-righteous tone, as though the LONG history of police violence towards men of color wasn't cause enough.

The police unfairly target men of color. Too often in these encounters, the men of color are injured, if not killed. These encounters cause men of color (RIGHTLY!) to be suspicious of police, and flee when approached. This fact is then seen as a cause for police to "profile" men of color. When will it this heart-breaking cycle end?

Re: !

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

I pray this case is a turning point, but with the institutionalization of racism in the country, even with the advent of people of color in major positions of power (from the president to the atty general to 2 previous sec'y of state), I'm suspicious this is far from over.

Re: !

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

and by the way, I was assaulted by the police on my 36th birthday. I was stopped in a traffic stop, apparently because they had gotten a report of a man in a red pickup brandishing a weapon out of his window. I was driving a maroon pickup at the time. I wound up with my hands tightly handcuffed behind me and stuffed in the back of a police cruiser while they made certain there were no weapons in my vehicle. It injured my shoulder and I was unable to work for a month.

To this day, if I see bubble lights in my rear view, the ice water hits my veins and my stomach starts to churn. I have to fight the flight or fight instinct. AND I'm not a person of color, unless you start counting red as a minority shade.