On unjustifiable homicides by police
What I Did After Police Killed My Son
Excerpt:
I got the phone call at 2 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2004. It was my oldest daughter. She said you need to come to the hospital right away, Michael’s been shot by the police. My first gut reaction was, “Michael doesn’t do anything serious enough to get shot by a police officer.” I thought he’d gotten shot in the leg or whatever. When I arrived, I saw the district attorney huddled with about five police officers. The last time I saw my son alive he was on a gurney, with his head wrapped in a big towel and blood coming out of it. I learned that an officer had put his gun up directly to Michael’s right temple and misfired, then did it again, and shot him. From the beginning I cautioned patience, though Michael’s mother and sister were in an uproar. They had watched him get shot. But as an Air Force officer and pilot I knew the way safety investigations are conducted, and I was thinking that this was going to be conducted this way. Yet within 48 hours I got the message: The police had cleared themselves of all wrongdoing. In 48 hours! They hadn’t even taken statements from several eyewitnesses. Crime lab reports showed that my son’s DNA or fingerprints were not on any gun or holster, even though one of the police officers involved in Michael’s shooting had claimed that Michael had grabbed his gun.Comment: On the pros and cons of police cameras . This is not about the Ferguson case. My contention is that we need the police to be accountable to the community and that police homicides should be independently (and of course who's really independent!) investigated. The gun should be the last resort!
Convicting a police officer of wrongful death is nearly impossible
ReplyDeleteThe history of criminal investigations of police shootings drives home how unlikely it is for an officer to be convicted of a crime for using deadly force. While hard numbers are difficult to come by, we know that police shoot hundreds of people each year and there are at most a handful of successful criminal charges.For better or worse, a variety of legal and cultural elements make criminal accountability uncommon for police officers who kill.
Related Ferguson-like attack in Utah escapes media notice; race bias seen
ReplyDeleteCritics say there’s a reason for the discrepancy in media coverage: race. Mr. Brown was black and the officer who shot him was white. Mr. Taylor wasn’t black — he’s been described as white and Hispanic — and the officer who shot him Aug. 11 outside a 7-Eleven in South Salt Lake wasn’t white.