We in America have a police violence problem. A big one. We also have a public attitude problem. Not only do some people defend the cops, regardless of what they do, but they also blame the victims for being dead at the hands of cops.
True, many of these victims weren’t angels; Michael Brown jaywalked, stole $5 of cigars, and assaulted the cop who shot him. Eric Garner sold cigarettes without a permit. Walter Scott may have grappled with the cop who shot him in the back as he ran away. These behaviors were antisocial, but even China and Iran, and maybe also North Korea, don’t kill people for such minor offenses. But America does; and then we turn around and criticize their human rights records.
These remarks from a New York Times editorial may be helpful to those who struggle with connecting dots, i.e., drawing a straight line between seriousness of offense and severity of punishment:
“I find it particularly disturbing the way that we try to find excuses for killings, the way that we seek to deprecate a person when they have been killed, rather than insisting that they deserved to remain among the living. …
“The judicial system could have easily dealt with any misdeed Scott is accused of — failure to pay child support, failure to present proper documentation for a car he was driving, resisting arrest, fleeing — and none of those offenses, if he were found guilty … would have carried the death sentence. …
“A life is the most precious, most valuable thing in creation. It cannot be casually ended. It cannot be callously taken. It must always be honored and protected, and the person living it needn’t be perfect; he or she is human. The bar of justification for extrajudicial killings is high, and necessarily so, even among suspects accused of crimes. …
“It is tragic to somehow try to falsely equate what appear to be bad decisions made by Scott and those made by the officer who killed him. There is no moral equivalency between running and killing, and anyone who argues this obdurate absurdity reveals a deficiency in their own humanity. Death is not the appropriate punishment for disobedience.” [Emphasis added.]
This writer nails it. We’ve allowed our police to develop, and act on, a cavalier attitude toward human life. They’re exploiting that license we’ve given them to the fullest. We must stop, and make them stop.