Hard to find the words to describe how I feel about the video of Walter Scott’s murder at the hands of an officer of the law. I think the thing that impressed me the most about it was the craven disregard for the victim’s condition, as well as the casualness of the officer’s actions and apparent demeanor. I am inclined to suspect that the police department was telling the truth when they said, prior to the emergence of that video, that the officer had followed proper procedures. That this represents standard operating procedure comes as no great surprise. The question I have is, why didn’t the Eric Garner video prompt a similar self-examination within the NYPD?

Of course, the North Charleston Police Department would likely have stuck to the police officer’s original story if the video hadn’t surfaced; that Scott had grabbed the officer’s taser, that he had posed a threat to the officer’s life, that the cops had administered CPR in some kind of timely fashion. Feidin Santana’s video put the lie to all of that, and in so doing, threw into question every official claim of following proper police procedures. Those initial reports sounded like what we heard after Michael Brown’s shooting. But then, so did the web cam video that captured the police killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Has anyone gone to jail over that? Not yet.

Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and now Walter Scott – their treatment at the hands of the police demonstrates an important principle with respect to African American males. In the eyes of the authorities, black males can never be children. Neither can they be adults. They are trapped in a perpetual, errant adolescence. Tamir Rice was doing what any white kid might do: play with a toy gun. I did it a million times as a child of 12. But in the eyes of the Cleveland police, he was some kind of superpredator that had to be killed on sight. Brown, same story. His super crime? Shoplifting. Penalty? Death. Garner and Scott – both adults – are treated like errant adolescents, never given even common decency, let alone respect. Why are you driving that Mercedes, black man?

Often times, best practices can lead to the worst outcomes.

luv u,

jp