My mother worked for many years for the state police and tragically lost a few of her co-workers when they were shot and killed on the job. I have seen the ugly side of being a cop, and I have met some of the great ones out there, so I do not “hate” police.
What I do hate is the culture of law enforcement and the immunity they seem to be entitled to while the rest of us, who they are supposed to be protecting, are subjected to their crimes.
Early Tuesday morning, Aaron Sterling lost his life. It was taken from him with force and with brutality at the hands of police.
He was the 116th black man this year to be killed by law enforcement.
Police arrived at a store shortly after 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday responding to a call saying Sterling threatened someone with a gun. (The owner of the store said he didn’t witness any such encounter.) After slamming Sterling to the ground, a cop yelled out, “He has a gun!”
He was then shot in the back and chest.
The video footage, captured by two people in a car nearby, is chilling. It is devastating.
And it feels like you’re watching Groundhog Day.
Fast forward to Wednesday, July 6, one day after Sterling’s murder. Philando Castile was driving with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter when he was pulled over for a broken tail light in Ramsey County, Minnesota.
When officers instructed Castile to show his license and registration, he also did the right thing by informing them that he had a firearm in his possession and a conceal-and-carry permit. As he reached for his documents, one of the officers shot him four times.
As he was bleeding out, his girlfriend, Lavisha Reynolds, was told to get out of the car. She was then handcuffed and put into back of a cop car.
In two days, we lost two beautiful, black lives.
There seems to be an unspoken rule in our society that says just because you wear a badge and a uniform, you have a license to kill. Police are guilty of murdering the citizens they took an oath to protect and are walking away with blood on their hands they get to wash off every single time with no consequences.
Aside from the violent culture within law enforcement, there is also systemic racism inherent to law enforcement as well. And racism is also widespread amongst our society outside of the police force. (Queue Trump supporters.)
This is something we have to acknowledge. This is something that has not gone away even after the disappearance of Jim Crow laws and even after the introduction of the Civil Rights Act.
Black lives are seen as vastly less valuable. And you sure as hell can’t quantify the value of a life by the pigment of skin.
It appears many of those in law enforcement, however, believe they can.