At the very least there seems to be some imbalance in US laws that let police off the hook when they end up killing someone. There is no secret that there are repercussions going on in the streets of the US. The worst part is one side is hoping the anger will die down and melt away, and the other side is hoping for change.
Connecting the Dots does not wish to sound harsh and be an instigator of trouble, but there are some things that do not make sense and by connecting those dots may just end up doing that.
There are several key cases in the US that involve the death of an unarmed person. There should be no difference in the color of a persons skin, yet the statistics say there is. It would seem that the darker the skin of a person is, the more chance they could end up dead at the hands of the police.
Deadly force first choice
To use deadly force as first option is just wrong. For the police to claim that they thought their suspect was armed is just a very weak excuse and is often the let off the hook phrase when it comes down to sorting it all out after the killing. But that does not explain killing mentally ill people who are more noise than threat.
Without doing much searching and using the Google search term ‘police training curriculum’, several PDF files came in as first hit. After a quick scan each makes reference to non lethal use of force. Some talk about it before using lethal force, and some talk about it after. To talk about it after the lethal force option suggests the wrong emphasis if the curriculum sequence is accurately represented.
There is also talk of physical training so clearly the police are not wimps as there is most certainly some physical training criteria that must be met. That goes against using lethal force if their suspect is far from muscular.
The Litmus test
The litmus test of this is if you replace the police officer with someone who is not a police officer, would the same conclusions be reached. The scenario here is the police felt that their life was in danger and the use of lethal force was needed. Most people would conclude by past track record that same conclusion would not be reached for a non-police officer and at the very least a day in court is needed to let the court decide. In the case of the police, it does not seem to get that far very often and only unless it was a no brainer that the police overstepped.
So in conclusion the laws seem to support the police can kill to defend, while the average person off the street must face the music of the courts. In this case this becomes the fuel of the protests. So changing the laws to bring balance is the only answer. If that does not happen, there will be other killings by the police.
