2-18-14

Still Killing

Perhaps you've seen or heard about the beating and brutal killings of 23-year-old Kelly Thomas. He was not all there mentally and was living on the streets when he was savagely beaten to death by police.

Perhaps you've seen or heard the verdict of the trial of the two police officers who were charged: not guilty. No? Well, it isn't surprising seeing how even after Rodney King, police are still beating and killing people. What's more revealing was that this was a white male and much need not be said how people of "color" often find themselves facing bullets of killer cops.

A few weeks back, I caught a brief news clip of a man wielding a hockey stick in his boxes and clearly not in his right mind, shouting at police officers. One wrong move cost this man his life. Odd that police could've used non-lethal force (baton, mace, even bean-bag guns) to get the man to comply. No, that wasn't the case as trigger-happy cops are always ready to release a barrage of bullets at anything they perceive as a threat. How ironic then that a while back during a high-speed chase, an elderly man was shot by a bean-bag gun in which case the officer was obviously trying to subdue him. Other officers, however, took that as real gun fire and shot the helpless elderly man. His crime, besides the pursuit, was running away from the police.

These shootings are, a good percentage of the time, get showed live and if people saw cops shooting any and everything, if they get pulled over, then they'll want to run from them too! And justly so! There's numerous police killings, too much in fact it's become an epidemic and vicious cycle that repeats itself every day.

How funny (not really) that high percentages of police killings happen in poor, gang, and "color" communities? So what does this say? What can be concluded seen how blacks and Latinos are targeted for assassination by police? What does it say when now, the color of your skin, isn't the only factor to determine if you're a threat? If you are perceived as a "thug" or "undesirable", you're a threat.

People should take an interest in this phenomena, as it happens to one and spreads to all.