You bring up some good questions and those questions, actually, are why this particular incident is a good one to work from. There is, admittedly, a whole lot of "grey area" in this and, since the victim is white, we can ignore the majority of the racial baggage that inevitably ends up taking over if the victim is black.
No two incidents are ever the same so when we ask "what could be done different" we're kind of shoveling water against the tide. We may well see similar incidents and similar circumstances but we won't see THIS incident again. It's important for viewers to remember that the actual shooting is always the result of a series of circumstances, not just one thing and that series includes all kinds of stuff a viewer might not catch in a video clip. I'll elaborate on this later but right now I need to do some yard work before it his 100°.
I will apologize for this long post but this is complicated stuff and I have a lot of ideas bubbling around
. We have done a disservice to this broad issue of police abuse of force by adding a superficial understanding of race to the mix. And nobody seems to want to be clear about what role it
may actually play in magnifying a series of preexisting advantages that police have when these potential miscarriages of justice happen in which a person is either physically abused, or killed.
Here's a quick list of the advantages a cop has when they are being investigated and charged with a crime. They understand the process. They know what evidence is coming in and what evidence won't. They have the remnants of the 'blue wall' with a series of alliances, friends and coworkers who might bend a rule, or be a bit more careless with piece of of evidence, or slow walk a report or test or not push so hard on a witness etc. Cops are professional witnesses. My Dad, a DA, said he would far rather cross examine a lawyer or a doctor or a nun over a cop. Cops do not rattle. Cops rarely make stupid mistakes on the stand. This is a drill they are incredibly comfortable with. They know the good attorneys, the hard or easy judges. they often get help from the police union paying for their legal fees consistent with the contract. People want to believe cops and they have been trained since childhood that the cop is the 'good guy', including jurors and witnesses. Emotionally, their sense of security and justice is tied to that uniform and badge and they are very sympathetic to the problems and risks of being a cop. On the other side you have a 'troublemaker' with a theft charge, a battery charge and a drug conviction and so may be half his witnesses!
Cities and counties tend to write policies that protect the capital investment an experienced cop represents and the last thing they want to do is create a policy, the breach of which may lead to a lawsuit. You protect the city cop with how these policies and procedures are structured and written and it pays dividends in the courtroom later on. That whole qualified immunity concept has been pushed farther and farther by the courts. It all makes it very difficult to convict a cop or hold him liable and I have not even raised the issue of race.
So if the victim is black, and the result of the investigation or trial seems clearly counter to the video, and the evidence everyone saw on the evening news, folks smell a racist rat. But nobody is real careful about identifying where the racist rat is because they can't identify the racist rat, and it is left to everyone's imagination to presume its the cop. But racism is insidious and it can seep through the justice system in all sorts of places, any one of which can compromise a result. It may well not be the cop or some racial profiling by the police force. Racism may color the initial complaint or tip. Racism may impact the way a single important witness perceived events or whether he is willing to testify. Racism may fester in a prosecutor deciding the charge, or in the defense counsel deciding how vigorous a defense he will provide, or an expert witness who chooses slightly different words on the stand depending on the race of the defendant. Maybe racism is in none of those places, just the judge, or just
one of those 12 jurors.
Just because they smell a rat, does not mean anyone knows which rat, let alone that the cop is the rat.
And yes often people smell something that was not there at all, because they expected to smell it. that too happens.
this is a complicated problem to solve and rushing to the 'racism' explanation too quickly means we may not be seeing the right problem at all.
