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Oct. 30th, 2015 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marieldraconisNow is a really good chance to start reducing racial tensions nationwide. We have a case of a white officer brutally attacking a black student, who at worst seems to have been guilty of disruptive behavior. Everyone knows he was in the wrong. Unlike many previous incidents, there's no ambiguity about the black person's innocence or apparent innocence as the cop saw it (although I still have trouble believing that the 12-year-old with a toy gun was an ambiguous situation).
In short, we have a cop using his badge to bully and assault, so this isn't the sort of case in which conviction leads to police being discouraged from doing their jobs for fear of punishment and litigation (which is, to be fair, a concern when prosecuting police officers). We have an innocent victim (except of disruptive behavior). We have a case which by all accounts should lead to a clear conviction of the officer. I'm not sure of the charges, but misuse of power and assault probably have proper legal terms to attach to them (assault being a legal term).
And moreover, since August 2014, we as a country have really needed a conviction, an obviously just one, of a white police officer for harming a black civilian. (And Baltimore, equally obvious though it seems, isn't even going to start trials for another month.)
Please don't screw this up.
In short, we have a cop using his badge to bully and assault, so this isn't the sort of case in which conviction leads to police being discouraged from doing their jobs for fear of punishment and litigation (which is, to be fair, a concern when prosecuting police officers). We have an innocent victim (except of disruptive behavior). We have a case which by all accounts should lead to a clear conviction of the officer. I'm not sure of the charges, but misuse of power and assault probably have proper legal terms to attach to them (assault being a legal term).
And moreover, since August 2014, we as a country have really needed a conviction, an obviously just one, of a white police officer for harming a black civilian. (And Baltimore, equally obvious though it seems, isn't even going to start trials for another month.)
Please don't screw this up.
