On Apr. 7, in North Charleston, South Carolina, an altercation occurred between police officer Michael Slager and African American Walter Scott. According to the New York Times, Slager reported that he had shot and killed Scott after he stole the officer’s taser. There was no reason not to believe Slager’s story, until a stunning video of the event surfaced.
In the video, Scott is seen sprinting away from Slager, who quickly takes out his firearm, shooting and killing him as he runs away. The worst part of the situation is that the shooting of an unarmed man running away from an officer isn’t even the video’s most startling part. Shortly after killing Scott, Slager walks up to the body and drops his taser near Scott’s hand. Slager then reported that he had feared for his life.
This would typically be a horrifying incident, if not for the fact that it now seems to be a common occurrence for police officers to gun down unarmed, nonviolent citizens:
- Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, was gunned down by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
- Eric Garner, a black man being apprehended for illegally selling cigarettes, was put in a chokehold by an officer and died during his arrest, while being heard saying “I can’t breathe.”
- In Albuquerque, a homeless man was shot and killed by police officers after he turned to run away from them when told to get on the ground.
- In Dallas, police arrived at a house after a mother asked for help getting her son to the hospital. Her son, a mentally ill man, walked to the doorway holding a screwdriver. The officers demanded that he drop the screwdriver and, when he did not after five seconds, they shot and killed him as his mother is heard crying and screaming in the background.
- In Cleveland, a 12-year-old boy was walking in a park with a fake gun. A patrol car pulled up next to him and, within two seconds, the boy was shot and killed.
- In Baltimore, Freddie Gray was arrested without struggling. Somehow during the arrest, his spine was severely damaged and he later died from the injury. This incident has sparked protests across the nation and riots in Batimore.
All of these incidents occurred within the last two years. How many more innocent, unarmed people are going to be killed over nothing at all before this issue can be resolved?
First of all, not all police officers are bad. The vast majority of them are good people who do their job well and protect the community. However, when the number of incidents where officers are killing unarmed people is this high, something needs to change.
One solution that has been getting a lot of attention is requiring officers to wear body cameras. This would prevent more situations like the Ferguson shooting, where there were no witnesses, from happening. While this solution looks good on paper, it has not done enough. Both the Albuquerque homeless man’s death and the Dallas man’s death were captured on body cams worn by officers.
Training strategies also need to be considered. Police officers shoot to kill – Why wouldn’t they? This is what they are taught to do. But, when you have officers who are wired to use their firearms at the first sign of danger, then you wind up with countless cases of avoidable deaths. In the United Kingdom, police officers don’t even carry firearms. Why are American officers taught to rely so heavily on their weapon, as if it is their only excuse for having authority?
Above all other things that could be changed however, there is nothing more important than the race issue. In almost every case listed above, a black man was killed by a white officer. According to the New York Times, in many police departments, the average percent of officers who are white is 30 percentage points higher than the community that the department oversees. If the police force was more diversified, there would be less race issues – and less meaningless deaths.
For a long time, police officers have used their guns when they did not need to, and killed people who should have lived. This issue was swept under the rug for a long time, but now, everyone knows. According to USA Today, the most-read news story of 2014 was the Ferguson shooting and the grand jury’s decision. This issue is different from other popular debate topics. This isn’t the abortion debate, which is heavily influenced by religion, or the firearms debate, which is a constitutional issue. This is something easily fixable, and no one should be opposed to that. If police violence or misuse of firearms happens this frequently, all over the country, then be prepared for when the next incident is in your backyard.