#WeNeedPoliceReform

Police: Minnesota officer meant to draw taser, not handgun

Looks like body cams are proving the point that cops are just as fallible as the rest of us…

George Floyd: killed by Derek Chauvin who put his knee to Floyd’s neck for over 8 minutes, through the pleads of Floyd’s dying breaths, with other onlooking officers unwilling or unable to discern their colleague’s suffocation of Floyd.

Police officers have little recourse in peer correction that won’t lead to ousting for not being a “team-player” and who would dare correct the behavior of someone willing to pull their gun with perfected trigger reflex? Who else is willing to risk their own job that they actually believe in for some asshole colleague with a power trip?

Breonna Taylor: killed by plainclothes officers who suspected her apartment also served as part of a drug-dealing operation, because she had a shady ex-boyfriend who continued to use her name and address after they split up.

They’re likely just as ignorant how to operate with the citizenry and it’s truly ghastly. But, isn’t that human nature? Once a person becomes labeled a criminal, we as intelligent beings inherently treat them with suspicion and truth manipulation. We don’t want them to know too much, they might make us their next victim.

Duncan Lemp: killed in no-knock raid of his home while he slept, considered a martyr for the Boogaloo Boys as Lemp was a student, quite vocal online about his anti-government beliefs and allegedly signaled a call to incite violence for others on Instagram.

Criminals are just as much citizens as the law abiding kind. Just because someone did something illegal once, does not mean they are going to do more illegal activity, now or in the future.

Illegality does not always equate to harm to other citizens, there must be clear and present danger to engage with a criminal with deadly force. And anyone who wants to become a police officer needs to try to understand their motivation.

Ryan Whitaker: after answering his front door with a gun drawn unable to hear their announcement that they were following up on a domestic disturbance, and upon realization he went to surrender his weapon and go to his knees, was shot 3 times, killed in front of his girlfriend.

It’s known that the motto for the police force is: To protect, and to serve. Not prevent crime although they invest a lot of time and money to try to predict criminal behavior, they are meant to protect citizens and ultimately, society.

Botham Jean: murdered by Amber Guyger, distracted by a conversation for a hookup, she wound up on the wrong floor of her apartment complex, entered Jean’s apartment, believed Jean was an intruder in her own home, entered his home and shot him, instead of following protocol to call for backup.

Maybe use some of that bloated police budget and put it towards training for real life scenarios, sociology and cultural awareness, and normalizing personal therapy for stress management, instead of just criminal psychology and profiling being the primary focus for humans going into paid prejudicial roles. [police = the first enactors of justice, thus prejudicial.]

Daunte Wright: killed by Officer Potter, who has resigned from the force, by discharging her handgun instead of her taser.

Why do some cops think they can treat people with legal troubles with extreme prejudice? The law isn’t the ultimate factor when we talk about consequences, they will have to reckon it with their creator, their family and friends, and their own soul.

These people who are murdered by police are still people, and we seem to forget that because we can’t reconcile criminals being flawed people like ourselves or we might see how biased the entire judicial system is towards people who break certain laws but not others.

Also, WTF happened to Ghislaine?

Perhaps, how the police operates is undergoing a drastic overhaul. Killings by police are down from its most prevalent statistic of 850 overall in America in 2015, we’re down to 624 in 2019, and I think we can count 2020 as an anomalous outlier due to the Pandemic lock downs.

But statistics show commonalities, right? Isn’t this about racism? Or this about corruption? Yes, it very much is about both. There is corruption and perversion of practiced behaviors that we humans have become caricatures of ourselves, easily manipulated by fear and the constant barrage of injustice after injustice via television news, radio news, social media, group chatter, and blog posts.

I hate it but I do believe we will have a resurgence in police violence as things begin to open back up. I think it will be due to the isolation we’ve all undergone in the past year. Even those who have daily interaction with the public do not actually have close, intimate contact on a daily basis. The lack of practiced intimacy has us all failing to understand empathy and compassion.

Violence in general seems to be on the rise, and it’s because many people feel unable to change their circumstances. When the State tries to control the people, the people will protest, riot, and attempt to dismantle the foundation. Other violent crimes seem to be resurgent now as we have more contact with the forgotten and those who want to see the destruction of a society that doesn’t give a fuck about them.

RIP Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor, Ryan Whitaker, George Floyd, Botham Jean, Duncan Lemp and so many others who died at the hands of the inept; those who felt being a police officer meant they could treat criminals poorly for breaking laws, many of those laws made by politicians to generate income for the police budget… but what do I know, I’m nobody.