Right now Americans are still circulating the video that appeared April 4, 2015 of a 50 year old Walter Scott being gunned down by Officer Slager in South Carolina, near the North Charleston region. This video is disturbing for various reasons, but mainly because the Officer's report of the incident vs. the footage differs entirely, and the aftermath shows change but not progress.
The fact that officer Slager was charged for murder because a video was released proves that policemen will now be charged for murdering a person of color if a video is released.
Why don't they stopped murdering people of color?!
I started this article about a week ago, and I could not come to finish it due to the outrage and pain in my heart. Walter Scott was a 50 year old man. He had a nice car. He had no weapon. He did a pitiful run across a field in fear of his life. He was shot down. He was dead. He was blamed for attacking an officer he didn't attack. He was alive. He is not now.
The shift in the police force should not be that officers will face indictment or charges because they shot an unarmed person. They need to just stop shooting us. Criminalization of people of color is the root issue of the negative connotation between communities and police forces, and this is not being addressed. Why invest in more officers if the system is still guilty? The training is still tied to racist and oppressive roots and it transcends through every false cry of officers claiming they "were in fear of their life" when dealing with the now dead "criminal" that cannot attest to what actually happened.
Now that civilians are cop watching, society is creating its own accountability for police. Cop watching is when community members film arrests in their area. There are certain guidelines you'd want to follow which will be my next blog, but this is one of the few things that are shifting the injustices in the police force.
My problem with this shift is that it still proves that police must be caught in their corruption for proper action to be taken. I'm sure officers do not want another Ferguson. So perhaps they figure that if they are caught red handed via submitted video, then they will just have to charge that officer, let them take that hit. But when will the human factor shift? When will officers treat community members as people versus as wrong doers who are as good as dead?
There is a disconnection in the way officers view the people they are patrolling. The fact that people are patrolled by the police versus protects by them already shows there needs to be another shift in law enforcement.
R.I.P Walter Scott. I'm glad your death will no go unjust and I hope more people of color don't go through what you went through. Instead of their murderer officer being charged, I pray that black men come across officers who won't kill them as they're fleeing. I hope their officers think of them as humans.
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