American Police Violence Was Always Given A Pass, Whether The Victim Is Black Or White

It would be dif­fi­cult to imag­ine that any law-abid­ing per­son would not want the author­i­ties to col­lar the pair before they could do any more harm. This brings us to the mil­lion-dol­lar ques­tion; *are law-enforce­ment offi­cers jus­ti­fied in sum­mar­i­ly exe­cut­ing crim­i­nal sus­pects with­out tri­al by a court of law*?
The killing of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker was cer­tain­ly not the first time that American law enforce­ment offi­cers had sum­mar­i­ly mur­dered with­out tri­al peo­ple they sus­pect­ed of crimes-some­times minor infrac­tions if they were Black.
Their killing was a high-pro­file sum­ma­ry exe­cu­tion that cap­tured the nation’s imag­i­na­tion. Their sto­ries have been told in movies, com­ic books, and doc­u­men­taries. No one both­ered address­ing why they were sum­mar­i­ly mur­dered with­out any attempt to trap and cap­ture them so they could face tri­als for the crimes they were accused of?

The answer to that ques­tion may be tied to a peri­od that pre­dates the killing of Parker and Barrow.… a time when a *sus­pect­ed* horse or cat­tle thief was tried in the salon while a gal­lows was being erect­ed outside.
At the end of the kan­ga­roo tri­al, the blood­thirsty whiskey sod­den hood­lums would stum­ble out of the salon and string up the sus­pect until he was dead-inno­cent or not.
*Being so high-pro­file, the Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker killing rep­re­sents one of the bet­ter-known inci­dents in which law enforce­ment sum­mar­i­ly exe­cut­ed cit­i­zens with­out a tri­al and suf­fered no consequence.
Barrow and Parker’s killings were auto­mat­i­cal­ly jus­ti­fied not because they refused to sur­ren­der; they were not giv­en a chance to sur­ren­der; they were exe­cut­ed for their alleged­ly com­mit­ted crimes.

The sum­ma­ry exe­cu­tion of Barrow and Parker became prece­dent on how to han­dle alleged crim­i­nals, whether they were guilty or not. People of col­or, already suf­fer­ing under the irre­versible yoke of black skin, were already hav­ing their lives snuffed out by police with no ques­tions asked. The nation did not care; the word of the police was enough; they deserved it.
Today, they still kill with­out con­se­quence, just a lot more so.
The idea of crim­i­nal­iz­ing Blacks and using their crim­i­nal record to deval­ue their lives became a neces­si­ty and a main­stay of law enforce­ment; it remains so today.
The wear­er of black skin is pre­sumed guilty until proven inno­cent, one hun­dred & eighty degrees oppo­site of what an American cit­i­zen is enti­tled to under the nation’s con­sti­tu­tion. Black skin means unde­serv­ing of respect, unde­serv­ing of deference.

The ele­va­tion of police offi­cers’ lives above that of the cit­i­zens they serve and the prac­tice of ignor­ing police crimes has cre­at­ed an unac­count­able police cul­ture, one rife with impuni­ty and arrogance.
The badge they wear sym­bol­izes state pow­er, impuni­ty, and immu­ni­ty. The gun on their hips makes them care­free and gives them a lais­sez-faire atti­tude about cer­tain lives. They kill whomev­er they want under the col­or and cov­er of law, uncon­cerned about con­se­quence. Paid vaca­tions, pro­mo­tions, and awards they give to them­selves are the rewards they reap for out­right murder. 
Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old Black man, was the lat­est to suf­fer that fate. A Grand Rapids, Michigan cop with whom he strug­gled, put a bul­let in the back of his head even as he had Lyoya face down in the mud.
The Grand Rapids police did not even feel the need to fur­nish the name of the cop; he is on paid leave. Police con­tin­ue to kill in the name of the state, and the state pro­tects its own.

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