Who recalls the days when a cop would stop a per­son with a gun and shout freeze, drop the gun, drop the gun, and the per­son with the gun would either drop the gun and run or fire, and the cops would take cover?
I do too, but I would not ask cops to do that these days, even though the United States has more guns than any oth­er nation, and that means more guns than people.
But how does a cop shoots and kill a per­son with a gun who has not threat­ened them and be jus­ti­fied, in a coun­try in which many states have open-car­ry laws, con­cealed car­ry laws, and in all states, cit­i­zens have the right to own and have a gun on their person?
Worse yet, how does a cop shoot and kill some­one who has no gun? Mark you, we are not talk­ing about a per­son who has a gun that, for all that cop knows, may very well be legal in that per­son­’s pos­ses­sion, we aren’t talk­ing about a sit­u­a­tion in which a cop sees a weapon and knows that it is ille­gal, and even so, he has no jus­ti­fi­able rea­son to shoot at the per­son unless the per­son direct­ly threat­ens him or some­one else with the gun.
We are talk­ing about cops claim­ing that they thought some­thing in the per­son­’s pos­ses­sion was a gun, then opens fire and kills the person.

In America, the cal­cu­lus is that in order to ensure that state agents have the cov­er they need to exact the author­i­ty of the state’s pow­er they will allow state actors (police) to mur­der cit­i­zens under any pre­text; they then throw some of the same cit­i­zens tax-dol­lars back at the fam­i­ly of the dece­dent and keep the offi­cer employed.
It is a cal­cu­lus that weighs the need for the state to main­tain its oppres­sive author­i­ty over the cit­i­zen­ry at all costs, and in the process of effec­tu­at­ing that author­i­ty, those cit­i­zens who are unlucky or unhealthy enough to be ensnared in that process is jus­ti­fi­able col­lat­er­al damage.
How did a coun­try that preach­es and lec­tures oth­er nations on human rights and dig­ni­ty ‑albeit hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly- get to such a place where it feels such con­fi­dence in treat­ing the lives of its own cit­izin­ery with such con­tempt and bla­tant disregard?
It begins with the devalu­ing of some lives. In this case, the lives of Black Americans. in the process of devalu­ing some lives, a cer­tain seg­ment of the soci­ety found glee in the abuse and bar­barism met­ed out to those they hate.
And as Martain Niemoller said:

First, they came for the social­ists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade union­ists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 

California Police Mistook a Lighter for Gun and Fatally Shot Black Man In February, Now the City Is Releasing Bodycam Footage to ‘Build and Maintain Trust with the Community

The Fontana Police Department has released body cam­era footage of an offi­cer fatal­ly shoot­ing an unarmed 28-year-old Black man in February.
The release of the footage comes after the city of Fontana, California, agreed to pay $1 mil­lion to the fam­i­ly of Daverion Deauntre Kinard, accord­ing to The San Bernardino Sun. The footage shows that Kinard was hid­ing in a portable toi­let with a lighter in his hand that offi­cers said they thought was a gun. Kinard’s fam­i­ly had pre­vi­ous­ly asked that the footage of the shoot­ing not be released to pro­tect his dignity.
The fam­i­ly rec­og­nizes the pub­lic and the media’s inter­est in obtain­ing and view­ing the footage but would appre­ci­ate the family’s desire that the footage remains pri­vate in order to pro­tect the dig­ni­ty of Daverion,” the fam­i­ly and city wrote in a joint state­ment, The Martinsville Bulletin report­ed.

Police Chief Billy Green said on Thursday that the video was pre­pared by the depart­ment in order to “build and main­tain trust with the community.

On Feb. 13, Fontana offi­cers respond­ed to a report of a bur­glary at a home at around 10:30 p.m. A homeowner’s Ring door­bell had cap­tured a sus­pect mov­ing around the out­side of the home before remov­ing a win­dow screen, leav­ing, then enter­ing through the open win­dow. When police arrived, they spot­ted Kinard in the home. He ran out of the back­door and a foot chase ensued for more than 1,000 feet before offi­cers found Kinard in a portable restroom near a con­struc­tion site. Footage shows that an offi­cer opened the door and saw Kinard sit­ting on the toilet.
“Hey,” the offi­cer shout­ed before Kinard lift­ed his left hand and moved his right hand. The offi­cer closed the door to the portable restroom briefly then opened it again and fired his weapon about two sec­onds after Kinard first moved his hand. The metal­lic object in Kinard’s right hand was deter­mined to be a lighter.
According to a state­ment from the police depart­ment, “offi­cers imme­di­ate­ly ren­dered aid to Kinard until med­ical aid arrived. Unfortunately, Kinard was lat­er pro­nounced deceased at the scene. No weapon was recov­ered from the scene.”