As a non-white American living in a large city, I've come to realize something:
- Not all cops are bad
- But the cops that are bad, get away with murder
We can't generalize all police officers, the same way we can't generalize all black people who are killed by them. The media has a thing for siding and sensationalism. If there isn't much video evidence of the cop abusing his power - it's the black guys fault. He was aggressive. He was a criminal. Probably deserved it. That's the medias point of view almost instantly in these cases until these situations arise:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMoTfLykVcA
Notice the cop screaming "STOP RESISTING! WHY DID YOU TRY TO TAKE MY GUN!" and begins pulverizing the black guy. Another cop shows up on the scene and we see from the other cops dash cam the black guy had his hands up the entire time while he's beaten. The judge sees this, drops all charges on the black guy. And indicts the police officers involved.
Sadly this isn't just a 'one off' situation. This happens more often than not. We are programmed to believe whatever the cops say happened especially when there is little to no evidence. Had that other cop not showed up on the scene and accidentally recorded the truth we would all say:
"Well, no abuse took place. Obviously the black guy was aggressive, tried to take the cops gun and his beating/arrest was absolutely justified! God bless America"
This happens way more than not. And I think every police officer should have recording devices on them with timestamps and file signatures hashed and handled properly so that no one can say the evidence has been tampered with. We as a society need to stop generalizing and siding with one side or the other and ask questions. Require proof before we make judgements.
All men and women of color and creed need to take both sides into consideration before they make judgements. We don't know what happened between Officer Wilson and Mr. Brown but one thing I can say for sure is that it could all have been avoided. Brown could have simply walked on the sidewalk, and calmly explained what happened to the cop and the cop could have (if being attacked as he said) put his car on drive and drove forward, or in reverse, and called for backup. Or tased him. Or peppersprayed him. Or rolled up his windows until back up arrived. We can not excuse either men, as they both failed as human beings to communicate or fall back.
My two cents.