ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
News reports state that there have been more police shootings in America since the pandemic.
Over the last five-six years, there have been over 6,400 deaths at the hands of police. This does not include strangulations by chokeholds or kneeling, according to recently released reports.
According to the Washington Post, a publication that started tracking all fatal shootings perpetrated by on-duty police officers in 2015, cops are averaging about 1000 civilian deaths each year. 2020 alone had 1,021 people die after being shot by an officer and that was during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The news site started tracking the police after Mike Brown died and the country was introduced to the Black Lives Matter.
One of the things that came out of the study was how law enforcement may not be doing everything that we think they are. When reviewing the cases, it was revealed that most police departments still are not using body cameras.
Another thing that was discovered was that the majority of the shootings have been deemed “justifiable.”
Daniel Oates, a former police chief in Miami Beach, Aurora, Colo., and Ann Arbor, Mich. says, “The vast majority of those fatal shootings are lawful, righteous shootings.”
He continued, “a percentage of them are bad training, bad policy, bad day by the cop, not performing at their best.”
Examples of this are flagrant.
According to People magazine, 21-year-old U.S. Army soldier EJ Bradford, Jr. was shot and killed by police in an Alabama mall, while he was trying to help victims during a shooting in the shopping complex. His death was caught on camera. Not by police, who were not running their cameras, but by bystanders.
An autopsy report commissioned by the family, says that he was shot in the back, the back of his neck and the back of his head. A video shows that the police refused medical support during those critical moments that could have actually saved his life.
Despite this, the shooting officer has been vindicated by the state’s attorney general’s office.
The attorney general’s report states, “After an extensive investigation and review, the Attorney General has determined Officer 1 did not commit a crime under Alabama law when he shot and killed E.J. Bradford and thus the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct preclude presentation of this case to a grand jury.”
Since 2020, more prosecutors have charged cops for on-duty shootings than the year before. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done.