So black lives don’t matter … even to black police officers?
Motorist Tyre Nichols died three days after being beaten by five Memphis police officers at a traffic stop. Apparently when he was stopped, at one point Nichols became frightened and tried to run away. The officers caught him and started punching and kicking him.
In a strange way, this case might be the exception that proves the rule. The death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Patrick Lyoya in Michigan all came at the hands of white officers. Indeed, the Lyoya case involved an officer shooting at him, tackling him to the ground and then firing a bullet into the back of his head.
But the Nichols shooting is just so bizarre. Why did it take five officers to deal with one unarmed motorist? And why did they go on and on and on beating him?
Here’s the video. Don’t watch it unless you have a strong stomach.
What is happening to our country?
When I was a newspaper columnist in California nearly 25 years ago, one of the pieces I wrote was about how law-abiding African-American or Latino motorists shouldn’t have to feel any anxiety when there’s a police car behind them.
Some readers chose to skip the “law-abiding” part of the sentence and focused instead on saying those are the people who commit most of the crimes. This in “liberal” California.
I’ve known so many wonderful police officers.
I’ve written before about how my maternal grandfather was a small-town chief of police during and after World War II.
I’ve got no prejudice against good police officers, but somehow we’ve got to find a way to weed out the bad ones.
That’s really all I’ve got to say.