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| Woman protesting police shooting of Jayland Walker (Ideastream) |
A newly released video of police killing a Black man in Akron, Ohio, has led to angry protests throughout the city while his family calls for peace and accountability.
Jayland Walker was shot more than 60 times after an attempted traffic stop about a week ago. Police say the incident escalated after the 25-year-old drove away and a shot was fired from the car.
The police chief and government officials are trying to assure the public that a fair investigation is underway, and they say they understand the outrage after releasing this video, which they've described as "extremely disturbing."
In light of recent events, it’s hard not to sympathize with the protesters. One man being shot 60 times does seem like a bit of overkill. (No pun intended.)
I highly doubt that this would have been newsworthy if the suspect would have been white. But that he was black fits nicely into the narrative that black people are unfairly targeted by the police who are at the core racist. Especially after the death of George Floyd a couple of years ago at the hands of a white cop.
This is not to say that young black people don't suffer from prejudicial behavior from the police. There is a long history of cars being driven by black people being stopped by white cops in far greater number than their percentage of the population would account for.
But this is not about that. Most people - including black people - that get stopped for a traffic violation are not shot and killed by the cop that stopped them.
It is an event like this that fuels the ‘police are racists’ narrative. And the media is quite willing to put that spin on it whenever a black man gets shot by a white cop.
Let us however examine the facts of this case as we know them to this point.
An individual was stopped for a traffic violation. Something that happens many times to all kinds of people every day. It is what happened afterwards that provides an explanation of why Jayland Walker was killed.
After Jayland Walker was stopped, instead of getting out of his car he took off speeding away in his car. The police followed him and a chase ensued. Shots were fired from Walker’s car. After stopping his car, Walker got out of his car wearing a hood over his face and turned around. His motions indicated that he might shoot at the police who were confronting him. The 8 police officers t the scene responded with hail of bullets that killed him.
The idea that in the heat of the moment the police would discuss who shoot the offender is both ridiculous and ludicrous. When there is credible concern that someone wants to shoot to kill you, you shoot them first. That is what each cop there was thinking. They kept shooting until he was down. Afterwards they opened the door to Walker’s car and they found a gun and a gun-clip filled with bullets.
Now it’s true that Walker was unarmed when the police shot him. But they had no way of knowing that in the heat of the moment. What they did know was he fired at them from his moving vehicle as he was fleeing. The police had to assume he was armed and willing to shoot at them when he left the car.
Contrast that with the time I was stopped not long ago for having a broken taillight. Here is what followed in my case.
I got out of my car and greeted the police with a smile on my face and asked them why I was stopped. They told me and treated me with respect. They asked me for my license. (Which I presume was to see if there were any outstanding warrants on me.) When they completed their investigation – which took a few minutes they sent me on my way and told me to get my taillight fixed. Which I did right away. I thanked them for their service as I left adding that I realized the sacrifices the police make everyday to save serve and protect the community,
Does anyone doubt for a minute that if Walker had acted that way when he was stopped that he would be alive today? Even if he feared he would be mistreated because he was black, trying to escape and shooting at the police that were chasing him was not the way to deal with that fear.
I see no racist motive here at all. I see cops doing their job. Walker’s death has little if anything to do with the color of his skin. It has to do with his suspicious reaction to being stopped. Blaming it on police racism is the furthest thing from the truth. But that hasn’t stopped the media from trying to spin it that way.
Postscript. As I write these words there has been another mass shooting. This time it was in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb that has a fairly large number of Jews living there. From a roof top using a high powered rifle, the killer fired on a crowd of people attending a Fourth of July parade. 6 people have been killed and as many as 31 injured. The killer is still at large.