We are just now reaching the halfway point in 2015 and death by a police officer is soaring in America. According to a report filed in the Washington Post,?385 people have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement already this year.?Based on past data this is nearly double the totals in the same time frame going back the last decade.
?These shootings are grossly under-reported,? said former Police Chief Jim Bueermann. ?We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don’t begin to track this information accurately.?(Washington Post)
These occurrences have become commonplace in America today. Not a week or day goes by that’someone somewhere doesn’t get shot by a police officer. With these horror stories playing out on a daily basis, it begs the question: “Do We Need Police Reform In America.”
Who is policing the police?
There is an apparent bias in the criminal justice system towards police officers.
It’s now common knowledge of the total miscarriage of justice in the Michael Brown Ferguson case. But surely there will be justice for the Eric Garner family in that police choking murder case. Wrong! Even with a video that was, in this writers’ view, ?proof of the homicide by a cop, the police officers in this matter were set free. Disappointing!
The Ferguson failures are an enormous eye-opener in the American psyche. This event has shed light on a process run amuck. It should be clear there was no trial in the Ferguson case. We now know a rigged Grand Jury process has set Officer Darren Wilson free, and a whole bevy of New York’s finest have been set free as well. Lest we forget, there was no cross-examining of witnesses in the Ferguson case. In the Ferguson case, there was no sharing of evidence and the bottom-line is that most legal scholars, both left and right, agree this was a deliberately botched job by the prosecutor. These outcomes are bizarre and are major focal points of the growing tensions in America. What should be human and justice issues have now become partisan politics, and that cannot continue.
Human Rights in America are under attack.
“The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a statement that they had “legitimate concerns” over two separate U.S. grand jury decisions not to indict the white officers involved in the deaths of unarmed, black men, Michael Brown and Eric Garner.”(Aljazeera America)
From 2007 to 2012, the Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest data from 105 of the country’s largest police agencies found more than 550 police officer killings during those years were missing from the national tally or, in a few dozen cases, not attributed to the officer involved. The result? It is nearly impossible to determine how many people are killed by the police each year.
The American justice system seems to be falling apart. With the Michael Brown and Eric Garner decisions sparking nationwide multi-racial anger and frustration, we are witnessing protests against this legal process run amuck. Our nation is on pins and needles right now, right here, this second. The Trayvon Martin case is not so long ago not to still sting when pondered. It would be an understatement to say everyday American citizens are losing confidence in the judicial system. ?Our judicial system is supposed to be a pillar of our democracy. The African-American community has been targeted by law enforcement since crime statistics has been kept. This evil tells us if you have white officers in black neighborhoods their arrest rates will be higher than in the white areas. There is a history of a battle between persons of color and law enforcement in America. These recent events are but the tip of the iceberg. The human rights of citizens are being attacked.
