Why are you so mad about what happened at Sanford?
The Trayvon Martin killing is galling in two distinct ways. The one is actually understandable and unpreventable; the other is much more aggravating and disturbing in its frequency.
The part that is not preventable, save for the decimation of a constitutionally protected freedom, is a man taking it upon himself to be the self appointed neighborhood watchmen for those who would dare go bump in his night. He carried a gun because, Damn it! It his right. It made him feel big, it made him feel strong, it drugged his blood with adrenaline and made him confront that dark skinned “fucking coon”, a manifestation of all those “assholes” that got away from the 46 other times he called the police. Confrontation, fight, cries for help (to be fair we don’t know for sure who’s cries they actually were… yet) gun shot, and an unarmed kid, up to no bad, trying to get back to his family, is dead. These tragedies will continue to happen, society will always include those who make decisions poorly.
The second aspect of this case is sickening, and the only reason we are hearing about this at all, the attempted police cover up and the utter failure to treat a capital murder case, and the victim of it, with the respect and dignity expected from a modern police force. The police didn’t treat Trayvon as a person, they treated him like just another “He’s bl-ack” statistic, unimportant, easily dismissed, and easily swept under the proverbial rug, and it almost worked… WHO THE FUCK DO THE POLICE THINK THEY ARE!!?? SERIOUSLY?
The police lie… a lot, and I for one am sick of it. Think about this, every word you say to a cop is admissible in a court of law, yet there is no way to insure that they are ever telling the truth… oh wait there is, and its cheap.
How can there be a cheap, easy solution, for all of our countries unprofessional, over zealous, and abusive police? You may ask, and I will answer. Helmet cam technology. For a one time, low price of $75 to $200 (depending on model) per on duty officer, every police force will have a publicly available (with redacted consideration for an officers non official privacy of course) and court admissible documentary of every call, every case, every order, and every utterance, heard or said, by the individual officer while on the clock. Helmet cam technology, will protect the police from lawsuit when they follow procedure, and allow swift reprimand of corrupt officers where they don’t.
And for those who say helmet cams would infringes on the police officer’s civil liberties… The police don’t have civil liberties when they are performing their paid vocational duty, they are the direct hand of government, the watchmen of society already, they are big brother. Not to mention the fact that no civil liberties exist at all for you if a cop takes them away and there’s no one around to see him do it, and you’ve been denied the way to prove otherwise.
So who watches the watchmen? We make them watch themselves, then watch what they were watching, and become roiled only when the system does not police itself.
Trayvon’s death is a tragedy, but it’s the police who truly made it so.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And welcome to DU!
