Friday, October 24, 2003
Tired of Police Taking Target Practice
Reflecting on the Childs shooting...
How many times can members of a police force shoot innocent victims and get away with it? The decision not to punish the police officer who gunned down Childs is proof that the Denver police force is out of control.
"He was just doing his job," you may say, and that is exactly the point. Police officers in Denver are trained to use lethal force in cases where it is not needed. This is a lack of training and a lack of leadership. Someone once said (probably E. Deming) that there are no evil people, only evil processes. If that is true then the entire police force is to blame because it is systematically producing poorly trained officers and innocent people are dying.
We're not stupid, we know what is going on. The people who were killed were defenseless and people of color. There, I said it. The police officers killed them because they could. Because their minds allowed them to constuct an image of individuals who were dangerous.
I know the Childs case was presented as a "tough call" because the victim was holding a knife but I'm sure the police department gets calls like that often. I've made a call like that before with a mentally ill family member and the last thing you ever think is that someone is going to come in and gun down your loved one. You call the police or the fire department because you need help and you feel that you can't do it on your own. That's why the mother made the call and that is what she expected, help.
The people of Denver need to make the police force accountable for this atrocity. It must stand up and make it's voice heard so that no other innocent people are killed.
-LOBO
How many times can members of a police force shoot innocent victims and get away with it? The decision not to punish the police officer who gunned down Childs is proof that the Denver police force is out of control.
"He was just doing his job," you may say, and that is exactly the point. Police officers in Denver are trained to use lethal force in cases where it is not needed. This is a lack of training and a lack of leadership. Someone once said (probably E. Deming) that there are no evil people, only evil processes. If that is true then the entire police force is to blame because it is systematically producing poorly trained officers and innocent people are dying.
We're not stupid, we know what is going on. The people who were killed were defenseless and people of color. There, I said it. The police officers killed them because they could. Because their minds allowed them to constuct an image of individuals who were dangerous.
I know the Childs case was presented as a "tough call" because the victim was holding a knife but I'm sure the police department gets calls like that often. I've made a call like that before with a mentally ill family member and the last thing you ever think is that someone is going to come in and gun down your loved one. You call the police or the fire department because you need help and you feel that you can't do it on your own. That's why the mother made the call and that is what she expected, help.
The people of Denver need to make the police force accountable for this atrocity. It must stand up and make it's voice heard so that no other innocent people are killed.
-LOBO
