I get that it's easy to bury your head in the sand when it comes to these things, but there is a major league problem with the police here in SF. They are accountable to nobody and continue to harass and intimidate everyone, not just minorities.
I get that it's easy to bury your head in the sand when it comes to these things, but there is a major league problem with the police here in SF. They are accountable to nobody and continue to harass and intimidate everyone, not just minorities.
A lot of people don't understand this.
It starts off with minorities because, being minorities, they don't have the political clout to do anything about it.
The downtown decision makers don't care if some black or brown kid gets his head split open for not moving fast enough when the police ordered him to leave.
They don't care until it's someone that is important to them. When it's John Q MiddleClassSuburbanWhiteTeen who gets arrested for a made up offense, it's too late to fix the problem. At that point, the machinations are already in place to abuse everyone.
What they do to the minorities, they'll eventually do to you.
Citing the Mario Woods shooting does nothing for your case. For those who haven't been following along, Woods had just stabbed a total stranger on the street and police showed up to apprehend him. He would not drop his knife after repeated orders and use of less lethal force like pepper spray and bean bag rounds. After a few minutes, he tried to break through the perimeter the cops had set up around him. At that point, the police could have either let a dangerous man escape, they could put themselves in great peril by physically stopping a charging man with a knife, or they could shoot him and end the threat to the public and themselves.
I'm not saying that the police couldn't have handled this better, but characterizing this incident as "shoot first and ask questions later" is mendacious.
Edit: And Ian Murdock? What evidence is there that police killed him?
A lot of people don't understand this.
It starts off with minorities because, being minorities, they don't have the political clout to do anything about it.
The downtown decision makers don't care if some black or brown kid gets his head split open for not moving fast enough when the police ordered him to leave.
They don't care until it's someone that is important to them. When it's John Q MiddleClassSuburbanWhiteTeen who gets arrested for a made up offense, it's too late to fix the problem. At that point, the machinations are already in place to abuse everyone.
What they do to the minorities, they'll eventually do to you.