Is a rare cop conviction a reason for hope in America?
Race is an important factor in fatal police shootings,
but there are racial narratives and race facts.
The facts normally counter the narratives.
There’s another narrative that suggests the media has a race-based agenda, and their focus on white cop/black-unarmed-male shootings is to reinforce the notion of structural racism. Proponents of this race-based media narrative also cite the Washington Post Police Shooting Database to prove whites are actually shot and killed by police officers more than blacks.
That’s true.
It’s also true that the majority of those whites were armed and attacked the police. The fact is police officers in the United States shoot and kill close to 1,000 people per year. That means armed suspects are shot on a regular basis. But what’s par for the course isn’t newsworthy. The media focuses on unarmed victims of police shootings because they are rare.
That sounded hopeful.
It was reported that Corey Jones, 31, a black musician was returning from a late-night concert when his car broke down on a highway exit ramp. Jones called a tow-truck and was waiting. A police officer noticed Jones’s vehicle, thought it was abandoned, and decided to investigate.
But the officer was in plainclothes and he drove an unmarked car.
The prosecutor told the jury the plainclothesman never identified himself as a police officer and acted so aggressively that Jones mistook him for a robber. Then Jones pulled out a handgun that he legally purchased to defend himself, but the plainclothesman fired his weapon six times within 13 seconds.
The defense argued their client feared for his life after Jones drew his handgun and there was no racial prejudice behind the act. But the jury rejected the fear for life defense and chose to convict on manslaughter and first-degree murder.
The rarity here is when white police officers have a threat perception failure and fatally kill an unarmed person the profession’s built-in fear for life defense exonerates them, but in this case an actual gun was drawn and the fear for life defense didn’t apply.
Why not?
Was it because he was in plainclothes and he didn’t identify himself?
Or was it because he wasn’t white?
The convicted ex-police officer was 41-year-old Nouman Raja a Muslim of Asian descent. Raja’s family apologized to the Jones family, but said Raja was treated unfairly and it was a bad decision. They brought up their own race factor. They claimed, “As proud American Muslims we’re not light enough and we’re not dark enough.”
After the verdict, prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump mentioned a number of high-profile cases when black men were killed by the police, but the police were not charged and Crump said, “Today we can tell many of those families that there’s hope for America.”
But it doesn’t sound hopeful for police officers who aren’t white.
Whenever
a white police officer shoots and kills an unarmed black male (regardless of
the circumstances) it makes national headlines.
Then the shooting becomes part of the racial narrative about an epidemic
of state sponsored violence against black Americans. But the attack rate of an epidemic is 15
persons per one hundred thousand in a two-week period caused by a single
agent. That means if a city has a
population of four hundred thousand 60 unarmed black males would have to be
killed by white police officers for the exact same reason within 14 days. The Washington Post Police Shooting Database
shows the epidemic narrative is false.
There’s another narrative that suggests the media has a race-based agenda, and their focus on white cop/black-unarmed-male shootings is to reinforce the notion of structural racism. Proponents of this race-based media narrative also cite the Washington Post Police Shooting Database to prove whites are actually shot and killed by police officers more than blacks.
That’s true.
It’s also true that the majority of those whites were armed and attacked the police. The fact is police officers in the United States shoot and kill close to 1,000 people per year. That means armed suspects are shot on a regular basis. But what’s par for the course isn’t newsworthy. The media focuses on unarmed victims of police shootings because they are rare.
Unfortunately,
convictions of white police officers are also rare, but I recently saw a
headline that said: In rare sentencing, ex-Florida officer gets 25 years.
That sounded hopeful.
It was reported that Corey Jones, 31, a black musician was returning from a late-night concert when his car broke down on a highway exit ramp. Jones called a tow-truck and was waiting. A police officer noticed Jones’s vehicle, thought it was abandoned, and decided to investigate.
But the officer was in plainclothes and he drove an unmarked car.
The prosecutor told the jury the plainclothesman never identified himself as a police officer and acted so aggressively that Jones mistook him for a robber. Then Jones pulled out a handgun that he legally purchased to defend himself, but the plainclothesman fired his weapon six times within 13 seconds.
The defense argued their client feared for his life after Jones drew his handgun and there was no racial prejudice behind the act. But the jury rejected the fear for life defense and chose to convict on manslaughter and first-degree murder.
The rarity here is when white police officers have a threat perception failure and fatally kill an unarmed person the profession’s built-in fear for life defense exonerates them, but in this case an actual gun was drawn and the fear for life defense didn’t apply.
Why not?
Was it because he was in plainclothes and he didn’t identify himself?
Or was it because he wasn’t white?
The convicted ex-police officer was 41-year-old Nouman Raja a Muslim of Asian descent. Raja’s family apologized to the Jones family, but said Raja was treated unfairly and it was a bad decision. They brought up their own race factor. They claimed, “As proud American Muslims we’re not light enough and we’re not dark enough.”
After the verdict, prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump mentioned a number of high-profile cases when black men were killed by the police, but the police were not charged and Crump said, “Today we can tell many of those families that there’s hope for America.”
But it doesn’t sound hopeful for police officers who aren’t white.
First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 5/1/19
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