42 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 8 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 4/6/12

The Trayvon Blues

By       (Page 2 of 5 pages) Become a premium member to see this article and all articles as one long page.   7 comments
Message John Grant

In another case, two kids are videotaping in the parking lot of a Houston Walmart and a cop tells them to stop because he thought he was in the shot. He was. The kid with the camera correctly tells the cop that he has the right to videotape police officers. The cop becomes hysterical and threatens to taser him if he doesn't stop. (See below.) Again, the photographer is shut down.

 

I worked for years as a professional photographer, so I'm sensitive to this. I read about cops stopping photographers all the time. The fact that all police departments know very well that the law says a citizen has the right to photograph a cop doing his or her public job doesn't seem to matter. Why? Because muscle seems to trump brains when it comes to bad police behavior.

 

An amazing incident occurred last November in a public housing unit in White Plains, NY. A 68-year-old Vietnam veteran's medical alert device goes off by mistake while he's sleeping and police respond to his home. OK so far. But when he tells them it was a mistake and he's all right and that they should leave so he can go back to bed, their crime-buster imaginations and adrenaline glands go to work overtime and they bash down his door and ultimately shoot him dead standing in his boxer shorts. Next, the encounter comes out in the press as a story of cops forced to shoot a knife-wielding maniac. The man's son tells Amy Goodman there is no evidence of his father wielding a knife. Police refuse to identify the officers involved.

 

The case has belatedly gotten national legs due to the Trayvon Martin incident and the fact the medical alert company's audio recording device recorded the whole incident, including an officer hollering, "I don't give a f*ck, n-word, open the door!" This, of course, may suggest why some officers are so sensitive to being recorded. It's called accountability.

 

What's going on here? And why do so many police officers seem reluctant to question and re-evaluate their initial hyperventilated and paranoid assessments of a situation?

 

Of course, it needs to be said here that most cops are good people working a hard and often thankless job. We need good cops. The problem is a powerful handful whose bad behavior is too often condoned or overlooked. As our courts drift to the right, they unfortunately tend to empower the bad apples, as in the go-ahead to strip search, a power begging to be abused as a tool of humiliation.

 

What if Trayvon Had Been Armed?

 

There appears only two ways that young Trayvon Martin could have behaved to effect a different outcome than the one where he ended up shot dead by a nine-millimeter pistol.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Must Read 1   Well Said 1   Valuable 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

John Grant Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

I'm a 72-year-old American who served in Vietnam as a naive 19-year-old. From that moment on, I've been studying and re-thinking what US counter-insurgency war means. I live outside of Philadelphia, where I'm a writer, photographer and political (more...)
 

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact EditorContact Editor
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

The Drug War: A Roller-Coaster To Hell

A Conspiracy of Whores

Me and The New York Times

They're "Slow Torturing" Bradley Manning Right Under Our Noses

A Troubled Nation Feeds On bin Laden's Corpse

Bradley Manning and the secret world

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend