i find it stupid that police feel the need to shoot someone under the normal 'self defense' clause that allows cops to shoot. yet the guy got shot in the back, meaning he was running away, not towards
i find it even more stupid that while jacob blake is paralysed in hospital. police now feel that he is a risk of running off
is america really this dumb. i ask because the more americans i interact with the less common sense they seem to have
I don't think the issue is American's being stupid (they're not), or the police being stupid (they're
probably not).
Rather it's about racism being endemic in the US police force (and to an extent this being symptomatic of racism within elements of the wider society). If you couple police racism with the fact that they are allowed to use lethal force, then it becomes an extremely urgent problem.
Whilst you can often find single cases to illustrate any point you want, particularly in a country as vast as the US, the fact that the police felt able to treat Jacob Blake this way given the current climate is a huge warning sign. We've had months of BLM protests since George Floyd; police racism and casual murder of non-whites is right at the top of the news... and must surely be in the forefront of the minds of every frontline police officer out there. And still, despite this, despite the police being fully aware of the wider situation, they still feel perfectly happy to attack and kill non-whites whenever they feel like it, and with zero justification. History suggests they can act with impunity - it is rare that they face justice.