Many police shootings we only hear about because the victim has family who are able to get media to pay attention.
But most people shot by police live on the margins of society with no one to advocate for them, so we never learn their names or the circumstances of their deaths.
But most people shot by police live on the margins of society with no one to advocate for them, so we never learn their names or the circumstances of their deaths.
For instance, this story about an unnamed man shot by police in San Diego, which basically runs with the police narrative of the shooting: the cop shot a homeless man suffering from mental illness because he threatened them with a metal rod.
sandiegouniontribune.com/news/homelessn…
sandiegouniontribune.com/news/homelessn…
Who is going to advocate for release of the body camera footage? Who is going to retain the high-priced high profile lawyers to put pressure on government officials to even pay attention to the case.
It's unusual that the shooting even got covered in the newspaper, but the angle of the article is more about how we fail the mentally ill (very true) than to question whether the police narrative of the shooting is accurate.
This isn't an issue limited to police shooting cases. Can you imagine how many people are languishing in prison serving sentences of decades and decades who don't have anyone to advocate for them? Who maybe are mentally ill so not able to communicate what has happened to them.
This is a problem of such magnitude and somehow people are meant to feel it's a turning point because one police officer was convicted in one case. I get the impulse, I just can't.
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