About 1 minute into the video below shows a black teen face down on the ground getting beaten by white police officers.
The fact that the teen, 15 year old Chad Holley, is laying defenseless on the ground with his hands behind his head surrendering shows he is of no threat to the officers leaving their actions to be violent hate crimes. If they weren't deliberately beating him for his race, but because he was running from them for burglary just minutes earlier, still leave their conduct inappropriate and unnecessary. What led to their actions was none other than a society still poisoned with racism, no matter how subconscious that may be. Holley was beaten by at laest five officers while he lay there defenseless with no intention to fight back.
Andrew Blomberg was the first to reach Holley and in the video is seen kicking and stomping on his head and neck. Despite the video and expert testimony that "Blomberg’s actions were ‘objectively unreasonable’ and were ‘contrary to any legitimate police action,’” an all-white, six member jury acquitted Blomberg on Wednesday (Brown 2012).
The Jury that claimed the prosectuion failed to show evidence that Blomberg acted unreasonably really shows that to some people the life of a black man means nothing. This is not ok. The law needs to change to be more specific in what a police officer can and cannot do and when there is video proof of officers violating those terms they are to be punished. Those who enforce the law cannot be above the law. Also in an interracial case, the fact that there was an all white jury shows another flaw and injustice that ironically exsits within our "justice" system. This should never be the case.
Three other officers are still to be tried for their part in the incident. Drew Ryser is charged with official oppression and Phillip Bryan and Raad Hassan are both charged with official oppression and violating the civil rights of a prisoner (Brown 2012).My interpretations of the incident were based on facts presented by an article written by Alex Brown on May 18th posted on thinkprogress.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment