The Trump-supporting White Supremacist who slaughtered 50 Muslims and left 50 others wounded is currently sitting in a jail in New Zealand awaiting trial for his crimes. He’s alive. The Parkland mass murderer who killed 17 18 and wounded 16 others, sits in a jail today. The Pittsburg synagogue murderer was arrested and charged with 63 federal crimes. Dylan Roof was successfully taken into custody and got to face the judge and some of his victims. These men responsible for murdering close to 100 people and wounding about the same amount are all alive today.
In fact, mass murderers, unless they take their own lives, are generally afforded the privilege of getting their days in court...as it should be. The arrest and arraignment of the NZ murderer got me thinking: if such a dangerous, armed man can be taken into custody and not killed, then why are US cops killing hundreds of people each year? It doesn’t make sense.
According to The Washington Post’s Fatal Force, in 81 days, US police killed 209 people.
I decided to take a look at the reasons given for these killings. It was not a pleasant task. Of the over 100 cases I looked at, I found only one where the victim was a murder suspect. One. In one other incident, the cops intervened (or came shortly after the fact) when a man was said to be stabbing his woman. That man was killed and the woman taken to the hospital, treated and released. All the other cases were of people killed for disobeying police orders (even when they were unable to physically or mentally comply) and/or because something they had made cops “fear for their lives.”
54! killed so far this month
At least 11 were women
At least 52 were of color (107 unknown)
At least 33 suffered from mental illness
At least 8 were unarmed
19 were said to be armed with their vehicles
35 had knives
Four had toy guns
Four were under 18
28 were fleeing on foot
Armed with a car
Of the 209 people killed by police so far this year, 19 of them were killed because they were said to be “armed with a vehicle.” In other words, unarmed. Included in the number of those given this dubious designation is 32-year-old Latasha Nicole Walton. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why this mother of two had to be killed. Her car was stopped, there was a verbal “altercation,” a second trooper arrived on the scene and came out of his car with his gun drawn. Her car started slowly rolling away with a cop running alongside it, they then fired “several shots” in the car killing this woman. Why???
Latasha had not killed a single person.
Killed for shooting at a dog
Harold Thompson was an 81-year-old man who, it could be argued, had no business being around guns. Shooting at a dog for having the temerity to bark at him shows that he may have been a danger to both himself and others. But did he have to be killed when they had him cornered?
Harold had not taken a single life.
Armed to the teeth with a broken bottle
Jerald Wilson was obviously a disturbed man. He’d been in an altercation with some men who may have been his friends; got physical with them, and somehow found himself on the highway where he was hit by a car. This man needed help. The cops were called to the scene, said he was armed with a broken bottle and combative; they used their stun gun on him and then shot him dead. They were in fear for their lives.
Jerald had not taken a single life.
She shot out a door and paid for it with her life
Nina Adams was screaming out for help. She was in debilitating psychic pain. Everyone knew that the 47-year-old former nurse was caught firmly in the grip of mental illness. On March 13, she got her gun (that she shouldn’t have been able to get or keep in the first place) and went shooting. One report said that she shot out a door; other reports claimed that she shot at cars. The cops were called. They found her at her well-secured home, saw that she had a gun, got close enough to shoot her with a bean bag. Bean bag didn’t stop her so what were they supposed to do? They had to protect her from killing herself. And so they got out their guns and shot her in the chest and killed her. Easy peasy. That problem is taken care of. Because that’s the best we can do. After all, she had a gun.
Nina had not taken a single life.
She had a knife
There was just something about this case that made me break down in tears. Beth Plant was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital. Apparently, she had a history with mental illness. We don’t know whether there was a body cam, but this was the police’s report of what happened to the 51-year-old woman who, let’s remember, was on her way to the hospital:
"Violence started in the back of the ambulance and continued outside with her long knife in hand. "She was closing in on the deputy with the sharp instrument. Her threat to them was measured in microseconds and as the deputy screamed many times for her to stop and drop it, she kept coming."
Dramatic, ain’t it? And so the cop had no option but to kill her. I mean, what else could he have done? His life was in danger. I almost loathe mentioning that Beth was the mother of boxing champion Caleb Plant. All the reports I read dwelled on the fact that she was the mother of her famous son. But really, her journey was her own. Her life mattered and not only because of her son’s fame.
Beth had not taken a single life.