POLICE KILLINGS OF BLACKS

The police killings of black people is no curious anomaly. It is enabled. It is sought. It is encouraged , rewarded, by several United States Supreme Court decisions, especially one from 1989, known as “Graham v. Connor .” The Graham v. Connor case gave police officers not only the power to kill, if they felt that their lives were in danger, subjectively . But this belief was not subjected to “objective” attack by any other police officer , who was not then “present at the scene” at the instant of the occurrence —not even superior officers in the chain of command—; nor forensic experts in law enforcement protocols, or anything else! The “fear of the cop” was the determining factor. Nothing else. Thus, police have carte blanche to kill people, if they claim to “fear for their lives.” By law since 1989. The Atatiana Jefferson woman who was killed while in her apartment looking out of a window in Texas, is but the latest in a string of stirring accounts of “fear for my life” lies. Hopefully her killer will meet the same fate as the female cop who killed Barbadian Botham James. Graham v. Connor :: 490 U.S. 386 (1989) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center