The St. Louis police can’t even spell “First Amendment.”
Today there were riots in Missouri– I know, I know, shocking–over issues related to a white cop killing a black man. Sound familiar? It should. It’s a pattern in that state.
This particular instance was the case involving Jason Stockley, the officer who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith. There’s a timeline of events the night in question here.
I want to draw your attention to one specific part of that timeline. If you follow the link, you will see:
“A little after 2 minutes into the pursuit, Stockley said, ‘we’re killing this (expletive), don’t you know.'”
Now I’m not going to say it’s right to run around with heroin in your car. And I’m not going to say, specifically, that I think it’s a good idea to run from the police (though if you aren’t white, it isn’t the worst idea ever). But I am going to say something as the son of a cop, as a friend of cops, as a person with a degree in political science who was the admin assistant for the criminal justice department: any cop who declares that he’s going to kill someone he’s pursuing is DOING THE JOB WRONG.
Maybe it wasn’t murder. But it was manslaughter. And that man should never, ever wear a shield and hold a revolver again.
We have to do a better job, people. We just have to. It’s disgraceful.
And people wonder why the NAACP issued a travel warning for Missouri, or why some of us refuse to go there. Maybe it’s cops who think they need to kill suspects. Maybe it’s because it was another white cop killing another black person.
Maybe it’s enough already.