Today I saw this gruesome video of the
police shoot down an armed (yes, he had a knife on him) black man in St. Louis,
US. This is the first time I saw someone being shot in real life on computer. It
wasn’t a pretty sight. It’s stark and it’s disturbing, a man losing his life in
front of you. There were several witnesses on the spot and one was capturing it
all on movie camera. I hope it will be accepted as evidence of what happened.
This came closely after police gunned down
Michael Brown in Ferguson, close to where the above unfortunate scene happened.
The above video shows a black man (Kajieme
Powell) who has stolen an energy drink from a store waiting at the sidewalk. He
isn’t drinking the frothy drink, just standing there, saying he is on Facebook
etcetera. I cannot understand his argot, but I have a suspicion that he is
talking about Michael Brown’s shooting. He seemed a disturbed young man. Then
why didn’t the police use some harmless method to arrest him: spray or rubber
bullet?
St Louis happens to have a majority black
population though the police force is majorly white. It is alleged in this
article that the police mostly stop and search innocent blacks than whites.
The town council is also made up of white people, a majority, that is.
After Michael Brown’s shooting the town of
Ferguson erupted into violence and looting. People poured into the streets and
took the law into their own hands. The protestors should have shown restraint,
but didn’t. The anger was evident.
In February this year Treyvon Martin was shot
in Florida because he was wearing a hood when he returned after meeting his
would-be step mother. A man suspected him to be an armed robber and shot him.
The issue in these three shootings is the
same. Racial discrimination and hatred. Is it so rampant in the US, which as I
understand guarantees freedoms to all races and is the most democratic of
countries in the world? Can we expect some justice here?
True US has a black president, it is the
policeman of the world (Iraq, Afganistan and now Syria). But incidents like
this give it a bad name and give it the appearance of a helpless witness of
race violence in its own backyard.
Does this mean that the efforts of Martin
Luther King and Rosa Parks (the gritty lady who refused to give her seat to a
white man triggering the transport boycott) have gone in vain? Is US still a
nation of freedom and equality for all races?
I guess only time will tell.
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