Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, and now Kajieme Powell: Three Black Youth Shot by Police

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.