US discriminating between white, black officers: Pundit
Press TV has conducted an interview with Steven Justino, a practicing attorney from Denver, to ask for his insights into the murder of a six-year-old boy in a US police shooting in Louisiana.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: What do you think about this latest incident and about police brutality in the United States has become a very common issue there, a lot of fear, a lot of people being terrorized by police which are there to protect civilians?
Justino: Ye, I’m afraid it’s a way too common in this country now. Whether we’re talking about large cities like Baltimore in Maryland or small towns like Ferguson, Missouri, or very small towns like Maxville, Louisiana, now it is a problem that happens with so much frequency that it’s hard to keep track of the facts of any specific event.
This is a truly tragic situation if the videotape shows what the family’s attorney says it shows, which is that the father had his hands up at the time and was posing no threat to the police officers.
I ... cannot understand what would have caused those police officers to fire 18 bullets at the family vehicle, knowing especially that there was a six-year-old child in the car or a child in the car.
So, this is just a tragedy of immense proportions and I don’t honestly understand how it could have happened.
Press TV: What legal actions can be taken against these officers to protect people but they’re not doing their job properly?
Justino: Well, in this case, it’s unusual in that police officers in question have actually been charged with second degree murder and attempted homicide.
And that must be because the police officer uniform video camera does show that there was no justification for it.
So, that’s unusual for police officers to be charged with a crime in a situation like this.
And unfortunately this is going to feed into the whole Black Lives Matter racial tension that were feeling in this country now, because when white police officers shoot a 10-year-old boy Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, no charges are brought against the police officers.
In this case, the two police officers happened to be black, the young boy happened to be white and immediately the police are charged with attempted murder.
So, I don’t know that it’s as anything other than that there was very strong video evidence suggesting that the police were acting criminally when they opened fire but it certainly does raise the appearance of impropriety and hypocrisy when black police officers are immediately charged with murder for killing a white person.
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