Joe Biden has called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, moments after shocking police video was released showing an Illinois officer fatally shooting Sonya Massey after she called police fearing a home intruder.
In his first public statement since dropping his bid for re-election, Biden said the shooting of Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by white Sangamon county sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson, in her home in Springfield, after a dispute over a pot of boiling water, “reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not”.
Biden, who is recovering from Covid at his home in Delaware, said Massey, “a beloved mother, friend, daughter and young Black woman … should be alive today”.
Are body cams really providing justice? Where is Sonya’s justice? Hailing body cams as the ultimate police reform is the type of thing I’d expect a cop to say. For people who have been experiencing this racist police violence for generations, it’s clear that body cams are at best a half measure, and at worst a means of documenting all of the brutal murders that pigs continue to carry out on innocent people while body cams are running. The answer isn’t in body cams, but in comprehensive police reform. So long as the pigs are running around with sus norse tattoos, toxic masculinity (“nah im good” -cop who just developed a tremor in has hand after holding in the brains of a gasping woman for 5 min), guaranteed firearms, no psychological training, gang support via departments, body cams aren’t really going to do shit to protect at-risk people.
I am very critical of this ultra pro body cam discourse. It seems like a distraction. Make no mistake, there is no justice today because of the body cams present for Sonya’s execution.