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”.
And wouldn’t you know it, it’s thanks to bodycam footage that we have irrefutable proof of this clear and unquestionably excessive use of force against an innocent victim.
The bodycam footage that thousands of police departments throughout the US are still pushing back against because they want people to think it impedes their ability to appropriately deliver justice, when it is actually, finally, allowing justice to take place. The necessity of which was caused primarily by police brutality against people of color, just like this situation, where there was no witness account other than the cop’s side of the story.
If this happened ten years ago, back before bodycams became more widespread, the cop would have gotten off with a short paid suspension and no other punishment, because all there would be is the cop’s one-sided account of how she clearly assaulted him with a deadly weapon and reached for his gun.
… You act as if cops don’t love bodycams too lol.
Everyone but the people doing dumb shit loves accountability. Cops love that it gets bad apples out before they spoil anything too.
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/body-worn-cameras-what-evidence-tells-us
Dude, the bad apples spoiled things long before any of us were born.
That’s not really how churn works but okay.
Unless by apples you mean society in general, because people are everywhere. But that’s more indicative of your bushel, not ours lol.
No, I mean the police in general. Do you really not know how police were even worse to black people before the Civil Rights act?
… so… you’re in agreement with them lol?
How did you even come close to getting that from what I said?
It’s a hard time trying to understand what you’re even saying. You’re agreeing or even qualifying what I wrote, but replying in a tone like you’re not lol. It’s hard to take it seriously.
I am neither. I am telling you that there are no “few bad apples” to get out of the police because the whole thing is already rotten to the core and has been for a very long time since there’s never been reformation, just a few laws to stop some of the most egregious behavior.
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.