I've made this point a million times, but it bares repeating: Cops do not have a responsibility to wait until they themselves get shot, stabbed or killed before they deploy lethal force. People will often bend over backward to make excuses for the criminal offenders who die as a direct result of their own actions, but can't even give a cop the benefit of the doubt when they shoot somebody who is charging them with a knife, after they have repeatedly told them to put it down. Does this mean that cops never fuck up and kill somebody unjustly? Obviously no. Does it mean there aren't legitimate cases of psychos becoming cops on a power trip? Obviously no. But *all* of the recent police shootings that have resulted in rioting were completely, obviously justified shootings.
George floyd wasn't even a shooting, he almost certainly died as a result of a fentanyl overdose. He was saying that he couldn't breath way before the cops even put him on the ground, which by the way he *asked them to do*. He said "put me on the ground man", and they did. People can't get beyond the optics though. Dead guy is black, cop is white (even though often they aren't even white), so let's riot! Who cares that jacob blake showed up to his ex-girlfriend's house because SHE called the cops and he was violating a restraining order and ignoring every single chance they gave him to simply stop, and they tried tazing him and it didn't work, and then he opened his car door and reached in. What the hell would *you* do in that situation, if you were the cop? It's a valuable question to ask yourself.
I used to be a very punk anarchist super lefty fuck the police type, then I thought about whether I would ever want to do their job and realized; oh FUCK no.
|