Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, it appears pretty clear that something very wrong happened in this situation. I could speak all day long about racial politics in this country. But the real problem is emotional. I understand that they are under a tremendous amount of stress, but police officers need to get a grip on their fear. You can't shoot someone four or five times when they reach for the license you asked them to get for you. Clearly, that officer was terrified. No one should be a police officer if they are walking around with enough fear to cause them to open fire on an innocent person who was sitting in his car, his weapon holstered. And yet it seems like we have officers like this all over the country.
What do we do about this? Mandate on-going emotional health courses for all beat officers? Not seeing that as likely. Hire only African American officers? Not enough supply to meet the demand. Disarm police forces? Hell yes, but since we can't even get frigging assault weapons banned here in the U.S., I don't see it as terribly likely that we'll disarm the police.
Honestly, I don't know what the answer is. But I do know the time has come for change. Guns are involved in too much death in this country. We need this to stop. I will continue to talk about the impact of emotional health, because long term, that would fix everything. Right now, I'm seriously concerned that it's the only way this culture of violence will ever get fixed.
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