Add Kristine Biggs Johnson to a growing list. There was Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. That was the big one. But, what of John Crawford being shot down by police as he walked down an aisle in an Ohio Walmart? Or, Danielle Willard in West Valley City? What of the two more recent Utah cases, Dillon Taylor in South Salt Lake and Damian Hunt in Saratoga Springs? What of Mary Hawkes in Albuquerque, New Mexico?
And, you've heard of others. Police use of deadly force being questioned for being unreasonable and unnecessary.
Unlike the others listed above, Kristine Biggs Johnson didn't die. She survived. She lived to file suit. She had her eye shot out, but she lived to tell about it. You have heard it said, always kill them? Dead victims don't talk. They don't file lawsuits. Their family might, but they don't.
At what point do we say something must be done? At what point do we start to wonder if we are training them wrong? Or hiring them wrong? Or doing something that can and ought to be corrected? I do not know but what some of these incidents were not justified. I rather think some might have been. But, I wonder about them as a whole.
How about that maxim that to stop a criminal, you shoot -- and you shoot to kill? Isn't that a little bit of a dangerous generality to be teaching each other?
I do notice this: Police are taught to use deadly force. Society teaches the same. We teach each other that if there is any danger at all, you pull that gun, shoot and . . .
Kill.
The officer was reportedly in no danger of being harmed when he took a gun to Kristine Biggs Johnson, shooting through the window of a truck she was driving no more than 5 mph. She was drunk. She was resisting arrest. But, those are not capital offenses.
Shoot . . . and kill. Society teaches that. To stop a criminal, you shoot and kill. Everyone knows that.
No comments:
Post a Comment