Every-single-day in at least one of my news feeds, comes a story of cops killing some poor innocent person—usually black. In just about every one of these cases, the police all sing the same old song: “I was in fear for my life.”
One of the most disturbing interviews I ever watched was the interview with Darren Wilson and George Stephanopoulos. He spent the entire interview telling George just how “scared” of Michael Brown he was, all the while, literally trying to demonize him (calling him a demon). In Cleveland, the police who shot Tamir Rice claimed that they were “in fear for their lives.” Also in Cleveland, Officer Michael Brelo claimed that “I've never been so afraid in my life” as he stood on the hood of a car, and fired 13 bullets into Timothy Russell and Malissa Willaims. Just today, I read right here on Daily Kos that police in Oakland Park Florida killed a computer engineer as he was walking home, and then tried to cover it up. The cop who shot him claimed, “I felt like my life was threatened.”
So this brings up a very important question: When did the police become such fraidy-cats? I’ve seen six-year-olds less frightened than they are. What do they do when they see a spider in their bathtub? Gun it down in cold blood and warm water? Do they scream and jump on their chairs when they see a mouse? What happens if you sneak up behind them and say, “BOO!” Do they just open fire on you? Do they ever shoot at their own shadows because they’re afraid they’re being followed? What happens when they go to the grocery store and find that they’re out of Roma tomatoes? Do they panic and shoot the clerk. Everything encounter frightens them so that they’re ready to shoot without provocation.