Yet another American city erupted in violence as the frustration of a black man dying in a police involved shooting spilled onto the streets.
In Charlotte, police fired shots to clear intersections and used tear gas to disperse crowds. One man is in critical condition after being shot by another civilian. All this came as protestors clashed with police and vandalized businesses.
The catalyst for this mayhem was the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. Officers were executing a warrant on another man when he emerged from a nearby car. Family members say he was carrying a book.
But Police maintain Officer Brentley Vinson faced an armed man, and that Scott ignored verbal warnings to drop his gun before Vinson shot him. Authorities say no book was found near Scott, but that a gun was.
Protesters believe police over reacted, and point to what happened a few days earlier in New Jersey.
The value of a black man’s life is a question that has been raised over and over again as the number of police related shootings continues to climb. A shooting also happened in Tulsa over the weekend, a man with his hands up was shot by an officer along a busy road.
Here in Massachusetts, the state’s highest court weighed in on the way men of color are treated by law enforcement. It threw out a man’s gun conviction based on the premise he may have been warranted to flee from police because of a pattern of racial profiling.
This is the 20 page ruling handed down on Tuesday. It was based in part on a report by the ACLU which found between 2007 and 2010, about two thirds of Boston Police encounters were with people of color, although they make up about a quarter of the population.
The ruling then stated, “the finding that black males in Boston are disproportionately and repeatedly targeted for FIO [Field Interrogation and Observation] encounters suggests a reason for flight totally unrelated to consciousness of guilt.
Such an individual, when approached by the police, might just as easily be motivated by the desire to avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled as by the desire to hide criminal activity.”
Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans wasn’t happy with the ruling.
This is a difficult time for all parties involved, trying to balance public safety, with personal safety.
Attorney and Former Cambridge Police Officer Natashia Tidwell, Southern New Hampshire University Associate Dean Jeff Czarnec (@JeffreySCzarnec) and,Massachusetts UCLA Attorney Carl Williams âª(@carltonwilliams)joined Jim to discuss.
