Hardly a week goes by without another tragic incident where police kill an unarmed African American. This week’s victim of unjustifiable, excessive use of deadly force (can I possibly be any more redundant in making my point?) is Saheen Vassell.
Saheen’s only crime was being black while walking on the sidewalk in his own neighborhood holding a piece of shower-head pipe in his hand.
For such threatening carelessness in 21st century America, he paid the ultimate price.
Watch this Democracy Now interview with Saheen’s mother and father as well as an eyewitness to the shooting.
The police pulled up in an unmarked car. They (apparently) failed to identify themselves. They did not address Saheen in any way. No warnings. No questions. No “put up your hands!” or “lay down on the ground!” or “drop what you are holding.” Nothing.
Two police officers simply began shooting.
Nothing but 10 shots fired at Saheen within seconds. Saheen was unarmed. He didn’t even have time to throw his deadly shower-head.
Saheed’s only crime was walking in public with a piece of pipe in his hand; something that most guys, including white guys, have done at one time or another.
But Saheen was black. What else can we call this but an execution?
Such executions of unarmed black people are the current form of state sponsored lynching in America. And no matter how outlandish the circumstances, the police officers involved are rarely punished and often go back to their job.
Actually, these crimes are not so new, are they? Many lynchings in our country’s history have been sponsored by the state in one way or another. Often the local police, sheriff, deputies, mayors, council members and other elected officials were the leaders of the Klu Klux Klan rallies executing the lynching.
Imagine the outcry if today’s victims of police brutality were middle-class whites; if week after week, month after month, year after year the American public was presented with graphic images of white men and boys pulled over and shot, strangled, beaten, detained and pistol whipped, their bodies pumped over and over again with lead bullets, five, ten, twenty times or more.
Aren’t the police pledged to “protect and serve” their communities? As a youngster, I was always told that the policeman was my friend. I could count on him/her for help.
I suspect that black mothers and fathers have rarely if ever felt secure in offering that assurance to their children. In fact, watch this brief video showing the kinds of talks the African-American parents are required to have with their children, including their own stories of police abuse.
NO ONE should have to experience this kind of dehumanization anywhere at any time, much less in America.
Nowadays the mantra of “protect and serve” appears to be the police officers’ Orwellian twist on “shoot first and ask questions later.” Protect yourself and serve your own interests, no matter how many innocent men and women you victimize in the process.
Apparently, the goal of police work today – not for all, I realize, not even for the majority (I hope), but certainly for far too many – is to stay well clear of even the remotest chance of bodily harm. For example, watch this newly released video showing how the officers who killed Stephon Clark (for holding a phone in his hand in his own backyard) stood back and waited for 
5 minutes (for fear that he was pretending to be dead) before they approached to offer medical assistance.
I am sorry, but that is not policing. It is cowardice; cowardice mixed with an abhorrent lack of concern for a fellow human being.
I cannot help but wonder if the growing trend of sending US police departments to Israel for training with the Israeli Defense Forces (the IDF) has a role to play in all this.
Unfortunately, the IDF only enforces a military occupation of the Palestinian people. The population they monitor is considered the enemy. Protect and serve are alien concepts to the IDF. Brutality and lethal force are always the first resort when Israeli soldiers confront Palestinian men, women and children.
I fear the growing similarities between the IDF and US police may not be accidental.
Our police forces are increasingly militarized. They look more and more like invading storm-troopers, not your neighborhood friend. They seem to view our neighborhoods, especially neighborhoods with high concentrations of people of color, as hostile territory to be exited as quickly as possible.
Of course, police officers DO face danger and hostility on a regular basis. We cannot forget that. But something somewhere along the way (whether in recruitment, training, supervision, or leadership) has gone very, very wrong in American policing.
Every resident of every color in every neighborhood throughout this nation, in our cities and in the countryside, needs to stand up in protest. We all deserve the same protections, especially against state-sponsored violence.
We need to scream and shout.
We need to demand accountability for the cold-blooded lynching of Saheen Vassell, Stephon Clark, and every other innocent, unarmed person whose life was cut short by a trigger-happy cop whose highest priority was not community service but self-preservation.
