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All Lives Matter*
Two recent officer-involved incidents of police brutality have gone viral on social media. Surely, you’ve heard about the father who was tased 11 times and about the police raid in Houston, Texas, that resulted in the deaths of two innocent people chilling at home.
These two cases, while horrific, brings police brutality into the limelight once again. This time, however, involves innocent white folks. No, I’m not going to sit here and tell you “we told you so,” although many have. Instead, I want to take this opportunity to discuss these two incidents in more detail.
The footage of the guy getting tased a ridiculous amount of times, in front of his wife and kids, for nothing more than questioning what the hell was going on, is quite obvious. The officers were way out of line as they are so accustomed to. And that’s the biggest part of the problem. Isn’t it?
For the most part, police have been pushing people around without question for a long time. Too long. Decades. Centuries if you really think about it. Now, when we call for accountability, police unions immediately go into attack mode. The all too familiar “us versus them” idiom. That couldn’t have been more evident when the president of the Houston Police Officers Union was allowed to address the public in a threatening way.
“Enough is enough. If you’re the ones out there spreading the rhetoric that police officers are the enemy, well just know we’ve all got your number now. We’re going to be keeping track of all of y’all, and we’re going to make sure to hold you accountable every time you stir the pot on our police officers.” — Joe Grimaldi, President of the Houston Police Officers Union
Now, there’s a lot to unpack here. But let’s just focus on the fact that the officers he’s talking about were part of a botched raid and were shot by a man who was defending his home. They kicked in his door, shot his dog, and proceeded to murder him and his wife based on fraudulent information from a Houston Police Narcotics Officer. Their official report is now being questioned along with that of their…
