"Investigators never followed up . . ." According to Justin Elliot’s reporting on the unfolding Amy Bishop tragedy, a girl with a gun, who had just shot her brother, didn’t warrant a full investigation back in 1986. Certainly that tragic shooting could have been an accident as reported but that is beside the point.
Who can we imagine getting away with running across a street with a weapon, waving it at someone while demanding a car and the police not even interviewing the people where the arrest takes place? Would everyone be allowed to delay an interview after a death by shooting for 11 days?
This is privilege. It is the privilege to set the narrative and to be believed for whatever reason. We cannot go back in time and undo what was or wasn’t done but we can ask ourselves whether or not this kind of privilege exists today, and for whom, in a society that claims equal protection under the law.
Police are human beings—men and women involved in an often thankless job in which they understand the political and social pressure local law enforcement is subject to. They have to live with the people they serve and protect and would probably like to be accepted by them. So this isn’t just about police but about the society that often puts them in an enforcement trick bag.
If we remain complicit to this kind of basic privilege, we enable a privilege taking mentality that extends to areas of society that have an impact on the lives of many. I guess part of the problem is many people want the benefits of privilege for themselves yet resent being affected by the privileges of others. Who likes to see people brought to the head of the line we’ve been waiting in, regardless of the circumstances?
The consequences in the Amy Bishop case are extreme. Yet I wonder how many violent men are given a pass because they "only "beat-up on their wives or girlfriends? How many assaults are thought of as pardonable "kids’ stuff" because of a well connected family? I bet just about everyone knows a story about this kind of privilege in action.