Last night, protesters in Minneapolis demanded justice for Jamar Clark, who was allegedly shot after he was handcuffed by police. The police refuse to release the video. Since they refuse to do so, we can only assume that the protesters are correct and that he was shot while handcuffed. The police were engaging in rioting by shooting tear gas, marking spray, and making arbitrary arrests.
The government and the police could end this standoff right now if they wanted to — release the video, and the facts will speak for themselves. That is what they did in Boston.
In June, Boston's district attorney released a grainy video from a fast-food restaurant security camera the day after police shot terrorism suspect Usaama Rahim. Authorities said he had threatened retreating officers with a military-style knife before being fatally shot.
The footage, community leaders said a day later, contradicted the claim by Mr. Rahim’s brother that he was shot in the back while talking to his father on the phone.
In the meantime, numerous eyewitness accounts corroborate the fact that Clark was shot after he had already been subdued.
“There were literally dozens of witnesses looking from the apartments,” she wrote. “The crowd said that the police already had him down on the ground when they shot him. I heard a shot and got there within seconds. All the witnesses were yelling they shot the man while he was already down and handcuffed.”
The fact that this video is not being released suggests there are certain elements within the Minneapolis PD who want the turmoil to go on. There are too many departments who see their role as protecting the government against the people, rather than protecting the people against criminals.
There were numerous civility police online last night lecturing people about proper behavior. But I will not take lessons from civility police given the double standard under which they operate. I notice that the civility police are noticeably absent when the police engage in much worse behavior. When people have been exploited in this country since 1619, they have a way of being a little bit upset. Certain people complained because they didn’t get a good night’s sleep. But that is nothing compared to the fact that Blacks have been treated as second-class people in this country for almost 400 years.
Many civility police claim to be progressive, yet their version of it is, if you shut up and be a good little puppy, I might give you a bone. It is really interesting how Mayor Betsy Hodges, who was elected on a supposedly progressive platform, cut and run and was nowhere to be seen last night after her presser. While she has said and done a lot of the right things, she has an obligation to talk with the protesters and give them a reason to believe that things will be better for their children and grandchildren. (Edit — To her credit, she did meet with them this morning). By contrast, Bobby Kennedy, at great personal risk, took to the streets in Indianapolis following the shooting of Martin Luther King and successfully quelled potential race riots there.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King -- yeah, it's true -- but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love -- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.
Mayor Hodges doesn’t have to be Bobby Kennedy; she simply has to do what she was elected to do and lead, not cower in fear. Indianapolis was one of the few cities that night to remain quiet on the night of King’s assassination. Kennedy again:
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.