Where is a child safe if not in a playground?
[Op-Ed]
We are again troubled with the news that a police officer –Tim Loehmann– will not be indicted for the killing of 12 year old Tamir Rice because one witness claimed- the boy may have posed a threat to the community.
According to some- playing outside with toy guns- now means that you are a threat to society and officers now have the right to shoot you dead on the spot. I thought we were making progress when it came to police brutality?
How can any minority family of Cuyahoga really have confidence in this police force or the judicial system?
A police force that has a history of excessive use of force, hired a person who has had an excessive use of force history, and had a prosecutor — Timothy McGinty– who worked closely with the department, thus influencing the outcome of a grand jury.
Somehow when BP does an oil spill; we do not allow BP to investigate itself, we punish them for their bad actions with fines, and they are shamed- but police departments are expected to give an impartial investigation into their own actions? This is one of the myriad of problems which plague the judicial system in this country.
And yet when civil rights leaders bring up the inherent bias, partiality, and outright racism within the system we are told to “stop playing the race card”: as if to say that we enjoy fabricating inequalities just for the sake of playing the victim?
As CEO of the New York Urban League- I encourage leaders of other states and localities to take courageous step to police the police the same way Governor Andrew Cuomo has done in New York.
But until then, I and the other Black leaders will not be silent until the one third of our so called “democracy” finally catches up with the rest.
Arva Rice
President and CEO of the New York Urban League
