South Florida cops claimed they were “forced to fire” at a 32-year-old Black man named Donald Taylor in August because he was armed and would not follow commands.
But newly surfaced video contradicts those claims, showing the Black man walking away from cops with his hands raised to his sides showing no gun in his hand when a Hollywood police officer fired a single shot as Taylor had his back turned to the cops, killing him.
there’s a lot of good replies here that approach the issue from different angles. the biggest one being “who benefits from mass surveilance.” in this current climate, that is the cops. the cops have spent the last 15 years showing us that they are not accountable to anyone or anything. you propose that video evidence will help hold cops accountable. my issue is that we already have video evidence in many cases and they’re still not. take it back to Rodney King, if you want. the cops have never faced consequence even when it’s clear they’re in the wrong.
so then what happens with more surveillance availabe? the police have an easier time carrying out their activities, which so often includes extra judicial killings. the reason us americans are wary of expanding the surveilance state is we’ve been doing that every year since 2002. none of us are safer. the extrajudicial killings have not stopped, they’ve only gotten more visible and are used as a form of terrorism. i understand where you’re coming from that you find our attitude odd, but a lot of it stems from first hand experience that more evidence of police wrongdoing continues to not bring us closer to any police reform