A young black man was shot and killed by police in Philadelphia this past week. He was brandishing a knife on a city street and refused repeated orders from police to drop the weapon. When he advanced on the police, threatening them with the knife, they fired their guns, killing him in sight of his mother. She had apparently called 911 for an ambulance when her son began to wield the knife.
Now, all too predictably - and with some second-degree justification - the black community of Philadelphia is condemning the police and calling for an investigation. I call their outrage "second-degree" because they have every right to decry the all-too-frequent taking of black lives by the police. "Acting according to their training," has become the modern equilivent of "just following orders." In this case, however, given the video evidence, it appears that the police acted in a responsible manner consistent with their sworn duty to protect the public.
In other words: by all means let's keep a watchful and suspicious eye on the cops; they have too often gotten away with murder involving black people. But let's not make the mistake of insisting that every such killing is unjustified simply because the victim is black.
The fact is, if someone is waving a knife around on the street and refuses to disarm themself upon a police demand that they do so, and then moves toward the police in an aggressive manner with the knife in hand, they can and should expect the worst to happen. In fact, one cannot help but wonder if the man in this case knew exactly what would happen and received that for which he sought.
It's a shame this happened in sight of the man's mother. It's a shame it happened at all. But it seems, at this point, not to be the sort of egregious police action that calls for protests in the street or, worse, rioting six days before the election. As it is, we can expect Trump to try to make the most of this shooting. We can almost hear him crying from the flag draped podium: The blacks are coming for you with knives in their hands !
The smart thing is to channel our outrage into getting Biden elected and then working on police reform from a position of responsible influence and power.
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