WHY "POLICE RACISM" HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

As the controversy continues to rage over the killing of a black cop in Harlem by a white cop, msnbc.com had an excellent explanation written by "Venusta" on why "police racism" had nothing to do with the officer’s death. Here is that explanation:

msnbc.com
06/02/09

A HARLEM TRAGEDY AND ITS EXPLOITERS: OFFI8CER’S DEATH HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE
By Venusta

The fatal shooting on Saturday of New York City police officer Omar Edwards by a fellow officer is an unbearable tragedy. Officer Edwards was an honor to New York. As a child growing up in Brownsville, he loved the NYPD and determined early on to become a cop; he recently married the mother of his children and was looking forward to a life together with them. All New Yorkers grieve for Officer Edwards’s family and friends.

But Officer Edwards’s death was not an instance of police racism (Edwards was black; the officer who shot him was white), however much the usual suspects—the New York Times, Al Sharpton, Charles Rangel, New York City Councilman Charles Barron—despicably try to portray it as such. And though painful to consider, it appears at this point in the investigation that Edwards’s own actions in the heat of the moment, while understandable, may have put him at greater risk of friendly fire.

At around 10:30 PM on May 28, Officer Edwards was leaving a police station on E. 124th Street in Harlem after work. He was wearing street clothes. He spotted a man trying to steal his car’s GPS system and initially grabbed him, but the thief wriggled free and took off down E. 125th Street. Edwards gave chase and pulled out his gun.

Three plainclothes officers in an unmarked car observed the chase and noticed that the pursuer had a gun drawn. They stopped to intervene; two officers grabbed the perp, and the third, Officer Andrew Dunton, yelled to Edwards: "Police! Stop! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!" according to the NYPD. Instead, Edwards wheeled toward Dunton with his gun still in his hand, and Dunton fired off six rounds, killing him.

At first glance, the charge that the Edwards shooting exemplifies police racism looks like the familiar conceit: when white officers see a black man with a gun, they assume that he is a criminal. But within that conceit, in the present instance, is another idea: that the burden rests on an officer confronted by a man pointing a gun at him to disprove that the armed man is an undercover or off-duty police officer before legitimately using deadly force in self-defense.

Thus, this line of reasoning goes, since Officer Dunton did not establish that Edwards was not a cop, he should not have fired his gun. And the reason that Dunton did not bother to establish Edwards’s identity was that Edwards was black.

This implicit argument is absurd. Within the split second available to him, an officer staring down the barrel of a gun cannot possibly gather the evidence to rule out that he is facing a fellow cop before firing. If the department’s version of the events is confirmed, Dunton did everything he could under the circumstances, and everything he was trained to do: identify himself as an officer and shout for Edwards to drop his gun. When Edwards instead spun toward him, Dunton had no more time to ask: "Are you a police officer?" and wait for an answer.

That Dunton’s perception that he was facing an armed perp turned out to be sickeningly wrong does not mean that it was not justified under the circumstances—especially since Dunton had just observed Edwards chasing another man down the streets of Harlem, where such episodes involving criminal gun use happen with far greater frequency than they do 50 blocks south.

As for whether Edwards was justified in taking out his gun while chasing the car burglar, the police department leaves it to the judgment of an officer regarding when to unholster his gun. Officers are allowed to draw and point their weapon when they have a "reasonable belief" that they might have to use it—such as when confronting a known violent offender. Presumably, Edwards perceived a threat from junkie Migueal Goitia.

Yet officers are also taught that they should not come within striking distance of a suspect with their weapon drawn, except in the most extreme circumstances, a teaching that Edwards presumably would not have followed had he caught up with Goitia.