With all due respect, you guys don't know what you're talking about.
Yes, America has a gun problem, and I'd rather be hit with a baton by a UK police officer who's unarmed, than shot by a US police officer who's armed. We're in this situation and I don't see guns disappearing overnight. But that's not the main reason why people are up in arms over this.
People are up in arms because black people are disproportionately killed by police officers, and have been for many years. Dismissing that as a slant, and dismissing decisions that destroy families and communities as "a product of the environment" is incredibly ignorant.
Look at the statement the officer made, where he rapidly came to a heinous conclusion regarding Castile's threat level, based on his appearance (shock horror) and the smell of marijuana, a smell that his partner did not corroborate (shock horror). It goes without saying that the vast majority of cops (including the ones on here and ones I've met, interacted with and have been arrested by) do not think like this, but for feck sake, how low is the margin of error for black people that someone can get lit up in a car if he does not throw his keys on the dashboard, keep his hands on the wheel, and slowly say "sir yes sir", actions that the average white person in America cannot relate to? Heaven forbid that I'm driving in a neighborhood and all police officers are advised to be on the lookout for a "black male with a beard between the height of 4' 6'' and 6' 8''," and during a traffic stop I sneeze or stumble while getting out the car. I wish I could say that was me joking.
I totally agree but you're simplfying the point and marrying two problems that are related but not the same. You only have to look at the numbers that support all that, it's a fact that black people are more at risk from police in certain circumstances in the US, though numerically it can be skewed from place to place.
Police profile. They have to, police in the UK do it. Police everywhere do it. Part of the job. Humans everywhere do it everyday too! It seems all too often to be deeply flawed in the States and given an unbelievable weight but it happens in the U.K. Without the constant threat of guns and violence it never or very rarely gets to such a dramatic and tragic point but it starts in exactly the same way.
I may be shouted down but I would also argue that it doesn't always revolve solely on race. An officer will judge a person by the colour of the persons skin, their size, their tone, their manner, face tattoos, clothes, haircut, accent, religion and innumerable other things before he every really gets any fact. It's not necessarily wrong to do so, or at least it's almost unavoidable not to. It centres around what an officer does with those preconceptions, in of themselves they aren't even really unhealthy in my opinion but it seems, certainly in the footage here that the officer has let those preconceptions come to the front and dominate his process, he hasn't been objective or challenging and has allowed, in my opinion complete and utter fear dictate his off the charts response. It's wrong, it's manslaughter imo at the least and I'm convinced it would be that at least in the UK court system, but that in itself is a pointless argument really.
All those factors that will influence someone before they really interact with the person are to be taken with a massive pinch of salt but everyone will do it, UK, US, police, civilian. It's part of an assessment that happens in milliseconds before you even really talk to the person.
If the US wasn't the way it was, with regards to access to guns, it would likely play out like most European countries, much much much lower rates of fatal shootings and miscarriages of justice, but it still happens the same way, in the beginning, it's the response and end product that's different.
My point is that the US exists in a vacuum, at least among '1st world countries'. You simply cannot detach the gun control and crime rate issues from the topic and say this is just about race, imo.
Please don't confuse that with me saying there is no problem around race. Clearly there is! But it's amplified and made deadly by other issues too. I'm not seeking to justify the actions of these particular cops, I don't think anyone can, but I do think the issue is over simplified and forcibly put into just one box, and in my experience people who just want to view it in a wider context get shouted down and told they know nothing by people who are admittedly more directly affected, easy for me to say as a white man in the U.K., I know.
Please don't tell me I know nothing, it's neither true nor fair.
