Don’t blame Alton Sterling’s death on Alton Sterling

Take a moment and read this post.  (click there)

I’m not a law enforcement officer. I have friends who are. And I respect them greatly.

Living in NYC reminded me not all cops are the good guys. I learned this about 15 years ago, but that’s a separate post. Cops aren’t all good guys any more than veterans are all heroes.

I have friends who aren’t as comfortable walking down a city street as I am; friends who worry about how their sons are perceived by police officers based on their skin tone.

That pains me.

They fired six (6) rounds into him at close range (near point blank) while he was pinned to the ground.

By Hollywood standards, that’s an execution.

I watched both videos; one last night and one tonight. Last night I cried. Tonight I vomited.

The one released today is as gruesome as some of the footage we culled in Afghanistan for use in our IO projects.

More so, really, when you factor in it’s an American being executed by an American. In America. Because AMERICA should be better than this.

And yet.

Here we are. Again.

We’ve got access to some of the best technology in the world (I have friends who worked to develop some of this technology) but the initial and almost immediate message released was “both of the officers’ body cameras fell off.”

Really? Both cameras fell off? Really?

Thank God for cell phones.

This is not OK.

Please don’t suggest he brought this on because he didn’t stop struggling. That’s like saying it was my fault I was raped because I was drunk.

There are many narratives but “he should have stopped struggling with the cops” isn’t the answer.

I don’t have a solution.

But we have a problem.

Writing,

JH