So what does it take to not be shot, beaten, or tased by police in America? It’s simple. Be a white teen driving a BMW. The police will pamper you like you didn’t do anything wrong, even if you actually nearly killed other people and assaulted one of their own. When Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed a black teenager named Michael Brown, he did so even though Brown had done nothing wrong and wasn’t a suspect in any crime. Furthermore, he had his hands up. But Wilson killed him anyway. On Thursday in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, a white teen named Sarah Culhane plowed her BMW into three cars in three separate incidents and injured a woman in the process. However, police treated her far differently than they would have treated a person of color in similar circumstances. They didn’t tase her despite the fact that she put up a fight. They didn’t beat her. And they didn’t shoot her even though she kicked an officer in the head. She actively resisted arrest and committed several crimes. But all police did is wrestle her to the ground, arrest her, and haul her to jail. It’s great that police showed considerable restraint, and they should be applauded for it. But this is yet another prime example of how police treat white citizens differently than they treat citizens of color. If Sarah Culhane had been young black male, police would have assumed the BMW stolen and we could very well be talking about another incident of police brutality or another unnecessary police shooting. However, Sarah Culhane isn’t black. She’s a white teen girl in a BMW. Can’t you just see her getting away with her crimes due to an “affluenza” ruling from a judge? She currently faces charges of “aggravated assault, accidents involving injury, resisting arrest, red light violation, driving at unsafe speed and reckless driving.” If she were black, she’d be sentenced to perhaps many years in prison, kinda like Marissa Alexander getting 20 years in Florida for being a black woman who merely fired a warning shot to stop her abusive husband while George Zimmerman got off scot-free for shooting and killing a black teen who did nothing wrong. How about if she had been a black TV producer who has a nice car? Well, she’d be arrested, denied her rights, and held in custody for nine hours while police refuse to view surveillance footage that would prove her innocence. Or if Culhane was brown, she would have been forcefully arrested like a female human rights attorney in New York who was simply waiting for her family to exit a restaurant bathroom. The way law enforcement and the justice system treat whites compared to people of color is horrendously unfair. Should police have shot Culhane to make it fair? Should they have roughed her up? Of course not. But showing the kind of restraint they did in this encounter for all citizens would be a nice change. addictinginfo.org/2014/09/07/police-dont-shoot-bmw-driving-white-teen-who-committed-three-hit-and-runs-and-assaulted-officer-video/
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 03:17:45 +0000