Ta'Kiya was a mother of two and was expecting another child who did not survive the shooting either. Her family, devastated by the news, have called for legal action and urged the indictment of the officer as he exhibited a "gross misuse of power and authority." The police station defended the officer, stating that he was assaulted since she began moving her vehicle towards her, however, when additional body cam footage was released on September 8th, it showed that she was moving her vehicle slow enough that she could have been peacefully coerced out of the car had attempts been made.
The abuse of power and authority within the police force is no news. It seems to be a frequent issue, and although it's impossible to know the race of every single victim of a fatal police shooting, the available data seems to show a clear disproportion between Black Americans and any other race. Statistics currently point to the fact that Black Americans are twice as likely to get shot by a police officer compared to white Americans, as well as twenty percent more likely to get pulled over. Systematic oppression against Black Americans has been a recurring pattern since even the building of this country, resulting in large movements like Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement. Still, justice seems to be in short stock when incidents like these keep happening.
The job given to police officers is the responsibility to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of their inhabitants. People’s interpretation of that has become a large political debate in recent years, and many call for reforms within the police force. The divide of opinion seems to be very clear, with conservatives leaning more on the police force’s side and liberals on the victim's side.
The future of the officer is still unclear, but Ta’Kiya’s family hopes to get justice.
Abby L
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/09/08/takiya-young-shooting-police-rights/
https://www.vox.com/2023/9/8/23864415/takiya-young-police-shooting-ohio-body-camera-footage
8 comments:
I completely agree that somebody should take action against the police officer who killed a young black expecting mother by using unnecessary force. I think the other police officers present should also be involved because it didn't seem like they tried to prevent this from happening. It does seem as if every time we find out about police brutality, it is usually a person of color, but more often than not, it is someone who is black. Even after the nationwide Black Lives Matter movement, it seems as if the issue of police brutality doesn't seem to improve whatsoever. Whenever I see news about a black person murdered due to police brutality, I wonder why there haven't been changes made to the requirements aspiring police officers have to meet. This is such an unfortunate event as she was also probably an excited expecting mother to welcome her third baby into this world, but she was also a loving mother of two young boys who would have to live the rest of their lives without her. The fact that nothing is being done about this is appalling and disgusting because, without change, this is inevitably going to happen sometime in the near future.
The justice system has a history of misuse of power. A persons life will never be worth something a person steals. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a government cite, under ten percent of the police force is black. This gives evidence to bias in power. Minority groups are not well represented in power. This means that over and over again, they are silenced and abused. The Black Lives Matter movement pushes to bring justice and freedom to black people. Moving back, Emmett Till was murdered by two white men for allegedly whistling at a white woman. To spread awareness and get justice for her son, Emmetts mom took the case to trial. The jury and judge were white and the men who murdered Emmett were free. Injustice is repeated in the justice system as law enforcement diminishes black lives. Abby evidences police brutality being unequal for white and black people. The rule of law has not been followed as non-white lives do not have equal law enforcement to white lives.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/fleo20st.pdf
Police brutality has been a large issue for years now. This abuse of power in the regulating force can be seen as a violation of the rule of law. The second interpretation of rule of law, according to the Free Dictionary is "no public official may act arbitrarily or unilaterally outside the law". The officer in Ta’Kiya’s case, and the ones in past cases such as George Floyd, have been acting outside the law. In every case some form of media, whether it be from a bystander or the officer's own bodycam footage, is physical evidence of the need for police reforms, as stated by Abby. It is not simply in cases like these that result in deaths, but also a higher rate of Black Americans being pulled over simply for driving. The officers involved have yet to face any backlash. One has already been reinstated while the other is on PAID administrative leave. Even with the underlying political debate that Ta’Kiya’s death sparks, the facts don't change: a mother and her unborn child are dead. Her family deserves justice and closure.
I genuinely do not understand why Conservatives so often excuse these horrendous actions committed by our police force. When the murder of George Floyd reached national headlines, some Conservatives made the argument that since he had drugs in his system and also had a criminal background his death should not be respected. Additionally, another argument that I have seen from Conservatives was that of the incident with Tony Timpa, a white man who fell victim to a police brutality event. They argue that although Timpa died at the hands of a police officer since he was white, his death did not receive as much attention, and therefore the racial bias in police brutality is overblown and an exaggerated problem. However, proponents of these arguments fail to realize that police officers are still killing people! Innocent people! At some point, it is not even a racial issue, but a police enforcement issue. These cops hold way too much power over the people, and we as an American people must unite to solve it.
The abject terror that law enforcement and the police have inflicted upon black communities in the US is becoming increasingly terrifying. While there have been some instances of it reaching national criticism (like with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor), these instances of public outcry rarely translate into the enaction of concrete change as a society and as a country. These acts of violence also have the deeply unsettling implication that agents of the American state are essentially able to do whatever they want without consequence; they can kill and terrorize entire communities, and they will rarely face more than a slap on the wrist. The degradation of the rule of law and the lack of accountability from the judicial system in this country is deeply concerning and must be altered in order to maintain a just and civil America.
I don't understand how even after so many cases like this and even more cases that go unheard, there have been no real steps taken toward fixing the issue. Yes, I understand that it is a systemic issue and it cannot be changed overnight, but right now there seems to be no progress being made towards even reducing police brutality. How many more African American lives need to be tragically lost till something is done to properly address this injustice?
It really is quite sickening how these incidents happen over and over again, with no real and permanent solution in sight. It's especially damning considering that this is after the massive protests and public outcry in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. There don't seem to have been any meaningful steps taken towards reducing the power and impunity of police in the USA, and I fear that this will continue to spiral out of control if there isn't an attempt at forcing accountability. I just don't know how that can come about. The protests in 2020 were able to affect some small local change, and those protests were huge. I wonder what it will take to effect change at the federal level.
I agree that this officer abused his power in a gross manner. There was certainly much better ways to handle to sitution such as shooting the tires to make it harder to drive. The police force in America is meant to protect and serve the citizens of the US, but in recent years they seem to be using excessive force upon the same people they are meant to protect. I am tired of constantly seeing the police killing people when much better methods could have been used to stop them. It is scary to think that these people have so much power us being able to carry firearms and seemingly legally kill us. I hope the family of Young is able to achieve justice in their trial, but unfortunately history would make it appears as this will not be the case.
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