Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
Eric Harris was pulled to the ground by several police officers. An officer then shot Harris while he was facedown. As the unarmed man lay dying, he wailed in terror “Oh God, he shot me!” and “I’m losing my breath!”
Cops, after yelling “Motherf***er!” at him, replied angrily, shouting “Shut the f*** up!” and “F*** your breath!” Another officer violently pushed his knee into Harris’ face as life quickly left his body.
Video was captured of the incident.
After Harris was killed, Sheriff’s Capt. Billy McKelvey claimed the shooting was “an inadvertent mistake.”
Many Americans are not buying this explanation, pointing out that, if police murdering unarmed Black Americans was truly “an inadvertent mistake,” it would not happen almost every single day. In the 102 days from January 1 to April 12, 2015, US police killed at least 325 people – at a rate of more than three people per day. These victims are disproportionately people of color.
In the wake of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing – just one in a wave of police shootings of unarmed Black Americans – Police Sgt. Jim Clark claimed that the cop who killed Harris is not only completely innocent, but is in fact himself the victim.
“Reserve Deputy Bates did not commit a crime. Reserve Deputy Bates was a victim, a true victim of slip and capture,” Clark said. “There’s no other determination I could come to.”
By declaring the police officer who killed an unarmed Black man the “true victim,” US police are only further verifying what civil rights leader Malcolm X warned about more than 50 years ago, in the early 1960s:
The police … put their club upside your head and then turn around and accuse you of attacking them. Every case of police brutality against a Negro follows the same pattern. They attack you, bust you all upside your mouth and then take you to court and charge you with assault. What kind of democracy is that? What kind of freedom is that? What kind of social or political system is it when a black man has no voice in court? Has nothing on his side other than what the white man chooses to give you?
My brothers and sisters we have to put a stop to this and it will never be stopped until we stop it ourselves.
They attack the victim and then the criminal who attacked the victim accuses the victim of attacking him. This is American justice. This is American democracy, and those of you who are familiar with it know that, in America, democracy is hypocrisy.
Before you go — An urgent appeal for your support
Truthout relies on individual donations to publish independent journalism, free from political and corporate influence. In fact, we’re almost entirely funded by readers like you.
Unfortunately, donations are down. At a moment when our journalism is most necessary, we are struggling to meet our operational costs due to worsening political censorship.
Truthout may end this month in the red without additional help, so we’ve launched a fundraiser. We have 4 days and still need to raise $32,000. Please make a tax-deductible gift to Truthout at this critical time!