General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Justice for Tamir Rice! 12 year old shot and killed for a BB gun. [View all]zazen
(2,978 posts)I get that police would feel threatened and that a bullet from a 12-year-old is the same as from a 40-year-old, physically speaking, but if a 7-year-old girl is on the playground and holding what looks to be a gun, why not shoot her too? Would they handle the situation that way? What about a four-year-old?
The thing is, at some point, we expect people, including police, to assess the intent, capacity, responsibility, etc. on the part of the "gun" holder and in the case of a 7-year-old to think of ways to disarm them that don't include killing them. In fact, the first goal I thought was to disarm them to protect them from harming themselves.
My concern is that they unconsciously imputed intent to an African American male (and then went to fear, and then went into hyper defense, and thus went into aggression) in a way that they wouldn't with a blonde 12-year-old girl.