Sunday, October 11, 2015

Walter Scott shooting: Family agrees $6.5m settlement Jasmine Rodriguez Period 4

This article is about an unarmed black man (Walter Scott) being shot by a white police officer. The black man was running away after the police had asked him for his paper work. The police officer asked him to not leave his car, but Scott had left his car and ran away. This is one of many cases in which an unarmed black man died during an encounter with a police officer. Footage of the police officer shooting Scott 8 times was gotten from a video taken by a bystander. Because this encounter has happened a number of times, the issue is continuing to gain attention across the nation.

This was a terrible incident, but not one that hasn't happened before. Part of this relates to the amendment of the "right to bear arms", and that background checks should be made more severe in order to have access to a gun, but because the gun was in the arms of an authority, it raises a different kind of issue. There is a possibility that police officers are not given training with enough rigor, or that the qualifications may not be of high enough standards, given that being a police officer may not be seen as "glamorous" of a profession as it may have once been (when being a "protector" of a society gave a person a higher status).

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34483291

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