This wednesday an officer of the Chicago police force fatally shot a local African American teenager named Kajuan Raye. Though never proved to be doing any illegal activity the teen was approached by the police officer when he met the looks of a suspect for a "battery in progress" in the area. Upon the cops arrival he ran. The cop justifies his action because he claims Raye pointed a weapon at hime twice throughout the chase. However after a thorough search of the area no evidence of Raye's weapon has been found. His family also testifies that he was not the owner of any sort of gun. Over the week suspicions have risen about whether or not the cop's decision to shoot was justified.
This article was written by Amanda Watts from CNN. Over the past few years many shootings similar to this one have occurred. A recent study showed that at least 74% of Chicago police shootings/ violence in the last eight years have been toward African Americans. Though some of the actions may have been justified, I feel that this is evidence of racial profiling in the criminal justice system. Since no evidence of Raye's weapon has been found this case may be another instance of rash police violence. I think that this article was written in order to raise awareness in the community about the justice system we abide by. This case can be synthesized to that of Laquan McDonald, another Chicago teen killed by police brutality two years ago. His case involves the officer in question falsely testifying about the situation and later being contradicted by video footage of the shooting. As the case develops it will become clear if this is a similar situation.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/25/us/chicago-police-shooting/index.html
Why does this keep happening?! It's very sad that you can synthesize this event to a multitude of things that happened within the past few years.
ReplyDeletePolice brutality has to end. We can conclude that most of the victims are African Americans. You can't possibly tell me that African teenagers are the only ones to commit crimes. Not only that, but the crimes that are committed, are they worthy of being fatally shot? The answer is not always yes. The cases that have been at the forefront lately have been instances where they didn't do anything wrong. This proves racism still exists and police brutality needs to end.
ReplyDeleteThis is just really sad overall for all those lives lost from this its horrible! Im really grateful for all the great police force we have in America who keep our nation safe, but it really upsets me when bad police have shot innocent people that isn't right police brutality needs to stop!
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