Recently prosecutors led a grand jury down the path of yet-again not charging a police officer who killed an innocent person with any sort of charges.
In that particular case, police were trying to serve a warrant and went to the wrong house. While there, they shot the man's dogs. They allege the man then pointed a gun through a crack in the door at them, and they had to shoot him. However, the bullet hole was in the back of the man's head. He was also found in another room near the door, but not by the door. Only one officer shot the police, despite a number of them being there to serve the warrant.
In another case, police killed a kid who was backing his vini-man out of his parents' garage. Video can be viewed here and here.
In another case, police shot the home owners instead of the intruders.
When you look at the numbers, out of 162,000 cases in which grand jury indictments were sought, only 11 grand juries did not indict. So, roughly 161,989 did result in indictments. However, when the topic becomes indicting police officers, those numbers almost flip. Out of 81 possible police indictments between 2008 and 2012 in Harris County, Texas, there was only one indictment.
There is a disconnect here and police are getting special treatment. This special treatment is not going to cause any positive change or cause the police to think twice before firing multiple times into a slow moving mini-van. The private law suits for damages against the police forces do nothing to the individual officers, who usually just get paid time-off. When it comes down to it, these law suits are more likely to be ultimately funded by tax-payer dollars.
There needs to be real and lasting consequences when someone is killed or maimed. Otherwise, it will simply continue to happen.
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