Just two seconds

Submitted by Matthew on 14 January, 2015 - 11:08 Author: Gemma Short

In the first week of January, the full video footage of the police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice was released.

It reveals for the first time the treatment Tamir’s 14 year old sister Tajai received. Tajai was in a nearby playground when she heard a shot. She was told by someone that Tamir had been shot. She rushed to his aid. The video shows one of the officers tackling her, handcuffing her and stuffing her into the back of the police car. She was denied the ability to comfort him in his last moments and treated like a criminal.

The footage also confirms earlier evidence that shows that Tamir was shot between 1.5 and two seconds after police arrived on the scene. Yet the officers say that they ordered Tamir three times to put his hands up.

The #BlackLivesMatter slogan is an expression of the social conditions for black people in the US, the politics of police militarisation, and continued and pervasive racism; everything that led Ohio police officers to shoot Tamir after just 2 seconds.

High profile figures including baseball and football players, one CNN anchor team, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and even various right wing politicians have taken up the slogan or raised questions about the legitimacy of verdicts not to indict police officers involved in the murder of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. However, the CNN news team who held their hands up and held an “I can’t breathe” sign on 6 December were condemned for not being “neutral” and some sports stars were disciplined by their team managements.

Many mainstream newspapers have run extended coverage of the legal cases and protests, and many have run investigations which expose interesting facts. Many of these show what many already know, but discussion at a wider national level is invaluable.

The Washington Post ran an investigation of how overpolicing of black communities for minor traffic offences is used to create revenue for the state through fines. The same policy has also been highlighted time and again as a policy of escalation and racial profiling that leads to murders like that of Eric Garner.

The Twitter hashtag, and protest rallying slogan, #BlackLivesMatter, has been voted the word of 2014 by the American Dialect Society, reflecting the effect the protests have had on discussion of race and police violence in the US.

#BlackLivesMatter fundamentally questions how American society is run.

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