Letters to the Editor

Letter: Police brutality and body cameras

The Springfield, Illinois, police body camera video of a benign Sonya Massey being shot in the face from close range by Sean Grayson, an Illinois sheriff’s deputy, is the most outrageous example of police brutality I’ve ever seen, including that of a troubled but obviously harmless nephew, shot in the eye with a rubber bullet by a casual group of Fargo, North Dakota, policemen who clearly used the occasion as a SWAT-team type training exercise.

It’s frightening that such a crude and brutal person as Grayson could possibly qualify as a “law enforcement” officer. Apparently manpower strapped,bigcity police agencies are desperate enough to hire any hulking warm-body available in order to intimidate and control the criminal elements; but when confronted with a generally law-abiding citizen who insists on being treated with the

dignity normally accorded a human being in this country, the result is often catastrophic.

The police, trained in the modern style to perceive even the most innocuous sign of verbal obdurance or reluctance as a potentially mortal threat to their person, immediately shift into killing mode. Couple that forceful reaction with the individual callousness of Sean Grayson, and often the result is an unwarranted and unwise police escalation of a situation, culminating in murdering an uncomprehending citizen.

In Springfield, Illinois, the emancipator Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, it seems the police response to black women can be more dangerous than any criminal threat. Obviously, Massey would have fared better if the dispatcher had simply ignored her initial 911 call.

This type of incident seems endemic, these days, and should prove conclusively the value of mandated police body cameras.

— Larry Slone

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Homer

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