to catch a civil rights violating police officer...

was watching that pantheon of journalism, dateline nbc, this evening as they once again aired a "to catch a predator" i was amazed at what the officers allowed them to show the world.

this time they were in georgia dealing with the usual crop of sad men showing up to have sex with underage girls and/or boys (this is where you can insert your "they are sex predators...i don't give a shit what they do to them...they should just take them out back and shoot them" bullshit...no worry that it is incredibly un-American and goes against everything this country stands for, really, the same with the fight against terrorism [it is no "war"]...the best way to save a democracy must be to limit it like fascists of the past)...the first six or seven were the run of the mill men (interestingly enough, pretty much plain white bread). then things got interesting...

a black man showed up and immediately discovered the camera crew so he took off running. as he got out to the front yard, still running, the badges came out with weapons drawn screaming at him to get on the ground. after taking a few more steps he stopped in his tracks, turned to face the officer slowly and raised his hands well over his head. once he had completely stopped moving and was standing there facing the officers with his hands well above his head, the lead officer decided he was just too much of a threat (never mind that any movement to a weapon would have given police more than adequate time to appropriately respond and that this one man was already surrounded by a handful of officers with weapons drawn)...so he popped him in the chest with a taser.

dateline nbc showed this to the nation...myself included...and i, for one, was horrified. here was an incredibly blatant example of overzealous police crossing the line and using illegal force against a suspect that posed virtually no threat whatsoever and dateline was proudly desplaying it without a mention of the civil rights violation that just occurred in front of our eyes. here was dateline glossing over the fact that the man had stopped, slowly turned, and raised his hands while surrounded by several officers and only pointing out that he ran earlier.

interestingly enough...the next man to be shown also took off running. when officers ran at him yelling for him to get on the ground he took one knee and immediately put his hands to his waist (conveniently where any weapon likely would be hidden)...and the police simply walked up to him and helped him to the ground, not even that forcefully. he happened to be a white guy.

not that the criminal justice system is not insanely racist at about every step of the way...but seeing those events presented that way makes one stop and say "hmmm"...