Best of 2020: Examining How Racial Biases Play Into Systemic Racism | Zerlina. | The Choice

Zerlina Maxwell looks back on some of her best interviews of 2020, including a discussion with National Voter Protection Action Fund Founder Don Calloway and Princeton University Department of African American Studies Chair Eddie Glaude on police brutality against Black Americans and the need for police reform.

Former British Soldier Charged With Murder in ‘Bloody Sunday’ Massacre

The soldier, identified only as Soldier F, was on Thursday charged by prosecutors in Northern Ireland with two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder for his alleged role in the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in Londonderry.

Thirteen civilians were killed when British Army paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march in Northern Ireland’s second-largest city, also known as Derry, in one of the bloodiest and most-contested episodes of the sectarian conflict known as the Troubles.

Yet news of the prosecution was met with dismay in London, where many lawmakers are deeply uncomfortable at the idea that former military and police personnel face the threat of legal action for alleged offenses committed decades ago in the heat of the conflict.

Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said the government will pay Soldier F’s legal costs and pledged reforms to ensure former soldiers aren’t “unfairly treated” in investigations into Troubles-era deaths. The government has yet to publish firm proposals but ideas floated include a statute of limitations to limit prosecutions.

“Our serving and former personnel cannot live in constant fear of prosecution,” he said.

The charges represent the culmination of a fresh police investigation into Bloody Sunday triggered by a 12-year inquiry into the events of Jan. 30, 1972, that in 2010 concluded the victims posed no threat and the killings were unjustified.

The inquiry overturned an earlier report that had cleared the soldiers of wrongdoing and blamed the march’s organizers.

What happened on Bloody Sunday boosted support for the Irish Republican Army and intensified hostility toward the British military, deepening the violent conflict of the years that followed, the 2010 inquiry concluded. It called the events of that day “a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland.”

Former Prime Minister David Cameron, in office at the time the inquiry published its conclusions, apologized to the victims’ families.

In the latest investigation, the actions of 16 other soldiers and two IRA members were also revisited but prosecutors said a lack of evidence meant no other charges were brought.

Soldier F has been charged with the murder of James Wray, 22, and William McKinney, 26, prosecutors said, and the attempted murder of four others wounded by gunfire.

In successive probes, Soldier F and others testified that they shot at people in possession of bombs or firearms, claims roundly rejected by the inquiry.

At a press conference in Londonderry, relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday expressed disappointment no other prosecutions were brought, though they welcomed the charges against Soldier F for the deaths of Mr. Wray and Mr. McKinney after their long campaign for justice.

“Their victory is our victory,” said John Kelly, whose brother Michael also died on Bloody Sunday.

Why I Changed the Way I Write about Police Shootings

Most cops do what’s right. Many cops are extraordinarily brave. But I also think the best evidence indicates that race is more of a factor in modern policing than I wanted to believe. I also think a pro-police bias has infected our criminal-justice system — including the way juries decide cases — and that pro-police bias has helped bad cops walk free. Moreover, there are legal doctrines that need to be reformed or abolished (such as qualified immunity, but that explanation requires a whole separate piece). And there should be a culture change in the way officers are taught to perceive risk, a culture change that thoughtful veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars could help initiate..

Riots are vicious and wrong. Cop-killers are depraved. We should defend, not disrupt, the nuclear family. We should tell the truth even when the truth hurts our own side. Racism still plagues our land, and race too often plays a pernicious role in American policing. It is not “open season” on black men, yet too many bad cops go free, and too many black men die at the hands of the state. Our laws and culture grant the men in blue too much latitude and too many privileges. All of these things can be true at the same time. All of them are true at the same time. It’s the immense and monumental American challenge that we must deal with them all at once.

The Worst Police Shooting Yet

First, police sources are reportedly indicating that Guyger may actually try to raise the fact that Jean didn’t obey her commands as a defense. It’s not a defense. The moment she opened the door to an apartment that wasn’t her own, she wasn’t operating as a police officer clothed with the authority of the law. She was instead a criminal. She was breaking into another person’s home. She was an armed home invader, and the person clothed with the authority of law to defend himself was Botham Shem Jean.

.. when all the available evidence indicates that a cop acted outside of her lawful authority, she should receive none of the courtesies and advantages so often extended to members of law enforcement. She’s a citizen, like any other, and it is hard to imagine — again — that if the roles had been reversed Jean would have enjoyed several days of relative freedom before he was arrested and booked. He’d have been in handcuffs that night, and rightfully so.
..  Juries credit officers for their fear without properly determining whether that fear was “reasonable.” And thus we’ve seen the sad spectacle of a mistrial after a cop shot an unarmed, running man in the back; the acquittal of the Minnesota cop who shot Philando Castile as Castile was doing his best to comply with the cop’s panicked, conflicting demands; and the acquittal of the cop who shot a sobbing Daniel Shaver as he crawled on his hands and knees, begging for his life.
.. Indeed, the justice system is often so stacked in officers’ favor that they enjoy qualified immunity, a judge-made rule that blocks even civil lawsuits against those who make dangerous and deadly mistakes.
.. We ask police officers to be brave. We ask officers to face a much higher degree of danger than civilians. We ask them to show restraint even in the face of provocations and tense confrontations. There are countless among them who do all we ask, and more. But we also ask something else: that police officers be subject to the very laws they’re sworn to enforce.