politico | After police in Kenosha, Wis., shot my 21-year-old son to death
outside his house ten years ago — and then immediately cleared
themselves of all wrongdoing — an African-American man approached me and
said: “If they can shoot a white boy like a dog, imagine what we’ve
been going through.”
I could imagine it all too easily, just as the rest of the
country has been seeing it all too clearly in the terrible images coming
from Ferguson, Mo., in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown.
On Friday, after a week of angry protests, the police in Ferguson
finally identified the officer implicated in Brown's shooting, although
the circumstances still remain unclear.
I have known the name of
the policeman who killed my son, Michael, for ten years. And he is still
working on the force in Kenosha.
Yes, there is good reason to think that many of these
unjustifiable homicides by police across the country are racially
motivated. But there is a lot more than that going on here. Our country
is simply not paying enough attention to the terrible lack of
accountability of police departments and the way it affects all of
us—regardless of race or ethnicity. Because if a blond-haired, blue-eyed
boy — that was my son, Michael — can be shot in the head under a street
light with his hands cuffed behind his back, in front of five
eyewitnesses (including his mother and sister), and his father was a
retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew in three wars for his
country — that’s me — and I still couldn’t get anything done about it,
then Joe the plumber and Javier the roofer aren’t going to be able to do
anything about it either.
