roachboy

so what you are saying is that in the above scenario, lebell, it is tragic but understandable that the police would have shot this guy 7 times in the head and once in the shoulder?

i would agree with you if the outcome had been, say, that menezes been wounded--the cops were looking to stop him, he was fleeing, there was doubt. etc....
i would agree with you had the cops been in uniform and menez had been wounded.

but 7 times in the head?

that seems well beyond excessive, perhaps tipping into the pathological--that many shots in the head? for wearing the wrong jacket, jumping a turnstyle and not stopping when guys in regular clothes identifying as/claiming to be cops said stop? there is something really quite creepy about this.

i know that it is reassuring to imagine that the police etc. are somehow above the political fray, that they are not swayed in the performance of their duties by waves of hysteria that impact on others...but that is naieve. they are human beings and memebrs of the same communities as they folk they are to protect. they are affected by the same climate. i have to say i have a really difficult time not seeing in the excessive character of this killing a reflection of the wider environment. and that is really not good.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite