“Black lives don’t matter, and neither does video.”
The trial of the killer cop who shot an unarmed black man named Walter Scott is off, hung jury. If the videotaped killing of Walter Scott wasn’t shock enough, the hung jury certainly suffices. The images are, to say the least, chilling.
A middle-aged black man is seen fleeing in terror from a calm, younger white man. The man appears to be one not accustomed to running easily, yet he is running—away from the calm-faced white man. The white man pulls his weapon, aims, and fires, shot after shot after shot after shot, eight shots in all. The black man in the bright green shirt crumbles to the earth and dies. The white cop calmly bends over and picks up a box with wires and walks over to the body and drops the box down.
That video apparently wasn’t enough, at least to one of the jurors who promptly refused to convict ex-cop Michael Schlager of the killing, hung jury. The murder of Walter Scott caught on tape proves, if more proof be needed, that black lives don’t matter, at least for a juror at his murder trial. and guess what. Apparently videotape doesn’t matter when a black man gets killed by a white cop.
Remember when MOVE member Delbert Africa, unarmed, was beaten, punched, kicked, and stomped by white cops in Philadelphia? A white judge dismissed the videotape evidence of his beating and dismissed an imported jury and acquitted three cops. The beating and kicking of Rodney King on tape by the LAPD, remember? A predominantly white jury ignored the video and acquitted the cops. The Black Lives Matter movement exists because, well, black lives don’t matter—even if it’s shown on video tape.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
