Turn the record over

I know this one by heart.  White cop shoots unarmed Black man (in the back, repeatedly) while his children watch.  Protesters take to the streets, some missiles are hurled, fires are started.  Police, now accompanied by National Guard, fire tear gas and rubber bullets.  Shooter is placed on paid vacation administrative leave.  Governor promises investigation.

Details may vary.  The victim, Jacob Blake, is not dead but may be paralyzed below the waist.  The city is Kenosha, Wisconsin.  The three sons are traumatized.  Oh, yes, there's video.  Expect the violence to come up at the Republican Convention -- not Mr. Blake's predicament, the fireworks and bottles lobbed at law enforcement officers.  This is why we all need more and bigger guns, because they hate us and want to destroy our wonderful country and kill all the police and abolish god.

A few bad apples.

I don't believe that sensitivity training or community relations or even weeding out racists is the answer.  The problem is the nature of policing itself.  If you want a job that gives you a gun and a club and pretty much carte blanche to do whatever you like with them, you probably should not be a police officer.  Consider a career as a mercenary.  Learn Turkish and apply to be a prison guard.  Have you thought about professional wrestling?

We need police.  No one has proposed that police be abolished, no matter what you have heard from certain unhinged politicians.  What we need and deserve is better police.   No self-pitying sadists need apply.