Maryland —  Where Black Lives Meet Blue

In August 2014, teenage thug Michael Brown was shot dead by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. For the usual suspects, Brown’s appalling antecedents were not the issue, neither was the reasonableness or otherwise of his summary execution, all that mattered was that Brown was black and Wilson was white.

Two days later, a white man was shot dead by a police officer in Salt Lake City with even less justification, none in fact. Dillon Taylor had ignored a request to stop when challenged by Bron Cruz. The fact that Taylor was wearing headphones and had his back turned to his murderer made no difference. That cold-blooded execution, which was captured on film, resulted in no action being taken, the imbeciles who control the American criminal justice system ruling it justified.

On January 25, the American police finally found a case in which the execution of a member of the public by an agent of state repression was not justified when a black suspect, his hands cuffed behind his back in the front seat of a police car, was shot dead by a black police officer.

William Green had been arrested after crashing his car, or the car he was driving. He appeared to have been under the influence of drugs. He was shot dead by Michael Owen. And get this, Owen shot him no fewer than seven times. In spite of the circumstances of this execution, the police might well have rubber stamped it as justifiable homicide, but for once the man at the top did his job. Chief Hank Stawinski of Prince George’s County claimed to have spent the 24 hours following the shooting in constant contact with the investigators, forensics people and medical examiner. This resulted in him making this statement:

“I am unable to come to our community this evening and provide you with a reasonable explanation for the events that occurred last night.”

He made that statement twice.

Even so, although he is currently behind bars, Owen (pictured above) has been charged only with second degree murder rather than first. It would not be proper to comment further on this case, because even a suspected serial killer is entitled to a fair trial, but it can be pointed out that William Green is not the first person Owen has fatally shot.

Moving from the specific to the general, there is enough evidence to prove that in general the American police are poorly trained in the use of firearms, specifically that they have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions as an afterthought. Admittedly, America’s unique and insane gun culture does tend to encourage this, but if you want to see a shocking contract, compare any of the countless such shootings that can be found on YouTube and Liveleak with the professional 2013 takedown by armed police officers in London of two terrorists who had minutes earlier murdered Lee Rigby on a South London street. These men, who might have been wearing suicide vests, ran directly towards the police, who had every right, some would say duty, to shoot them dead, yet they didn’t. If the British police, whose use of firearms is infrequent, can stop two extremely dangerous individuals under those circumstances, the American police have no excuse, ever, for their wanton spree of reckless executions.