It’s as if 2020 never ended. We’re in the middle of yet another riot season that resulted from a suspect resisting police arrest who was tragically shot. This time Duante Wright, who had a warrant out for his arrest for attempted aggravated robbery, tried to jump into his car and drive away while he was being arrested. Unfortunately, the police officer who discharged her weapon thought she was shooting her taser, not her firearm. I am not here to defend that mistake, but rather the overall societal trend of undermining policing. The rioting, burning, and looting cities after one of these events is simply reflective of a choice society made in 2020.
Our society had a choice to make. We could either, 1) instruct police to not detain a suspect when he or she resists arrest, or 2) conclude that police must arrest a suspect, even when he or she resists arrest, and understand that sometimes that will lead to a suspect being hurt or killed when they resist.
In Schuburbia, choice #2 is a clear choice. Wright was wanted for brandishing a gun and choking a woman inside her home and demanding her to give him money. Wright was, put simply, a violent criminal. Police are able to see what a person is wanted for when they initiate a stop and see that the person they are stopping has a warrant. So, the officers knew who Wright was and what he was accused of doing. Understandably, they would be on heightened alert. When that type of suspect resists arrest, force will happen. It has to. Otherwise, a man who choked a woman and used a gun to demand money inside a woman’s own home will be released back into the public. That cannot happen in a civilized society. The risk of him being shot, if he resists, is a risk worth taking.
For whatever reason, however, the left is embracing number #1. Led by Black Lives Matter and Antifa, and instigated by the liberal media, we have movements to choose #1. First, politically, the left is committed to defund police. They would rather there not be arrests at all. Socially, these movements put pressure on police to think twice about using the force necessary to effectuate an arrest. The left simply calls for the officer to be fired or charged with a crime and they loot and burn the community. Liberal prosecutors, in turn, don’t even prosecute those who loot and burn. Through legal, social, and political pressure, the left is intentionally choosing #1. And, it shows. The murder rate, which was driven by liberally run cities, increased by historic levels last year, after all.
Now, I realize some will say that the two choices paradigm oversimplifies the issue. Some will say that there is a racial component that must be factored. However, choosing to not make an arrest or use the force necessary to make an arrest because of the suspect’s race is still choosing #1. A suspect wanted for what Wright was suspected of doing should not be allowed to simply drive away. It doesn’t matter what race he is.
Others might argue that we have to address the disparity between officer shootings involving minorities and white suspects. However, this is really a separate discussion from my choices. But, in responding to this criticism, in my experience handling police use of force cases, the race of the officer and the race of the suspect were almost interchangeable. The most brutal case I handled involved a white officer and a white suspect. The use of force by police is almost always driven by the circumstances much more than race.
Therein lies the key. We must look to the individual circumstances of each shooting before getting up in arms about it. Here, a mistake was undoubtedly made. However, the video of the shooting (I won’t attach a link to that one) clearly shows that the officer did not intend to use her firearm. It was not a racially motivated shooting. It wasn’t even a motivated shooting. And, in most of the shootings in the news that have led to riots over the last year, the officer was justified in using the firearm. Yet, cities burned anyway.
In 2020 we were presented a choice. The modern left chooses #1. The modern right chooses #2. Society chose wrong, and we will continue to suffer for it, sadly.
