Today is not the day for “maybe there’s more to the story”. You cannot fabricate a context in which kneeling on an unarmed man’s neck – after handcuffing him, as he begs to breathe, until he passes out – becomes justified. The man is now dead. We don’t know what he did and we don’t need to know because we can believe our own eyes. We can see the cruelty.

If you are one of the people saying “there’s more to the story” you are contributing to these horrific killings. By perpetuating the idea that anything justifies this level of cruelty. I know a number of decent courageous police officers and members of law enforcement that would never ever do this. Ever. They are tough as nails and equally courageous but aren’t capable of this kind of callous behavior. It’s not “inevitable” or “unavoidable” or the result of fear or provocation. It’s selection.

Training. Discipline. Honor. Responsibility. Missing.

Departments that will not address core problems – allow these officers to continue until their flaws prove fatal. Too late.

We have a broken and lethally flawed law enforcement system – flawed in design, flawed in selection, flawed in training, flawed in practice.

When dangerously flawed people are the ones who show up in response to the overamped 911 calls like the one made by the woman in Central Park – black and brown lives are at risk.

If someone takes their rage and twists it into helplessness to manipulate a dangerous response from a flawed system….I see it as aiming a loaded gun at a person. That’s what she tried to do. By fabricating “assault”, lying to a dispatcher, she pointed a weapon at an innocent man.