Seattle Police Video Shows Tombstone Mocking Slain Black Teen

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Supply: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers by way of Getty Pictures / Getty

Here’s a query: If police violence, significantly towards Black folks, isn’t ingrained in America’s cop tradition, why are so many officers snug mocking Black victims of police violence?

Why have been Aurora, Colorado, cops so gleeful after they took photographs of one another close to a memorial of Elijah McClain reenacting the police chokehold that led to McClaine’s loss of life? Why can we preserve listening to about cops and their group chats sharing racist texts and memes about George Floyd and others who died by way of police brutality?

Now, in Seattle, Washington, a police division is underneath fireplace after a 2021 bodycam video obtained as a part of a lawsuit difficult town’s graffiti legal guidelines surprisingly (until you’ve been a Black individual in America your entire life) uncovered the décor in a police precinct, which included a makeshift tombstone mocking a Black 19-year-old who was killed by Seattle police.

From KIRO 7:

It’s a beautiful sight. Seattle cops, in a bicycle restore room on the East Precinct, casually strolling by a mock tombstone of Damarius Butts, a 19-year-old housebreaking suspect who officers shot and killed in 2017.

We watched as his mom, grandmother, and uncle seen the whole video for the primary time.

“No, I’ve by no means seen that video,” Stephanie Butts stated, with ache in her voice. “Like, you continue to gotta have a coronary heart. You do. You gotta have a coronary heart regardless. (I) simply don’t know what to say about that.”

The video additionally reveals a Donald Trump 2020 poster and a Black Lives Matter signal with what seems to be a pink hat hanging from it.

So, a whole precinct of cops casually allowed their working quarters to be embellished with a pretend tombstone mocking a lifeless Black teen (with a Black fist picture on the high), and a Black Lives Matter signal that was very seemingly being displayed satirically contemplating it was accompanied by what was seemingly a MAGA cap, which might make sense seeing as Trump by no means handed on a possibility to precise his contempt for the BLM motion. Additionally, there was a “Trump 2020” poster, and in case you’re shocked cops would have fun and mock Black loss of life, you is perhaps doubly amazed to be taught that racists are sometimes Trump supporters. (You additionally would possibly need to sit down earlier than studying about how moist water is.)

Anyway, Seattle’s mayor condemned the police division and its Glad Lynching vacation decorations.

Extra from KIRO:

Simply final March, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell requested a federal courtroom choose to elevate the 2012 SPD consent decree primarily based on a sample of biased policing and use of extreme drive.

“That erodes belief,” stated Harrell. “After we’re attempting to construct belief with our Police Division and the group.”

A clearly chastened Mayor Harrell stated the video calls for motion.

“I’ll assist an investigation to know what occurred, who knew about it, who ought to have recognized about it?” he stated.

Hopefully, there may be an investigation and it results in penalties for the officers chargeable for the shows. And by “penalties,” I imply, fireplace them. If a cop will casually mock lifeless Black civilians, they’ll additionally trigger lifeless Black civilians. That’s merely the way in which many people see it.