The shooting of an unarmed woman who led authorities in a car chase in Washington, DC on Thursday showed the typical “shoot first” mentality of US law enforcement, Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition told RT.
“This is the case of another senseless killing by the police,
by trigger-happy cops who resort first to firing their guns,
first to killing, and asking questions later,” Becker,
director of the Washington-based Act Now to Stop War and End
Racism Coalition (ANSWER), said of the killing of unarmed 34-year-old Miriam Carey.
Carey, a dental hygienist of Stamford, Conn., ran into barricades
Thursday afternoon near the White House before speeding down
Pennsylvania Ave. towards the US Capitol Building. Her unharmed
one-year-old daughter was a passenger in the vehicle. The chase
ended when Carey rammed into barricades near the Capitol. As she
exited the vehicle, she was shot dead by surrounding police.
“So if her car is disabled and the Sergeant-at-Arms says
there’s no possible way for her car to pose a danger to Congress,
why then did [US Capitol Police] open fire?” Becker asked of
details that remain unanswered about the aggressive police
response in the highly-fortified area that is Capitol Hill.
Becker said the punitive reaction by law enforcement is all too
common, both in Washington, DC and around the nation.
“The police in Washington and around the country have a
license to kill,” Becker said. “They know there’s never a
prosecution. And as we saw in Congress, the Congress members just
cheered. They cheered over this slaughter.”
RT:You’re based in Washington, DC What’s the reaction
to this shooting incident? Is there an element of uneasiness
about it?
Brian Becker: I think many people here in Washington, DC
feel this is the case of another senseless killing by the police,
by trigger-happy cops who resort first to firing their guns,
first to killing, and asking questions later. This woman was
clearly unarmed. We know that now to be the case. You see the
video footage of her hitting a barricade in front of the White
House, which is now reserved for pedestrian use only, not
vehicular traffic. She’s from out of town, she may have panicked.
She may have been confused. She may be mentally ill. We just
don’t know that. But you see there’s five or six police officers
just inches away from her head with guns drawn, and that’s when
she starts to flee. She runs from them, she’s running away. And
they start opening fire. There’s a lot of people around, lots of
tourists, lots of people working in the Washington, DC area. And
they keep shooting, and finally when her car is immobilized,
she’s riddled with bullets by the police. Now, Terry Gainer, who
is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the US Senate and formerly the chief
of Capitol Police, said yesterday there was no possibility at all
that she could have gotten access to the Capitol grounds because
there are so many barricades. So if her car is disabled and the
Sergeant-at-Arms says there’s no possible way for her car to pose
a danger to Congress, why then did they open fire? It’s because
they shoot first, ask questions later. The police in Washington
and around the country have a license to kill. They know there’s
never a prosecution. And as we saw in Congress, the Congress
members just cheered. They cheered over this slaughter. And it
really was the slaughter of an unarmed black woman in front of
her baby.
RT:Well, the police have said there will be an
investigation, but has there been a media outcry over this
incident?
BB: The mainstream media really becomes a sounding board
for, or the voice of, official politics and official power. And
now the message over and over again is the message of the police:
They were grand, they were courageous, they were doing their job,
they protected the politicians. People are used to the official
version coming through the mainstream media, but I can tell you
in the streets in Washington, DC, particularly in the African
American community - this woman was a black woman - that there’s
lots of skepticism, because they know, people know from their own
firsthand experience that the police have the right to abuse and
kill in Washington, especially against black people. And there’s
a lot of skepticism, a lot of fear that this too will be covered
up, that there won’t be a serious investigation, it’ll be the
police investigating themselves.
RT:Bearing in mind what happened in Boston during the
marathon, and then of course the 12 people dying in the Navy Yard
killing not long ago, it’s hardly surprising that the city is
going to be on edge, isn’t it? So the police would perhaps be
expected to react. But you’re saying they overreacted to this.
But it is in an area of intense security, a very highly sensitive
area right on Capitol Hill.
BB: Right, and for that reason, no car can actually get
through the barricades. So somebody could drive into a barricade,
but there’s no possible way that car is going to proceed to the
White House and do harm to the President or to Congress, as we
know, again, from the Sergeant-at-Arms in the US Senate. The
police can always use the rational that it is tense, that these
are highly secured areas, that that’s why they must shoot first
and ask questions later. But there were many, many other ways to
disable that vehicle, to have stopped it. She was unarmed. She
had a baby in the backseat. They didn’t have to resort to, first
of all, to shooting her. And we don’t know the whole story yet.
Was she stopped first, before that first barricade, by an
undercover police officer? There are some stories that say that.
She may have been panicked if she saw someone not in uniform
approaching her or threatening her. And if she was suffering any
sort of stress or mental problems, you can see how under those
circumstances, how something could be triggered. We just don’t
know the details, but we do know the police always resort first
to shooting. And in the United States, thousands of people die
every year because of the police.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.