In addition to Bradford and Roberson, there was the case of the Dallas police officer who went to the wrong floor in her apartment building, apparently forced her way in to what she thought was her apartment, and killed youth pastor Botham Jean, who was watching football in his own apartment when the officer wrongfully believed that she was interrupting a burglary in progress[1].
On September 6, a white Dallas police officer shot and killed her black neighbor inside his own Dallas apartment, reigniting, once again, the debate around police racism and brutality in the U.S. In the police affidavit, which is based almost entirely off the cop’s account, 30-year-old Amber Guyger claims that she mistook 26-year-old Botham Jean’s apartment for her own and thought Jean was an intruder, leading her to shoot him twice. Witness accounts, however, contradict that narrative: Neighbors say they heard Guyger knocking on Jean’s door and demanding to be let in before the shooting. Today, Jean’s family, friends, and community members continue to mourn and rally to demand answers about how such a tragedy occurred.[2]
Yes, it is notable that all of these killers are white and all of the dead are young black men. This is not a coincidence. Something is going on that makes these officers literally trigger-happy when they’re in the midst of confronting a young black man.
You have cases such as John Crawford III, who was carrying an unpacked air rifle he’d picked up from the shelf at Walmart while he was shopping in Ohio (which is an open-carry state), and after someone called the police and falsely claimed he was “pointing a rifle” at customers, police arrived and treated the situation as if he were an “active
