Politicians Decry Cop Killings, But Protect The Police At All Costs

It’s now a bit of a cliché to dwell on how rote and standardized our response to mass shootings has become—the thoughts and prayers tweets, the anguished public statements, the debate over how much to focus on the killers, the demands for change, the sinking feeling that nothing much will ever change. We all know the drill. But the same kind of leaden routine happens when the police kill a Black person in America. The president issues a statement decrying the killing but urging people to stay calm. The victim’s family is interviewed about their incalculable grief, often accompanied by Benjamin Crump, the most prominent lawyer fighting police brutality. The police say that this is not what “good policing” looks like, that the officers disregarded their training, that no decent cop would ever approve of something like this. The mayors and governors and congresspeople vow to press on with some grand new “reform” that will finally make cops behave themselves. Protesters take to the streets, flanked by a sea of cops tasked with controlling the people’s rage. And then things subside.