A sheriff’s SWAT deputy shot and killed an unarmed black man in Clair-Mel last week. The context sounds all too familiar. Uncertainty and spontaneity were key factors.
The white deputy initially couldn’t locate the suspect in a bedroom. Then he jumped up and reached toward his waistband. Then the deputy fired a fatal shot. Then it became known that the suspect was unarmed.
Predictably enough, the shooting has enflamed tensions. There have been street demonstrations and protests–as well as calls for calm. The Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office is investigating. And once again, there will be demands for accountability and appeals for “conversations” on police deportment in minority communities.
The refrain is as familiar as the scenario is tragic.
But it’s worth asking how all of this came down. SWAT-team need is much more the exception than rule.
As it turns out, an undercover operation had determined that the suspect was selling marijuana. A search warrant brought police. Suspicion that the suspect might have access to guns brought the SWAT team. The rest is loud speakers and the exit of three adults and a child–but not the hiding suspect. That caused the officers to break through his bedroom window. Then what can go wrong, went very wrong.
Look, no one can say for sure where an incident or arrest warrant will lead–and police, as we know, can be targets themselves. But we’re not talking violent felon or would-be terrorist here. Selling pot–or illegal cigarettes on Staten Island–should not be an exercise in zero-sum, confusion-shrouded overkill for anyone. If community policing isn’t smart, prioritized policing, it’s unnecessarily dangerous policing.