Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., who was mistakenly killed by authorities.
Demonstrators gathered outside the mall on Saturday to protest the all too familiar circumstances of the shooting: a young African American man killed by police officers under a questionable premise. They criticized the police as being racist and called for the arrest of the officer who shot Bradford. The name of the officer in question has not been released by the police department.
This incident demonstrates two important issues American society faces today. In 2018, there have been more than 300 mass shooting incidents and the issue of police shootings continues to be prevalent. In this incident were police justified to make a hasty decision in shooting an armed individual to try and prevent more casualties, or was this driven by racial bias? Should police officers not have access to lethal firearms? If police are limited in their ability to fatally shoot people, will that cause mass shootings to become even more deadly because authorities will be limited in their response? What steps need to be taken to reduce gun violence as a whole?
SOURCES:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/us/alabama-mall-shooting.htm
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/24/us/alabama-mall-hoover-shooting/index.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46333970
https://www.foxnews.com/us/alabama-mall-shooting-leaves-1-dead-2-wounded
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
I agree with what you said in your presentation that there are way too many shootings and something needs to be done. I like your artwork too. It really drew a picture of what happened.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the police should have at least tried to de-escalate the situation, instead of just shooting a person with a gun. I think that this situation also brings up the issue on gun control and if we had stricter laws would that lead to less mass shootings?
ReplyDeleteI think police officers need to get the situation straight before shooting. It's not necessarily limiting the firearms of police that would solve this problem. I think to reduce gun violence, there needs to be more gun control within the public.
ReplyDeleteThe police officers shouldn't have made such rash decisions, and definitely shouldn't have killed Bradford. Even though the situation was dangerous I believe that the officers may have jumped to conclusions because they are trained to make decisions in life or death situations on the spot. But maybe they could've shot Bradford in the leg to take him down instead of a just killing him on the spot. All the details aren't known so the full story is unknown.
ReplyDeleteI think it is very unfortunate that police shot the wrong man. I do not think this is totally driven by racial bias because he did have a gun. I do think that police officers should have checked to make sure they had the right man before shooting. I think that lethal firearms are an important use of force for police in order to have the ability to take down a mass destruction situation. To reduce gun violence, I think that people should be held accountable for their actions and that there should be more regulations with gun laws. Along with that, police officers and other people carrying weapons of deadly force should be mandated to take classes about gun safety.
ReplyDeleteEven though the officer was thinking about quickly taking down the shooter in order to prevent more injuries, his decisions was based on racial profiling and his own perception of an African American man with a gun. The police should’ve told the guy to put his hands up first, then see how he reacts in order to make the decision of whether he’s the shooter or not. It’s even more messed up that the person that was shot was in the army. The murder of innocent people because of their race has happened way too often. The police need some serious training about how to not racially profile a person.
ReplyDeletePolice were not justified in making a hasty decision, although not many people were injured, it is more dangerous that the man who did fire the gun is still on the loose. I think it is better to enforce stricter gun laws in general. If people have a harder time getting access to guns, there will be less and less shootings that occur. Right now I don't believe it is that difficult for people to get a hold of a gun and in some states they even allow people to carry them in the public. Stricter laws would slowly cause the police to no longer carry armed weapons.
ReplyDeleteThis is a tragic event that could have been prevented. If police did not have any firearms, how would they protect themselves from people who truly have bad intentions who ARE arms? Maybe we should have even more hurdles in the way of obtaining a firearm for citizens, and as for police, maybe we are going to be reduced to running a racial bias test of some sort. I'm not really sure what else we can do, but something should be done.
ReplyDeleteWith all the mass shooting happening lately you would think there would be a change in our system . I believe to help reduce these tragic event we need to change the mindset of new generation of police .
ReplyDeleteAllica santos
I'd say this is upsetting as police have a record of killing innocent African Americans. I think it was also wrong there was gun violence to begin with and the police officer probably acted without thinking, but it was still not right as two negatives doesn't make it right. Instead of shooting the mean to death there could've been another method that would've stopped the shooter temporarily instead of taking his life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said during the presentation, the issue of police shooting continues to be prevalent.
ReplyDelete-Carol
I think there still is racial profiling and bias towards African Americans and the police should be more observant in those types of situations. Lethal firearms should be used more wisely, however it is difficult to say if such weapons should be withdrawn from officers since they are used to protect the police from threats. Mass shootings are increasing and police should be more cautious after responding to such emergency calls.
ReplyDeleteI'm not entirely sure what steps need to be taken to reduce gun violence as a whole, but I think having our president acknowledge this as an issue is a step. -Michelle
ReplyDeleteThis is nothing that we haven't already seen before. With that said, I think it is important to start bigger movements to prevent incidents like this from happening again
ReplyDeleteI think the police should be armed and I understand that sometimes they have to shoot fast to prevent further harms,but one mistake can take away another person's entire life. If we had better gun managements then maybe people won't have guns on the streets all the time. Furthermore, there should have been better communications between the police officers. Nevertheless, I think there is still racial profiling and our officers need to realize that this is not okay and stop discrimination.
ReplyDelete