Wednesday letters: Let justice run its course in shooting

An April 13 guest column (“Change laws, change attitudes”) by Alyssa Richardson made it crystal clear that white folks are not the only racist bigots in South Carolina. Yes, it is a true horror to see a human being, regardless of race or sex, purposely shot in the back. But in any criminal or civil violation of law, we should always let the justice process run its course, and this did not happen in Ferguson, Mo. The #HandsUpDontShoot campaign was based on a total untruth.

As a self-proclaimed civil rights activist, but apparently not for everyone, Ms. Richardson seems to support changing laws and procedures to favor those who refused to obey lawful commands of a police officer. Ms. Richardson asks “How do we stop the violence ex ante?” and my answer would be to simply obey officers. Since Ms. Richardson is knowledgeable about the mental and physical condition of the “nervous and fearful police officer” with a preconceived notion that black men are dangerous, maybe she could be employed by some public safety agency to screen white applicants to weed out undesirable candidates. To state that police officers have the perception that black people are inherently dangerous is a racist and bigoted opinion.

Given what little I personally know of what happened in the North Charleston shooting, yes, this was a horrible act by a police officer. The officer is in jail awaiting trial. Let justice run its course.

Ms. Richardson put forth a lot of what’s wrong with our public safety procedures, but I failed to detect a single positive suggestion of how to resolve the the problems she listed.

West Columbia

This story was originally published April 28, 2015 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Wednesday letters: Let justice run its course in shooting."