Cops Should Not Kill Kids. Period.

Police shooting victims are disproportionately non-White in general, Among those under the age of 16, only about a quarter were White.

Today we are going to post a little rant called:

“Cops should not kill kids. period.”

It might seem silly that there is anything more to say- it seems pretty obvious, right.

Like when would it ever be okay for a full grown trained professional police officer to kill a child, one who is probably afraid and far less skilled with any weapon- compared to a trained professional.

We have seen cops take child killers away- look at any school shooter story where the shooter did not kill themselves. These mostly white teen boys are taken peacefully by the cops, even though they have automatic weapons.

Now look at Adam Toledo. 13. dropped the gun after racing away on foot. Dead. and the cop now walks away.

Let us look at Mak’hia Bryant. Also 13. In a fight with a group of girls and she did pull a knife- but the cop just shot her.

We posted both these stories online and boy did people come up out from troll bridge to defend the police.

Our continual response was “would this have happened if they were white?”

and while these privileged folks claim it would. We have not seen the evidence to believe it.

In fact:

“research shows how police officers might overestimate the age of non-White suspects suggests that officers might perceive more significant threats in the moment than really exist.”

We see violent white kids and adults, disarmed and de-escalated daily.

and we see dead Black and brown bodies. Some who were actually sleeping while killed.

So, really, we should say “cops should be trained to kill people equally if they have to.”

it would be nice to live in a world where cops did not kill anyone.

That all their funding went to such comprehensive physical and mental training that they were prepared to de-escalate nearly every situation. But that is a rant for another day.

Today, we grieve the loss of Adam, Mak’hiah and all the other kids taken too soon by those paid to protect them.

*Statistics & quotes from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/16/police-have-fatally-shot-22-children-under-age-16-since-2015/