That is just sick...there are no words for how pissed off I am.

What in the world would make the police think that it's okay for them to go into a house where there innocent people especially children with guns blazing?...and then not only did they shoot a child twice, oh no the KILLED A WOMAN...wow...just wow...and then they wonder why the police are not trusted all the time

I live in Lima, lets look at the facts.
Tarika was with a guy who was involved in drugs. The police entered the house not knowing if weapons were present. Chavalia went upstairs were he saw someone that kept coming out of a door way. He could not see the person very well or what they were doing. Shots rang out and he felt threatened and returned fire.
The shots turned out to be officers downstairs shooting two pitbulls that were attacking.
Veteran SWAT officers at the trial said they would have taken the same action. One officers said the only thing he would have done differant is fire sooner.
The prosecution said it best. Chavalia saw a figure in the dark and could not see what that figure was doing. Was he suppose to wait till he was shot to return fire?
Tarika should have gone into the room and stayed until police got to her and her kids. Popping in and out of a door way, in the dark, while police were entering the house was not the smart thing to do.
Getting involved with a individual who was involved with drugs was also a dumb move.
Lets put the blame were it is due. With the boyfreind who decided to make a life with drugs instead of working like HONEST citizens.
This in not a race issue. It is a drug issue and the truth hurts. If there was no drug involvment this tragedy would not have happened.
I am sorry that a young mother was killed. It was her decissions that led to this moment. The police did not say, "Well, lets go see what black we can kill tonight." They were out doing their job.
I remember seeing a movie recently were a FBI agent was going through a house with pop up targets. He had to shoot the bad guys but not the good guys. As soon as a target pops out he shoots it. The a good guy pops out and he doesn't shoot. Guess What, that was hollywood. In real life cops do not know if the figure popping out is good or bad like a hollywood script. They have to make a split second decission based on the current situation. Most of the time its the right thing. Sometimes its not. Now that it is over we know he should not have taken the shot.
I cannot feel sympathy for people who knowingly get into illegal activities and then look for pity once they get into trouble. If you are going to blame anyone, blame the boyfriend.

I live in the Toledo area, and saw this on the news last night. Tarika's family is now filing a civil suit.

Miriam: I'm not in favor if victim blaming, nor am I a fan of cops in any sense; however, how is someone who disagrees with your stance on this going to express it? you've clearly laid down a situation where there is a "victim" and (in your words) a "murderer", you created the paradigm you defined the roles and.

So just say right here if you want this topic to be completely free from debate, it's your world we just post in it.

I hardly see how dating someone who deals drugs makes it o.k. to be shot and killed and have your baby shot. Nobody that wasn't in that house is probably ever going to know exactly what happened since police tend to stick together and the victim is dead. This does not mean that I believe the police are lying; it only means that there is no way to know exactly what happened. That said, to go into a house where you know there are children with guns drawn and bash in the door of the house for suspicion of a non-violent offense like drug dealing seems like asking for an incident like this one. The police are not supposed to be allowed to storm into houses and shoot anything they see moving on suspicion of a non-violent offense. As for the American history of drugs, drug laws and how we deal with drug offenses...I'm not even going to get into that one.

Miriam wrote
"The fact that Chavalia was acquitted speaks volumes. His actions were sanctioned by the jury. The take away message is that it's okay to shoot a black woman holding her child."

That is absolutely NOT what the jury said, and to say so shows a fundamental misunderstanding on how our justice system works.

The aquital means that the prosecution was not able to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer acted improperly. Depending on the juristiction you have to convince all 12 jurors.... that is a large task, and intentionally so.

The court system is suppose to give the accused every break it can. Remember Blackstones fraction, where it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than send one to jail. If that is one of your bedrock principles.

And they tried the guy. The prosecution could have not brought a case. Sometimes the evidence is not there, or the situation itself makes conviction unlikely.

Strip away all of Michaell357 insensitive comments. Police entered a residence of a drug dealer with weapons becuase allot of drug dealers are armed. They hear shots fired and one of them shot a figure (maybe in the dark, based on Michaell357 account).

In that situation, would a reasonable person have acted in the same manner? You have to convince 12 people the shooting was not what a reasonable person would do

Things like this happen more frequently than many realize. The DEA and local drug squads are notorious for using unnecessary violence, failing to identify themselves, and, apparently, they're also unable to read directions.

Here's a map of all of the botched police raids involving drug charges:

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

Jessica: It's hypocritical to state flat-out that someone was a "murderer" and then call a subsequent conversation respectful. That's starting off on the wrong foot.

Like I said, I'm not a supporter of cops and I'm very much against these "no knock" raids, but the OP stated as fact things which are not substantiated by evidence, only suspicion and bias.

Furthermore it is not unreasonable to question the choices the victim made which led up to becoming the victim. I'm not saying she didn't make the least-bad choices which were available to her, lets talk about a broken system where a mother finds it preferable to live in a drug house and assume the risks congruent with that lifestyle over whatever other options she had or didn't have as the case may be.

Asking if she was culpable in her own situation is not the same as the rape victim blamers who say "If she wasn't dressed that way/out that late/etc".

Right now the only absolutely clear-cut 100% liability-free victim here is the child who is now orphaned because of a lot of reasons, and if we were to look at all of the complex reasons "murder" which implies some kind of premeditation or willful desire to kill an innocent would probably not be in the top ten of those reasons.

i was wondering how long it would take for someone to come in and defend the cops. i would almost buy it - if it weren't part of a long history of police violence, particularly in communities of color, not to mention a strong racial element in the "war on drugs", which is not reflective of the demographics of drug users or dealers...

http://www.october22.org/StolenLivesProject.html
http://hrw.org/reports/2008/us0508/

forget, for a moment, that the story you told has the ONLY SHOTS FIRED being from police officers. let's just focus on drug use and why it is that the Bush (both George's and Jeb's) daughters have been arrested on drug charges, Lindsay Lohan has been filmed sniffing coke, Rev. Ted Haggart admitted to buying a ridiculous amount of meth and so on, yet you don't ever hear stories of rich white folks getting blown away with kids in their arms.

i've worked in drug treatment as well as in drug policy reform and the stats are pretty clear that drug use and drug business cuts across race and class lines roughly proportionally to our nation's general demographics. then why, please tell me, is it that poor people of color are the ones who are being shot up and then blamed for getting themselves shot?

like white folks don't make bad decisions? like white folks don't get high (mind you, every report i've read, save one on a neo-nazi site, says tarika wasn't even a user)? white folks don't go to strip clubs? white folks don't go out with the wrong person?

then why is it that the overwhelming majority of people shot by cops are people of color?

mind you, it's hard to find numbers on it for reasons outlined here (mind you, this is a NY story... just imagine how long it'll take to get reliable national statistics at this rate):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/nyregion/05police.html

and why is it that after there have been so many incidences of mishandled gun violence by police officers (diallo, bell, dawson, diaz...), you'd think there would be at least some steps toward training cops not to shoot women with babies. just a thought.

by the way, what's up with the last sentence in the NYT article? as a writer, or editor, you have the liberty to correct a person's grammar in an interview. that's why, when reading the newspaper, space isn't wasted by "um"s and "ah"s (unless there's an intention to discredit the interviewee).

Actually. I wrote it. I understand the justice system perfectly. To illustrate, let's consider this:

If a black cop shot a white woman and her child (and her boyfriend was a drug dealer) do we really think that he would have been acquitted?

This is a powerful heuristic to test the converse case leading to the conclusion that race (and class and all the bullshit that comes with the subaltern lived experience)is the distinguishing factor here.

Also - the fact that so many on this forum are ready to acquit the Sgt. all over again means progress is a long ways away, and apparently, as long as a black woman knows a drug dealer (what if her best friend's cousin's hairdresser knows one?) she can be shot while holding her child in her arms.

One thing that stands out to me about this post is the emphasis on the fact that the woman was holding a child. Does the fact that she had a child, that she was a mother, change things? It's tragic, of course. But mothers can commit crimes too; mothers can use their children as shields; the fact of her child did not make her a worse target. I would actually argue that this post perpetuates the idea of women's bodies as only for baby-making; it's written as though this baby added value to the woman. When we should be just as outraged if the baby hadn't been involved.

The second thing is that I am astounded at the censorship of the comments. I know sometimes people can post really egregious things on Feministing. I also agree that victim blaming is unacceptable. But let's talk about it. Let's talk about why some of us are blaming the victim and some of us aren't. Are we more likely to victim-blame when the person in question is black? Is a woman? Probably. Let's talk about it. Let's listen to the victim blamers so we can figure out where the problem is coming from, and show that there's a better way to think about the situation, within the context of a long history of police violence and racism. Banning victim-blaming because it's unacceptable is akin to banning abortion because it's unacceptable.

We get upset when people misunderstand feminism, but I'm beginning to see why they think we're censors.

The cop has a jury of his peers...an all white jury so I wouldn't worry too much about his fate. In fact what he has been charged with assures that if he is found guilty he will do minimal time. What I wonder about are her family and the people she left behind. Tarikas family is in pain and very few care, they are too busy victim blaming to think about the mother that lost a daughter and the son that lost a mother...but hey black women are disposable bodies anyway right?

"The cop has a jury of his peers...an all white jury "

The prosecution and the defense both get to pick the jury. Why are you not angry at the prosecutor for picking what you see as a biased jury?

Adrienne: Nice use of hyperbole and race-baiting all in one post. Now anyone who dissents has to do a gut check to see if they want to be called a racist or a police apologist or both. Too bad I'm either too sure of my own stance on race and the fuzz or too stupid to care what someone on the internet thinks of me.

As an avid reader of Bad Cop News I see instances where cops screw over all ehtnicities (including whites) and usually either get away with it cold or get remarkably less in the way of punishment than you or I would, and while POC do make up the majority of the victims of police abuse using unsubstantiated claims and incendiary language is going to invite both refutation and dissent as well as get in the way of getting rid of the filth and the one's who cover for them. It's divisive and obstructive to progress.

You make the claim of "murder" in your piece. As an expert in the justice system will you clarify this statement? Since I'm certain you're aware that the term does have an accepted legal definition.

"If a black cop shot a white woman and her child (and her boyfriend was a drug dealer) do we really think that he would have been acquitted?"

Umm, yes. But in the instant you discribed above people would be talking about "White Woman Syndrome" and the media.

A lot of people don't realize this, but the justice system is suppose to be there for the defendant.

They get to know their accusations, not just disappear one day, They get a trial, they get council, 12 people have to agree the accused is guilty.

If you say it is better for 10 guilty people to go free than one innocent man go to jail, then don't be suprized when that happens.

He was found legally 'not guilty'. Juries never find someone 'innocent' Given the facts he, and the black officer in you hypothetical should both have been found 'not guilty'.

You are assuming the officers had perfect knowledge when they take the shot, you are assuming that the court system tries them on the assumption they had perfect knowledge

You are assuming the officer was just there to shoot someone.

He shot three times. This was not a hail of bullets that typicaly gets in the news.

You are prejudging the officer. You are going off assumption with scant information.

No doubt, he fucked up. But I am not talking about him, I have been trying to get at you comments about the jury and what they "said" when they said he was not guily.

oooh, i missed a lot, there...

crazy cato institute page. wow.

logrus, i would say adrienne's one mistake was to use the term "murder" once. because murder has a very specific definition and this cop clearly didn't enter the house with the intention of killing ms. williams, i guess it would have been better to say "since the shooting death of..."

still, that one word isn't asking for a long rant on how the victim is responsible for her own death. that's just unneccesary and brutal and i think miriam and jessica are on point for asking that such blatant victim blaming be left out of any debate.

also, i'm surprised to see a condmenation of "incendiary language" coming from someone who, not so long ago, suggested send john mccain back to vietnam for more torture.

arguing that the police officer made an honest mistake, was under pressure, etc. are all germane to the conversation. arguing, on the other hand, that "blame is due" to ms. williams is, among many other things, disrepsectful to the dead. case in point: steven's argument - i may disagree, but he stated his argument without arguing that she had it coming or anything else that would make me gag.

finally, i understand that folks want a free and open dialog, here. however, if jessica, miriam, and the other feministing editors didn't control the comments, there would be potential for much more hurtful words to be spread about and that's not what this site is here for.

i'm not astounded. i've seen this site before they took a stronger hand in moderating comments and i think it's very much called-for. i also understand that there is a value to allowing all sorts of nasty comments on in order for an analysis of those comments; however, that can completely eclipse the discussion and drive away more substantive discourse.

newyorkred1, i think we can still analyze why victim-blaming happens without allowing people to drag dead people's names through the mud on the way there. further, the editors here do have a pretty light hand when it comes to moderating comments. just take a look around at posts from the past week or two. there are ground rules - and they're there for a reason - but these folks don't run roughshod over lively debate.

I'm talking about the social definition of murder, not the legal (unlawful killing of) definition. Let's keep it real, killing people is codified by laws - when it's justified society calls it something else to lessen the impact - I don't. Tarika was murdered (even if a jury from Lima disagrees) I'll be sticking with that assertion.

Thanks for the thoughtful discussion, especially into women's bodies. Would we even have had this discussion if Tarika's son hadn't been shot as well?

How much does a black woman matter, especially if she dates a drug dealer. Substantively (judging by media reaction and folks responses in this space and in general) = very little.

That's a fucking hard thing to live with

Along similar lines, I've also heard that African American people who go missing don't get as much press as white people who go missing. I don't have solid support for the claim, but an African American person once mentioned this to me.

puckalish: I'm not in the implied position of being a journalist and am certainly not asking to be free of criticisms for my comments.

Also that quote is lacking context, if the "murder" label was applied under the guise of satire, as my McCain statements clearly were, then I retract my response to it's use. Otherwise consider how many of us would respond tactfully to the misapplication of that same word to procreative rights?

Note: Feministing may wish to distance it's self from journalistic responsibility, but as a reader of this and other sites I would find that to be disingenuous. Many, possibly most, of us who come here to read and participate do so because we are well aware of how completely biased "legitimate" news agencies are (something this site often illustrates to it's credit) and we wish to be exposed to truth and fact in order to make our own minds up on important issues. Even the B/S news agencies carry an editorial warning about articles far less biased than this one.

And the banhammer threat gets used a lot, and it seems about 50/50 to be a tool to quiet reasonable (if sometimes poorly worded) dissent and to eliminate trolls and freepers. I find it disturbing to see the tactics of oppression and the militant Right used someplace which I would hope would strive for better ideals.

I understand what some people are saying: how police training decrees to fire in the sense of danger. Shoot first, ask questions later and all that.

BUT-
since it WAS dark and they COULDN'T see who was there or what they were doing, how is that a smart decision?

What if there was another child in the house? Who heard commotion and came out to see what was going on? Should s/he die because the light should have been on?

I would be more prone to believe the cops on this one if I haven't heard the same story so many times (Black kids with cell phones that "looked like a gun" being shot to death by a band of cops, etc/). If this sort of thing ever happened with persons of any other ethnicity, then maybe it would seem legit. I would never assume (nor want to) that the police would go out with the intent to harm or kill Black people. But I think it's very fair to say that most cops *assume* that a Black person is more likely to be carrying a deadly weapon or act out in violence. And that is still racism, like it or not.

And I do agree that saying something along the lines of "well, maybe she shouldn't have dated a drug dealer" does smack of victim-blaming*. Maybe it wasn't the wisest decision. But since she herself wasn't selling drugs, did she deserve what she got? (*However I don't agree with banning someone for saying it. It's not trolling, it is being said respectfully and we should welcome opposing opinions, not demand that all feminists use the same semantics and have the same attitudes.)

I'm looking at this story, and two things come to my mind. The first is that I live in Cleveland, and this is the first I recall seeing this story. I don't really focus on the news period, but I'm still shocked that with the nature of this story, I don't recall seeing or hearing it anywhere else. I can tell you all about that white woman that disappeared on a vacation, and she didn't even live in the same geographic region as me. I can also recall reading about recent local shooting rampages that took the lives of bystanders. And several military women killed brutally. I don't know if it's because she's black or female or lower class or linked to the drug industry, maybe it's internal -isms on my part or selective reporting on the medias, but I'm leaning toward a combination of all those factors.

The other thing I think is that I probably would have reacted the same way whether I was in the officer's or Ms. Wilson's shoes. I mean as the officer, I see a figure moving around in the dark house of a known armed criminal when shots ring out. Even with all the training to help deal with the stress of such situations, I'm not going to wait til that figure starts shooting at me. Not that she was doing this, but for all the officers know, any other adult in that house, and even children, are also capable of using a firearm, so upon entering this situation, I would assume that any adult sized figure would likely BE armed. If the roles were reversed, and I were Ms. Wilson, I'm scared because all the sudden a ton of armed people invade my space and I don't know if I should come out and say anything or hide and hope they don't see me. She was most likely moving around in the dark trying to understand what she was seeing and figure out what she should do when the gunfire started and the officer panicked and shot her. The sad thing is that now she's dead and I would have done the same things she did, if I am honest with myself.

I think you should mention that even if the cop was found guilty, the maximum sentence he faced was 8 months in jail. This kind of lopsided sentencing guidelines are a bigger issue than this specific case.

Not that you're looking for it, Logrus, but I completely agree with you about the banning. There's a difference between "that black bitch was stupid and deserved to die" and what was said, which was "Tarika should have gone into the room and stayed until police got to her and her kids. Popping in and out of a door way, in the dark, while police were entering the house was not the smart thing to do. Getting involved with a individual who was involved with drugs was also a dumb move."

The first is clearly inflammatory and doesn't belong here. The second, while discomfiting and possibly unacceptable, could have come out of a real misunderstanding about, well, racism and classism. (It definitely seems that way, from the comment about it being a drug issue rather than a racial one--drugs, at least in the Americas, *are* a racial issue.) Maybe the commenter really wasn't aware what a dangerous comment they were making about the woman's relationship--maybe she didn't have a choice to be with a drug dealer, maybe all the men in her neighborhood are involved with drugs. Maybe she loved him and was trying to help him into a better situation, and was really scared when the police entered and that's why she kept popping in and out. And, you know what, it is pretty dumb to get involved with a drug dealer. Saying that is not the same as saying it's her fault she died or she deserved to die.

I agree with the original post--something's fishy about this death. But the discourse about it within these comments is also a little fishy.

"I think you should mention that even if the cop was found guilty, the maximum sentence he faced was 8 months in jail. This kind of lopsided sentencing guidelines are a bigger issue than this specific case."
-Farhat

Look at the charges and then the definition under the state statute. What happened definitely not was Homicide/Murder 1st. That is a statutory issue, anybody charged with misdo negligent homicide may have faced the same sentence. I cant say because I don't know the sentencing guidelines for that state.

"I would be more prone to believe the cops on this one if I haven't heard the same story so many times..."
-danyll

If that is the case then you should not be on a jury for this.

How is this for a hypothetical.

A police officer shoots and kill someone.

If your first thought is 'Cops go wild again' you should not be on the jury

If your thought is 'it was probably some low-life who had it comming' then you should not be on he jury.

If you are thinking 'I need more info' or something along those lines then you may be a good candidate for jury selection.

One thing I have not heard about is what happened to this officers state/local law enforcement certification. What would you think if he was found criminally not guilty, but his law enforcement cert had been revoked? If he was forcibly retired?

I am offended that Adrienne seems to think that calling Tarika Wilson's death, "murder" is acceptable and that Feministing condones her choice of words.

Was her shooting a result of racism? Or was it the war on drugs (which seems to take a disproportionate number of black American's lives)?

Although I know that police officers have the potential to be racist/sexist/assholes, it does not mean that all of them are that way or that all of their actions stem from these personal flaws.

From the facts presented, there does not seem to be foul play, even though an innocent woman was killed.

But FYI, in 2007, 65 police officers were killed in the line of duty by gunfire.

"Along similar lines, I've also heard that African American people who go missing don't get as much press as white people who go missing. I don't have solid support for the claim, but an African American person once mentioned this to me."

Not trying to disrupt the main discussion here, but eve, you can confirm this by checking out "Black and Missing But Not Forgotten." You can find it at blackandmissing.blogspot.com. It gives a good idea of how underrepresented missing people of color are in our media. Another example of this would be the recent case of Rockefeller, a non-custodial father, abducting his seven-year-old daughter. Most children taken by non-custodial parents end up on Wal-Mart bags. This girl, however, was rich and white, and thus all of the main news stations are covering the story.

My question:
Did the cop ever make himself known to her or yell out a warning? Asking her to put her hands where he could see them or something would have likely caused her to yell back that she is holding a child. Which probably would have led the officer to lowered his gun. I feel like that would be the obvious thing to do when he saw a figure moving around in the dark, and was obviously unable to tell if it was male/female and armed/unarmed.

Also, it's a lot to tell women "don't date a drug dealer" when society is telling women to "stay with the father" at the same time. That's a painfully obvious double standard.

Logrus,

No one's asking for the conversation to be "free of criticism," just free of callously blaming a dead person for getting shot. There's a wide field open for criticism and certain people are able to navigate that field without venturing into a realm of saying "she deserved to be shot."

Oh, and for satire, you sure vehemently defended your McCain comment, backing yourself up by claiming that Nelson Mandela embraced torture as a tactic in the overthrow of the apartheid regime. You mounted quite a strong defense for a "satire."

All that said, for the sake of clarity, no one here is talking about "banning" anyone or even deleting critical commentary. The only thing Miriam and Jessica have offered to do is delete comments which cross the line from debate into victim-blaming. Considering that a mother and daughter is now dead, I'd say shaming her name is not really apropos to the conversation, regardless of what your point of view is.

And, Logrus, I know you like to hold your stance really strong, but try to calm your nerves first and work at understanding what that line is and why the editors here would like to draw it. I'd really like to agree with you on some things, but leaving the field open for disrespecting the dead is not one of those things.

Femgineer, you're right about the legal definition of murder. HOWEVER, Adrienne was clear in her subsequent comments that she was not referring to premeditation or any other legal definition of murder, but rather an emotional use of the term. She used the word "murder" to bring light to the fact that Ms. Williams' life is valuable, not to suggest that the officer walked into that house looking to end the life of a black woman. However, she does think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the officers (not just the shooter) went into that house, scared and unprepared, ready to shoot any person, particularly a black person, in there, which is a situation utterly defined by racism. I don't think "negligently manslaughtered" would be strong enough a term, but perhaps the proper term just doesn't exist for the emotional and factual content Adrienne was looking to convey.

Was her shooting a result of racism? Or was it the war on drugs (which seems to take a disproportionate number of black American's lives)?

These are great questions. Let's discuss them, not whether or not feministing has the right to moderate comments on their own site.

Also, according to a very conservative website, there were only 67 gunfire deaths of officers (including accidents) in 2007 (and 197 officer deaths, total, including due to illness):
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/police_officer_line_of_duty_deaths_up_sharply_in_2007/

However, according to the DoJ, there were 2,002 "arrest-related deaths" (only 1,095 were labelled "homicides", though) between 2003 and 2005... this would average out to 667/year:
http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/ardus05.txt

All those numbers tell me is that police work in a very violent environment. This colors their actions, but it also puts them at great risk. I don't know about country-wide, but I know that, in NYC, they get paid very little to take these huge risks (especially the new recruits) and an awful lot of cops get into the line of work because they want to make a difference.

Also, the issue is not individual cops (well, to some extent, it is) and their racist/sexist proclivities, but rather the institutional bias that makes people of color and poor people the overwhelming target of law enforcement, regardless of what numbers show with regards to who commits crimes (particularly, as it relates to this case, in terms of the war on drugs).

Also at issue is the fact that officers and departments almost never face consequences for the damage they cause when poor choices, racist actions and carelessness severely alter or end civilians' lives.

Finally, Adrienne, I'm sorry you have to read all of this blowback, but I'm sure you were ready for it. Kudos for writing on such an underreported, way-too-common and just generally awful tragedy. It would be really cool if we could actually discuss this incident and how it relates to a larger pattern, but I guess we're just stuck deciding whether or not you have the moral authority to use the word "murder" and whether or not feministing has the right to moderate comments or let guest writers come on here with opinion pieces.

not "only 67" that's still a lot. and it's more than 65.

puckalish:

Hey, I'm not blaming the victim here but I do support a discussion that can include the opinions of people who may be considered, by some, to be doing so. I do believe there is room to consider the reasons why someone would end up in such a bad place (literally), why kind of financial pressures young mothers are placed under and how broken a system has to be where living in a drug house seems like the best alternative (this is almost my exact earlier comment, so sorry for the semi-repeat).

I think by encouraging people to come forth with these thoughts we can address them with real answers like: "She was living there because (as one reader pointed out) we live in a system that tells the mother to stay with the father, while offering no other way to live outside of abject poverty." or how as bad as the economy is for those of us who are somewhere in or near the "middle class" (if you're using a computer and connected to bradband as most of us are, you're at least neighbors to the middle class) think about how bad the economic situation for a traditionally disadvantaged POC is, let alone someone with a kid.

If we automatically shut down the discussion and demonize people for thinking things we don't think then we lose the opportunity to engage and change those thoughts. It ends up looking like we really don't have any substantiating basis for the thoughts we profess if we're unwilling to speak to their opposition.

RE: McCain, the original comment was pure snark but the someone sidetracked me with the logical fallacy about "violence always being wrong". While the McCain comment was the instigator of that digression, my Mandela/Che remarks were simply a response to that fiction. It's just silly that people parrot that line about violence or that they maintain that successful modern revolutions didn't use violence to their advantage.

"no one here is talking about "banning" anyone": You must not have access to my inbox. heh.

"And, Logrus, I know you like to hold your stance really strong, but try to calm your nerves first and work at understanding what that line is and why the editors here would like to draw it. I'd really like to agree with you on some things, but leaving the field open for disrespecting the dead is not one of those things."

You're right, I do get my back up sometimes. And sometimes it's an asset, other times it isn't or it comes off as directed hostility when in reality it's bridling and perceived injustice. But the term "murderer" is pretty inflammatory, I can't imagine anyone who is as fluent in the English language expecting a banal reaction to it.

I think that people are using the term racist here to mean very different things and this is causing people to not see eye to eye on this.

I think this death is the result of racism. That does not mean that I think the cop involved hates Black people and wanted to kill this woman, but it does mean that it is not a coincidence that when the police broke up a huge drug ring at UC Santa Cruz last momth, they didn't go in and start shooting. The assumption that those white, college educated lives are too valuable to be lost in a crossfire practically goes without saying in our society. Yet it is not the same for this woman.

Sure, she may have made bad choices. But if when the police entered that fraternity last month, a white female college student had been exiting one of the rooms, do people really think the police would have just shot her without asking any questions? And even if you are unsure on that, at the very least you have to conceed: if a UC Santa Cruz student had been shot as she left her boyfriend's bedroom because he lived in a house with drug dealers, we would have heard about in a lot of places other than feministing.

logrus,

i totally see your point and understand that you want open dialog, but i hope you can also understand that there are ways of framing the same point (that being in the wrong place at the wrong time can endanger oneself) without saying,

Popping in and out of a door way, in the dark, while police were entering the house was not the smart thing to do.
Getting involved with a individual who was involved with drugs was also a dumb move.
Lets put the blame were it is due.

miriam and jessica were simply asking for a little more decorum and respect for the dead, not asking for folks holding such opinions to shut up altogether. further, i didn't really see them as "demonizing" the commenter, just asking the s/he reign in the victim-blaming language in stating his/her point. at least, that's how i took it.

one thing to recognize, too, is that your tolerance for certain opinions and language (or mine or, perhaps, jess's or miriam's) may be higher than the staff of feministing would like to allow on this site.

oh, and by the way, i'm well aware you were not blaming the victim, just supporting the other poster's right to do so - and that's where our disagreement starts and stops.

finally, i'm much the same way in terms of bristling and getting all caught up in holding my ground, it's why i could see it so easily about you.

peace

this is bulls***! how can they not do anything about this? an innocent mother was killed and her infant was injured, yet they do nothing? where has justice gone? it wasn't even her who they were after, but her companion. so why'd she have to die?

What law did the cop break that he should be jailed?

This story is so sad, and I fully understand a cry for revenge on behalf of the victim. But let's not forget that the standard of proof in a criminal trial is "beyond a reasonable doubt." If it was at all reasonable for the jury to believe that the officer felt he was under fire, and reacted in an appropriate manner, in keeping with his training and the law, they legally MUST acquit.
Now I'm not saying that it's impossible that the jury was biased, and failed to convict even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Certainly many juries continue to convict black defendants in the face of clearly reasonable doubt. However, not having seen or heard the evidence they did, that's not my call to make.
I see "Why are they not doing anything about this?" Someone, however, mentioned a civil law suit. The standard of proof in a civil case is lower, "a preponderance of the evidence," and a jury need not be unanimous. Plus, a civil law suit would serve to further push this case, and others like it, into the public eye. It may help bring the topic of the "War on Drugs," and the disproportionate damage it brings to communities of color, into the forefront of social debate/reform.

Well this is a lovely situation.

Let's say things happened as the officer described: While in a suspected drug dealer's house he heard shots and thought he was under fire as he "saw a shadow coming from behind a partially open bedroom door". Thinking his life was in danger he returned fire. Okay fine, that seems understandable although the results were obviously tragic.

What catches my attention is the nature of the raid itself. Were the police aware that there were seven other residents of the house besides their suspect Mr. Terry? Did they know there were dogs in the house that would need to be "subdued"? Did the police have reason to think Mr. Terry would resist arrest? Did the police announce who they were when they broke the door down or was Ms. Wilson hiding in the bedroom with her six children because she thought criminals were breaking into her home? (And if so, did she move because of the shots fired downstairs?). No mention is made of Mr. Terry even being in the house at the time of the raid; did the police manage to schedule their raid for a time when everyone was at home except their suspect?

While I disagree that failing to convict Sgt. Chavalia of negligent homicide and negligent assault is necessarily a message that its "okay to shoot a black woman holding her child" I am concerned by the system that put him in that position in the first place.

rhowan:

Exactly what you said, 100%.

The filth use no-knock night time raids that have a very high incident of resulting in some kind of violent exchange more and more often. Why? Probably because militarism is good for feeding the large bulk of voting chickenhawks out there who can't figure out that beating people isn't equivocal to rehabilitating them.

Now I'm not saying that SWAT does not have it's uses, SWAT should exist to engage with criminal threats that are armed and present a danger to the public beyond the norm. Guys with machine guns and body armor? Call SWAT. But there is nothing here or any any of the subsequent articles I've read on this to indicate that this drug house was an armored machine-gun nest.

I think that maybe cops are bit like doctors. We expect them to be right 100% of time. Now I'm a research scientist. If my hypotheses are right 50% of the time I'm doing well, and if I'm wrong nobody dies.

I'm not an apologist for anyone, but I will stand up for cops even if that makes me unpopular here. They are paid very little to do a job that is hated by so many. If they make a mistake, someone could die. They risk their lives for people who often don't like them very much. Does that sound easy? Could you do it?

If a hypothetical cop does everything by the book, he or she could still kill someone accidentally. If we are not willing to give cops the benefit of the doubt in situations where they have to act on incomplete information, then how can we expect anyone to take that job?

The only details of this case that I know are the ones from the post. So what do I know?

1. I know that a young woman was in an unfortunate situation. I have no idea how she got there. Based on similar situations, I would hypothesize that it was probably some combination of bad luck and bad decisions.

2. I know that a cop shot and killed an innocent woman.

3. I know that a jury acquitted that cop. From that, I have reason to believe that the cop acted in good faith.

@Adrienne - is there evidence of improper conduct at the trial? Did that cop have a history of racial issues? Information like that would help me (and maybe some other people) understand where you are coming from.

@Puckalish: What's wrong with defending cops? Also, should we punish *this* cop for what other cops have done? I agree with you that there are institutional problems - major ones. But I don't see why one man should have to go to jail if he didn't break a law, no matter what group he is a part of.

@MM: totally agree.

MM, I 100% agree.

MM, I 100% agree.

MLEmae- I agree with you too. I feel like there are a number of things that could have happened before firing blindly.

lolphysics- Yes, I agree that we ask a lot of police officers (and don't pay them enough, especially the NYPD), but that IS something that comes with the territory. We put our trust in certain people that they were take all precautions to do their jobs carefully, efficiently and correctly. If it is too much to ask, then certain people need to rethink their career choices and we as a nation certainly need to rethink our training procedures and disciplinary actions (people getting "sensitivity training" for putting 2 dozen bullets in a 16 year old...etc).

Yes, we have to be able to trust our police officials. However, racial profiling is still built into the institution. It seems highly suspect that I don't hear about almost any "accidental shootings" amongst White or Asian suspects and a ton amongst Black and sometimes Hispanic and Middle Eastern suspects. Is it a coincidence that cops assume that certain people are more likely to shoot or act violently, or is it a matter of institutionalized racism? I don't these most of these officers have malicious intent. I just think some of the ideas are so far drilled into them that it becomes second-nature.

I wish we could trust police officers. But I don't automatically trust anyone with authority, just because they have it either...

lolphysics,

you wrote to me:
What's wrong with defending cops? Also, should we punish *this* cop for what other cops have done? I agree with you that there are institutional problems - major ones. But I don't see why one man should have to go to jail if he didn't break a law, no matter what group he is a part of.

look, there is nothing wrong with defending cops. perhaps, i should have put things differently. there is something wrong with immediately responding to a tragedy where a person was killed by a police officer by arguing, in defense of the officer, that the person deserved it.

i should have been more clear, okay? i hope you read the rest of what i said, but that probably doesn't matter because one line set you off. at any rate, i've seen, way too often, having grown up in new york, that certain people jump to blaming the victim as a method for defending the cop. i saw this in the death of anthony baez, where then-mayor giuliani told his mother on the radio that she should have raised her kids better. i've seen this played out so many times and this particular method of defending police by saying it's the (innocent) victim's fault makes me sick to my stomach.

sorry i wasn't more clear.

finally, when handling a dangerous situation, one should be held accountable for one's actions and that almost never happens when police kill people. there need to be consequences. if i mishandle a car while driving it and cause injury or death, i can be held criminally accountable. why is it not so for an officer handling a gun?

i have almost never heard of an officer facing criminal censure for shooting and killing an unarmed or innocent individual. this is a problem as it doesn't put the proper consequences in place to ensure the safe handling of dangerous situations. and that's being generous.

further, i stated plainly and clearly that the issue is not individual cops (well, to some extent, it is) and their racist/sexist proclivities, but rather the institutional bias that makes people of color and poor people the overwhelming target of law enforcement...

so, come on.

puckalish - I did read the rest of what you said. The reason that line about cops upset me is that sometimes I worry that we, as a liberal, feminist, well-meaning community don't give certain groups the benefit of the doubt. Those groups, as far as I can tell, are cops, frat boys, and jocks. And I worry when I start making snap judgments because someone belongs to a group that I generally dislike. I am as prone to it as anyone else - maybe more so - and if my criticism sounded harsh, it was because it was largely directed at myself. That obviously wasn't clear, and I'm sorry about that.

I think that there is difference between you driving a car and cop handling a gun. But if I treat them as similar, lets imagine that someone is driving a car and has to swerve because of a drunk driver. As a result of swerving, the driver kills a bystander. Maybe the driver could have swerved left instead of right - that might have saved the bystander, but it all happened so quickly. Do we punish the sober driver? If so, how much?

I don't have answers to those questions. But I think I would say that the sober driver's culpability is certainly less than that of the drunk driver, even if the drunk driver didn't directly kill anyone. What do you think?

i don't exactly understand the drunk driver analogy, except insofar as it related to the sean bell shooting (because the officers in question were drinking the night of the shooting). that's not directly pertaining to this story, though.

at any rate, i see how my driving analogy is essentially flawed. the point i was trying to draw is that it is easy to see how many ways this shooting would be preventable. proper police identification, casing the house to see how many bystanders are inside it and so on. these are basic safety precautions and they're not adhered to in certain situations - most often situations involving poor people and people of color - and it's really hard to take that no one is responsible for the lack of care taken in a very dangerous procedure.

and i hear you on the snap judgments thing. my personal experience has nurtured a deep distrust of cops and i'm sure that colors my perspective on issues like this. however, it still doesn't overshadow the fact that an unarmed mother, carrying her child, was shot to death and, oddly, no one is responsible.

finally, re: your point about should we punish *this* cop for what other cops have done... no, absolutely not. i think part of the problem is that if so much justice goes undone, there's a built up desire for justice that gets heaped on the next person who gets away with something. and that's not right. what's even more not right, though, is that so many police and police departments (it's really the leadership who's at fault for setting up such a problem-prone scenario) have gotten away with so much and it needs to stop somewhere. this may not be the worst case, but just because other cops (diallo's killers) have gotten away scott-free for even worse scenarios is not a good reason this officer shouldn't have to face any responsibility for his actions.

I am sorry if by "stating the facts" that is blaming the victim, but sometimes the truth hurts.
A comment was made that woman are told to stay with the father but told to leave if involved in drugs. Tarika had more than 1 child. She had several and they were from differant "fathers"
Given the fact that a majority of drugs users/pushers resort to violance, no knock raids are appropriate. Resently on the news a drug bust was shown down south. I think it was Florida but not sure. The police new a known drug dealer was inside. They went in but did not know that the dealer had video cameras put up around the house. As soon as the cops entered they came under fire. They returned fire but stopped as soon as they realized one of the dealers was holding his son as a shield. The cops held their ground no futher shots, no one killed. One cop was wounded and he was wearing the same gear as the Lima cops. Bad guys now in jail.
Tarika's mother is white. The mother was on the news a day after her daughter death and said her father or his family was never there. After the shooting his family was one of the first to say it was "racially motivated" It is sad, but today whenever something happens to a minority it is instantly a race issue.
Yes, white poor people are also shot and killed by police. When that happens no one protests. Is that because it is ok that a white person can be killed?
The majority of cops are good. My Uncle was a cop for 30 years. During that time he pulled his gun once but did not have to fire it. There are bad cops.
Am I sorry Tarika is dead, yes. It is a shame when ANYONE IS KILLED. This is not a perfect world but we can control some of the outcome by making the right choices.
I spent 20 years in the Air Force. I qualified as a marksman everytime I shot a M-16 rifle. I retired in 1999 so I did not have to aim that rifle at anyone. I do know from the training I received and from veterans I talked to is this. When it come to pulling the trigger, you cannot stop to think about it. You hope your training was good and that you pull the trigger. If it was not and you dont your dead.

I kind of don't get the point in mentioning that her mother was White...

Michaell357,

There's a huge difference between explaining how difficult it is to assess danger in certain situations (shots going off in a darkened how) and saying "Lets put the blame were it is due." A huge difference. Further, I wonder what you think about the institutional (statistical) gaps in numbers regarding what happens to white people who use and sell drugs and what happens to people of color who use and sell drugs. Please see previous comments and references regarding how drug issues are dealt with among poor people and communities of color in contrast to among white and affluent people.

Oh, and when one thing happens to a person of color, it is not necessarily a race issue. When it is easily identified as part of a pattern of responses and situations, then it bears looking into, as this most certainly does. Again, please check out some of the articles and such mentioned above. The DPA has some good summaries on how the war on drugs and race intersect as well:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/race/

FINALLY, lots of people protests when poor whites get unfairly targeted and killed by police. Check out some of the links I put out before, like the October 22nd Coalition... they've done plenty of coverage of poor whites who've been killed by police. It actually doesn't happen as often as people of color getting shot by cops. In NYC, before they STOPPED RECORDING RACE IN POLICE SHOOTINGS, 89.4% of those shot were either black or hispanic.

I think I referenced this before, but here you go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/nyregion/05police.html?ref=nyregion

Danyell,

I think it was to point out how absent and out of control these colored folk are, just playing the "race card" for no reason when they don't even take care of their children.

Wasn't that your point, Michael? Glad to see you're in the 21st century.

At any rate, according to the following story, her father didn't really have that much to say, but some of her white relatives absolutely did (her white aunt even called out how race figured into this whole thing):

http://www.thetruthtoledo.com/story/2008/011608/Wilson.htm

Just another example of the impoverished being more or less culled by the state. Nice.