A Michigan, State Police Trooper is facing felonious assault charges after video surfaced showing the trooper allowed his police dog to attack a Black suspect for almost 4 minutes according to an article in BlackEnterprise.com. The man is heard pleading with the police officer to stop the dog from attacking him. The incident reportedly began as a traffic stop on the vehicle. The car crashed into a tree when police approached the vehicle.
BlackEnterprise.com reported that the police said he believed a passenger was armed and sent the police dog in. The police failed to render aid to the victim at the scene. The lack of first aid in these incidents is indicative of how police officers devalue black lives. Black people are being injured and killed at the hands of police and usually there was no crime. A person engaged in mundane activities such as traveling in a car or walking down the street can become an instant suspect in a vicious system of police brutality and murder fostered by racism and White supremacy.
Phillip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who studies police use of force recently said “We’ve got to deal with the institutional racism,” Tracie Keesee, co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity recently commented about police inequity saying, “What there is, though, is a recognition industry-wide that you have a duty to do something,”.
According to The Marshall Project, most police departments said police recruits are trained to render emergency first aid. Only half of these police departments have a policy that makes it mandatory for police officers to render aid. The Marshall Project examined the practices of police departments in 50 of the largest cities in America. Their investigation found “at least 32 cases since 2010 in which police officers delayed or failed to offer emergency first aid to people, and as a result many victims died from their injuries”.
NNV News Blog Writer Sister Rose Morris
