Secrecy and Police Shootings

In South Carolina, a police officer in the city of North Charleston shot an unarmed African American man eight times in the back on Saturday. This occurred after a routine traffic stop. Video of the shooting surfaced yesterday and now the police officer has been charged with murder. The footage, captured by a bystander, changed everything; initially the officer said he had acted in self defense. This ability to see exactly how a police shooting went down is rare. Even when there are full investigations, details of these events are often not made public. That’s certainly the case here in Pasadena, where people continue to call for transparency from the Pasadena Police Department in the shooting death of unarmed 19-year-old Kendrec McDade three years ago. The police have refused to hand over the full internal report of the incident.