Obama sets examples of police state, not democracy

On Dec. 6 a man was shot by a police officer in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and later died in hospital.

The LAPD gave no name for either the police officer who shot the man, or for the man who was killed, only saying that the latter was “white” and was carrying a weapon. This statement reflected panic in the LA police. The “weapon” in question was a “3-4 inch” (8-10 cm) folding knife, and the highlighting of the killed man’s skin color was a reference to the two killings that have been rocking U.S. public opinion for the last two weeks.

Not exactly the image of the firm and smart police in Hollywood movies and TV serials, is it?
In the two cases that the LAPD chiefs were trying to avoid, court juries decided not to indict the police officers who killed Eric Garner in July 2014 in Staten Island, New York; and Michael Brown in August 2014 in St Louis, Missouri; both men were black.

When mass protests started against those judgments and after U.S. President Barack Obama stood behind the rulings, world public opinion started to pay attention to police killings in the country. The image or perception had been that crimes could be committed by officials in the U.S., but American democracy and justice would not let the perpetrators get away with it. In a way, Obama’s words heralded that “The times they are a-changin’,” but not in a Bob Dylan way - perhaps the opposite.

Actually, the U.S. is one on the leading countries in the world for deaths caused by the police, (just like death penalty cases). August 2014, for example, when Brown was killed during the Ferguson protests, deaths caused by police officers hit a record high of nearly 110 across the U.S. (I write “nearly” because the Wikipedia page on the issue...