An excellent piece on thinking. From A Recipe for More Tragedy by Rafael A. Mangual. There was a police officer involved shooting in Chicago on March 29th which involved a perpetrator who turned out to be a 13 year old boy, Adam Toledo. This is suddenly getting attention because the Chicago Police Department just released the body cam footage of the chase and shooting.
The preliminary facts are that two police officers on vehicle patrol were instructed at 2:30am to respond to a report of gunfire registered from Chicago's ShotSpotter (a listening system which registers shots independent of reports by civilians.) Arriving at the designated location, the officers encountered two males in a dark alley, one holding a gun. One man was almost immediately detained while the other fled with the gun. After a short chase the second man halted, gun still in hand, and turned towards the following police office but simultaneously throwing the gun behind or over a fence but in a fashion not visible to the officer. The officer, believing he was about to be faced by a gunman, shot once and killed the suspect.
The incompatibility of Social Justice Theory and Critical Race Theory with the American system of government, particularly the precepts of innocence till proven guilty, due process, equality before the law, etc. are highlighted in Mangual's reporting.
Virtually everyone can stipulate that Adam Toledo's death is a tragedy. As many can also stipulate that no thirteen-year old child should be out at 2:30am shooting a gun and fleeing from the police in a dark alley while holding that gun.
Is there malign racism, systemic racism, or institutional racism at play here? Possibly, but it certainly is not readily apparent. This appears on its face to be a needless tragedy brought about solely by the actions of the deceased.
Less than one second elapsed between Toledo beginning his turn toward the officer with a gun in his right hand, and the officer firing a single shot from his service weapon. And these were not ideal conditions in which to make a split-second decision: it was dark, and Stillman’s heart rate and adrenaline levels were likely elevated due to the foot chase. Furthermore, Stillman and his partner had encountered Toledo and another man, who was taken into custody at the scene, because they were responding to a ShotSpotter alert. ShotSpotter is a system of sensors that detects gunfire in real-time and provides that information to nearby police, so that they can respond to shootings more quickly. When Stillman and his partner arrived, there were only two people in sight. One of them took off with a gun in his hand.
Mangual links two videos, one of the shooting of Adam Toledo as well as one of a New Mexico Highway Patrol officer being shot to death by a driver. In both instances, the appearance or disappearance of a gun occurred in a fraction of a second, in one case leading to the death of a suspect and in the other leading to the death of an officer peacefully doing his routine duty.
Mangual highlights in his opening paragraphs the conflict between justice and Social Justice Theory. Justice is the adherence to properly enacted laws enacted by the people's representatives establishing equal rights and due process for all. Social Justice seeks to circumvent that process by facilitating mob justice.
It is an evil ideology but one which has increasingly marred the US in the past few years. In the past eighteen months we have been accustomed to City leadership immediately firing officers and even charging them with crimes before an investigation has even been conducted. Yes, guilty officers need to be punished. But only after they have been charged and found guilty, not beforehand.
Social Justice Theory puts the cart before the horse, seeking punishment first before determination of guilt.
Mangual muster's examples of the type of authoritarian sociopaths susceptible to Social Justice Theory.
All the posts linked to news stories with headlines emphasizing one detail: at the moment Toledo was struck by the officer’s gunfire, his hands were raised and appeared to be empty. A sampling of the news headlines:
Slate: “Video Shows Chicago Police Shoot 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo With His Hands Up”
BuzzFeed News: “Video Shows 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo Had His Hands Up When A Police Officer Fatally Shot Him”
NBC 5 Chicago: “Attorney: Adam Toledo Did Not Have Gun In His Hand When He Was Shot By Chicago Police”
Mic: “13-year-old Adam Toledo put his hands up. Chicago police killed him anyway”
USA Today: “‘We failed Adam’: Body camera videos show 13-year-old Adam Toledo put hands up before fatal police shooting in Chicago” (the quote belongs to Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot)
The Associated Press: “Video: Chicago boy wasn’t holding gun when shot by officer”
The implication from these headlines is clear: the boy was unarmed and raising his hands in surrender when he was shot—ergo, this was a bad shooting.
See the original linked article for the hotlinks.
So far, and evidence may emerge of officer culpability, this seems a justified act of self-defense occurring in split second under circumstances entirely of the deceased's own construction.
Every civic leader prejudging the results of an investigation is calling Social Justice Theory's near identical twin, Mob Justice. Such leaders should be ostracized and banished to activities which actually create value for others rather actions which lead to division, hatred, destruction and injustice.
Such inflammatory comments have become par for the course for modern media. A close analysis of the available video evidence also shows just how detached from reality these comments are.
The video is extremely difficult to watch. It is awful to watch the fear set in on Toledo’s face as he seemed to realize he would die. Children are not supposed to die—especially not in a dark alley at 2:30 in the morning, with what officers on-scene described as a sucking chest wound.
The video clearly depicts a tragedy—but it is far from clear that it depicts a crime, let alone one motivated by racial animus. Consider four freeze-frames from the body-camera footage of Officer Stillman.
Read the article for the analysis. Despite what the beckoners for mob justice say, this is not obviously an open-and-shut-case when looking at the evidence. It is ambiguous at best and without further information and context actually seems to warrant the officer's actions.
Mangual's larger point is that to the extent we circumvent justice in pursuit of mob justice, and the extent to which we subvert justified police actions in defense of the law and citizens, the more we create the circumstances for tragedy.
Not just in terms of the 50-100% increases seen in murder victims in major cities in the past year but in terms of the whole structure of public safety and justice.
If police choose no longer to make themselves piñatas to mob justice whipped up by local and national politicians and cease to put themselves in harms way on behalf of fellow citizens, then we are approaching a true tragedy. If the citizenry no longer can rely on the police for law enforcement, public safety and justice, then the citizenry itself will assume that responsibility.
Among those calling for social justice, at some point there will be an awakening to the realization that a well trained police force subject to and enforcing law is far more desirable than a citizenry doing so under their own volition. The logical end point of SJT and CRT is mob justice by the law abiding against criminals. That is not where we should wish to be.
UPDATE: Making some similar points, The Victorians Had to Accept Darwin. We Need to Accept that Cops Kill White People as Easily As They Kill Black People by John McWhorter.
UPDATE: Further details as to why Adam Toledo was in an alley at 2:30am with a gun. Who Killed Adam Toledo by Rafael A. Manguel.
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