If video footage surfaced showing the police officer shooting unarmed Zachary Hammond in the back, do you think it would go unnoticed by the media? I don’t. Law enforcement overreach is an outrage, no matter whom it is directed against, and I think people would be appalled and outraged, especially because it would fly in the face of most American’s expectations of the way law enforcement interacts with white people.
BTW, I have a thirteen year old white grandson (my stepdaughter’s oldest child), and you had better believe I wouldn’t sit still if he were shot in the back by law enforcement without cause. And in my view, there is seldom cause to shoot a suspect in the back! The problem is when there’s no objective evidence, such as dash cam, body cam or cell phone video that might contradict a lying officer’s CYA. Most of the cases that have engendered outrage from within the black community in recent years, have been ones in which there is some level of accompanying video. Hint: video moves the news cycle. The execution of Walter Scott wouldn’t have achieved nearly the traction it did without that shocking cell phone video, you had best believe it.
It may well be true that whites are shot by police more often than blacks, but that’s only logical, given the fact that whites make up 63 percent of the US population, while blacks make up only 12. In either case, whether justified or otherwise, most instances of police shootings of civilians do not gain national attention. Just as, “if it bleeds, it leads”, corroberating video lends it its greatest chance of going viral.