Decent Americans cannot turn a blind eye to police abuse; they just didn\u2019t really believe the it was happening. Or maybe they didn\u2019t want to believe. Today, there is literally no excuse to be ignorant of the problem.<\/p>\n
It would be hard to overestimate the impact that smart phone cameras have had on forcing us to grapple with the fact that this is, in fact, a very real (and all-too-common) problem. The streaming video of the aftermath of the killing of Philando Castile appears to be the latest tragic example. (Note: We still don\u2019t know exactly what happened, so I\u2019m going to withhold judgment on this specific incident\u201d\u201dbut the video evidence we\u2019ve all seen does not look good for the police.)<\/p>\n
And if there\u2019s any good to come from this horrible trend, it may be that the scales are coming off the eyes of a lot of well meaning, if naive, white Americans. My hope is that this will change public opinion to the point that we can change public policy.<\/p>\n