This has been quite a week for catching cops in the act of slamming people of color to the ground—and today is only Wednesday.
By now, we’ve all seen the video of the United Airlines passenger, Dr. David Dao, being forcefully removed from his seat after refusing to be bumped from his flight so United personnel could fly instead. Yes, there are varying perspectives on what happened and what the legal rights passengers havevwhen a flight is overbooked. But clearly, the institutions of policing and security are increasingly becoming more adversarial and hostile to the citizens they are supposed to protect, and these incidents give us more reasons to bring these conversations into the national spotlight.
Yet another incident gives us a chance to reflect after the Sacramento Police Department (SPD) announced that it was investigating the actions of one of its officers after video emerged showing him slamming a black man to the ground and beating him—for a simple jaywalking charge.
The video, released Monday, has sparked national outrage. It shows the officer confronting the man, identified as Nandi Cain Jr., as he crossed an intersection and attempting to talk to Cain but the situation quickly escalates.
After some words are exchanged while Cain is standing in the street, the officer then violently throws Cain to the ground and begins to punch him in the head.
The events leading up to the incident were not captured by the camera, and it is not possible to hear the conversation between Cain and the officer before the incident occurred.
The video was filmed by a nearby witness, Naomi Montaie, who can be heard shouting from her car, "Oh my God! Why'd you take him down like that? No! That was wrong!" Montaie can also be heard yelling repeatedly that she fears that the officers are pulling on Cain’s arms so hard that they will break his shoulders. As a reminder, the officer stopped him on a jaywalking charge. Meanwhile, Cain wonders if he will be the next Trayvon Martin. None of this makes any sense. Even in the SPD statement, it sounds as if they have their own doubts as to why the officer would have behaved this way.
In a statement, the Sacramento Police Department said the officer originally "attempted to detain a pedestrian for allegedly unlawfully crossing the street." [...]
"For an unknown reason, the officer threw the pedestrian to the ground and began striking him in the face with his hand multiple times," the SPD statement said.
As of now, Internal Affairs is investigating the incident and the police officer has been placed on paid administrative leave. We’ve seen this happen time and time again so can only imagine how this will end up. Just how many times does this have to happen before we admit that there is a problem with the culture and institution of policing?