Last year L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Wood killed Milton Olin Jr(the official line seems to be that the officer's car struck the victim). The officer was completing email on the computer, drifted into the bicycle lane, and killed the Olin who was riding a bicycle.
The officer is not facing any charges because it is apparently perfectly legal for a cop to operate a computer while driving. Records show that the officer was also texting of the phone, but not during the time the car was moving and struck the victim. The officer apparently did not face any sanctions and was moved to other duties. There also, surprisingly, is not effort to limit the playing on computers while driving.
I get that we can't put cops in jail because they will immediately be killed. I get that we can't just panic every time a cop murders a civilian because it an inconvenience to not murder that civilian. But in this case we have a dangerous practice that put lives at risk with no apparent balancing factors. Shouldn't officer be trained to quickly file computer reports in a few minutes before driving away from the scene? Isn't that what we are told as civilians? To take a few minutes to stop and do what we need to do on our mobile devices? I mean if a trucker kills someone in the line of her duty, there are calls to change the laws to make the trade safer. A cop does the same thing, and everyone is like, well, what else were they supposed to do?
It is not lost on me that this is a old white man who was killed while the egregious cases involve non-white children and young people being gunned down in the street. However I think it important to remember that the ability of cops to oppress is not limited by race. There is no limit to a cops ability to kill the innocent, be it fear, hate, or poor judgement. While I am sure that the vast majority of cops are safe drivers who are not looking for an excuse to kill, the fact that there appears to little effort to 'police' those who are is frightening. That further reinforces the fact that limiting the right of cops to kill innocent people is something that we all must promote.