Mainstream Media 'Breaks Down' Police Shooting, Forgetting Police History
When the mainstream media covers a police-involved shooting, like The Independent's 'breakdown' of a Minneapolis incident, they often frame it as an isolated event of 'what went wrong.' They're quick to bring in 'experts'—often former law enforcement themselves—to analyze tactical missteps. What they consistently omit is the systemic entrenchment of police violence, the historical lack of
accountability, and the political will, or lack thereof, to address it. This isn't a new phenomenon; it's a pattern, as movements like Black Lives Matter have tirelessly documented over decades of state-sanctioned violence against marginalized communities. Instead of questioning the very structure that allows such incidents to proliferate, and the judicial system that frequently protects officers,
we get surgical assessments of body camera footage. It's an illusion of scrutiny, suggesting that if only police training or protocols were tweaked, the problem would disappear. One might ask, how many 'expert' analyses does it take before we acknowledge that the system isn't broken, but rather, is arguably functioning as designed for those in power?