Wednesday on MSNBC, network host Al Sharpton argued police would continue acting in a “demonic fashion” if officers aren’t charged and convicted in cases of police brutality.
Sharpton said, “We still are having people in the legislature, and in the White House that’s debating whether or not we need to have real penalties for police that do things wrong. This is not a climate to be talking about suggesting and incentivizing police to do what is right. This is about enforcing the law. If you have police that, according to another policeman had no reason even to be talking about arrest and kicked the man after he shot him twice in the back, they don’t need to be incentivized. They need to be prosecuted and incarcerated. The law must work, and I think this puts more pressure on the Senate and the president to deal with this.”
He continued, “Training is not enough when you’re dealing with people that apparently have that kind of venom and that kind of feeling about human beings that they’re dealing with. I think that we’ve got to deal with the fact that we are processing people without really understanding their opinions, biases, or feelings about other human beings. If you look at someone putting their knee on someone’s neck, 8 minutes and 46 seconds in Minneapolis, in the case of Floyd. Now you have a case of kicking someone. You’re standing on them, in the case of Atlanta. We have a problem that was way beyond trying to just deal with training manuals and trying to deal with, we’ll give you more money if you behave.”
He added, “There’s some deep-seated venom and a deep sense we’re less than human with what we’re dealing with here. I think policemen, like every other citizen, must know they will go to jail. They will pay the ultimate price. But as long as they feel that they can operate in a way as inhumane as this is, as vicious as this is. But that the unions will give them the best lawyers and they’ll walk out of court — if they go to court at all — they will operate in this same kind of demonic fashion. That is scary for all American citizens.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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