There have been too many incidents this year in Shreveport where black individuals were shot, and some unfortunately killed, because they refused to cooperate with law enforcement officers, specifically Shreveport police.
From all media accounts, these individuals FAILED to obey legal instructions from police officers.
When officers have a reasonable belief of criminal activity, they are legally authorized to instruct individuals to open a door, get out of car, put their hands up, not flee the scene, put a gun down, etc.
When individuals fail to cooperate, as in resisting apprehension, then bad things usually happen. And they almost always happen to the individual, not the police officer.
Many public officials have trashed the Shreveport Police Department for not being racially sensitive or for using force when black individuals refused to obey simple, legal directions.
But none have preached the need for ALL citizens, not only blacks, to cooperate with law enforcement.
Why not?
Is that an unpopular topic to certain members of the black community?
Is it more popular to trash police officers than to correct inappropriate behavior?
Rather than prayer vigils, should these officials/leaders have clinics on "how to respond to law enforcement?"
Ok--those that love to pull out the race card and attack this writer--go ahead and have fun.
It’s much easier to call me a racist than to take the time, much less recognize, FACTS:
a. I employ a black employee and a black paper carrier
b. I have 3 black columnists that publish in FOCUS SB
c. I have featured many local blacks on the cover of FOCUS SB
d. I have represented the local NAACP chapter in a legal action pro bono
e. I received a special recognition award by the local NAACP chapter
f. I formed the first black-white law partnership in North Louisiana etc., etc., etc.
As my good friend, now deceased, Dr. Cash often said, "I have been called everything but a son of God."
I know that feeling.
I have decided that baseless attacks directed at me are really a sign of effective journalism that confronts people with facts they don't want to acknowledge, much less own up to.