This story gives us the first words heard from Mohamed Noor, who shot Justine Damond when she ran to his police car for help, having heard a disturbance outside her home.
Whilst anger at Damond’s stupid, awful death bubbles up very easily, quiet reflection makes it hard not to feel some sympathy for Noor and his partner, too. Yes, the license to carry a weapon and use it with deadly force is a heavy responsibility, to be sure. Without pre-judging the matter al all, merely based on what we have heard so far, we suspect Noor will likely be found guilty*, if for no other reason that taking the oath to serve also implies an ability to balance responding effectively to threats with public safety in moments of crisis. Anyhow, we shall see, and he deserves his day in court. But frankly, a greater responsibility lies elsewhere.
It is with customary police training that sends officers onto the street with a hair trigger attitude, to “shoot first” in case they are ambushed, as is laid out clearly in the story.
The parts of Noor’s defence outlined in the article above is a wake up call to all to address ingrained police attitudes to the use of deadly force.
And responsibility lies with the American public, who in a masse sense simply cannot summon up the will to reduce the numbers of guns in circulation in that country, leading in turn to a never-ending cycle of violence of which Justine Damond was just one more tragic victim.
The debate in America has become toxic, as so many discussions in that country have become. (Not uniquely, of course, but especially.) Advocates of greater gun control are called soft-headed at best and cowards and traitors at worst, but gun advocates are in turn are accused of being uncaring at best and gung ho to the point of latent murderousness at worst.
Neither attitude will encourage a move to the centre, and a desire to solve the problem. And until that happens, the litany of unnecessary deaths, of policemen, by policemen, and from the public, and by the public against other members of the public, will continue.
What is needed in the debate is evidence-based facts to balance the rhetoric. Research shows that some gun control measures reduce violence, others have a less efficacious effect. Research shows that guns can effectively be used in self-defence, in certain situations, and therefore have a moral and practical value. (Assuming no other course of action was open to the person defending themself, of course.) Evidence-based debate would reduce the toxicity and allow compromise to be considered.
America has a unique relationship with guns. Of course, jingoistic appeals to the Second Amendment are just so much hogwash. The Founding Fathers wanted to make space for citizen armies to defend against foreign insurgents – entirely unnecessary when America has the most expensive armed forces in the world – and they never imagined rifles, let alone repeating rifles, let alone near-assault weapons. But Americans enjoy hunting – often for food – as a core part of their culture. And that should be respected. Farmers need guns to reduce vermin. Ditto. And the right to self-defence is ingrained in a country which was for many years a frontier state.
But all that said, no one ever envisaged a country where inner city areas – especially – are plagued by roaming gangs of youth – white, black, hispanic, asian – locked into a cycle of crime, social despair and joblessness, with a free and never-ending supply of weapons. No one ever envisaged a militarised police force that would have to corral those dispirited and violent youths like an occupying army.
Yes, intelligent moves to rid the streets of some of their guns will be a beginning. But the ultimate answer, of course, in what is supposed to be a society based on productive capitalism, is work.
Work that gives a people a stake in their world. Work that lets people develop their lives with optimism. Work that lets people have pride in themselves.
Real work, in productive and meaningful jobs, with skills training that lasts a lifetime and makes future employment easier, mopping up the energy of the workforce.
Nothing more than a new “New Deal” will solve the crisis of America’s cities, and it will take an investment of trillions of dollars. And, of course, if that investment is made into old, dying industries it will serve no purpose, because it will not generate lasting economic growth to support – and repay – the initial investment.
If Americans weary of the never-ending cycle of violence, then here is a project around which both the right and the left in America can coalesce, if, and it’s a big if, the political will – which comes, ultimately, from the electorate – can be created.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her colleagues call for a New Green Deal to combat climate change. Well, that could combat inner city wasteful lawlessness, too. It can be a focal point for industrial renewal in cities across the USA. And there are many Republicans who, believing that the best jobs plan is economic growth, could be persuaded that capitalism nevertheless needs seed corn capital to function, and that at least some of the profits of corporate tax cuts need to be ploughed back into the economy, and not just into shareholders pockets to spend on Chinese TVs and Korean cars.
They might also consider that if the new energy technologies the world is crying out for could be invented, developed and sold by American companies, then America might start to reverse its disastrous trade deficit, which this month reached it’s largest ever figure. Which would be good for America, and the world.
Such a compact requires two things above all.
Imagination – to rise above the pointless squabbling that categorises modern American politics.
And compromise – a willingness to come together for the common good, such as one sees in wartime.
Justine Damond was just one more victim of an internal war raging endlessly in America’s cities, as, in his way, was Mohamed Noor. Redressing the collapse of those cities will require an effort just as dramatic and unifying as if the country was being threatened from abroad.
And it is long overdue. The clock stands at a minute to midnight.
*Since this article was written Noor has, indeed, been found guilty of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Australian woman Justine Ruszczyk Damond. He was acquitted of second-degree murder.
As John Donne wrote in 1624:
Large numbers of African Americans
automatic weapons on your street corner.
It is deeply distressing that an American student brandishing two knives stabbed 20 teenagers and a security guard in a bloody rampage in the classrooms and hallways of a Pennsylvania high school Wednesday.
I am grateful to Emily Hauser for alerting me to these facts, to Slate for doing their work, and I encourage all my American friends and colleagues to think hard, and to make sure their voices are heard.
Well, This Is What I Think 