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3 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Home News Latest Stories 10 things to know for Tuesday Ten nonprofit proposals get a chance to pitch for support Full slate of events set for Independent Media Week Teacher's Tips: Spring! Time for standarized testing Adjustments, contributions keep Mt. Ashland on course Education Ten nonprofit proposals get a chance to pitch for support Teacher's Tips: Spring! Time for standarized testing Schneider Children's Center set to close Ashland School District seeks volunteers for Educators' Appreciation Luncheon Planning meeting set Wednesday for farewell party Environment Adjustments, contributions keep Mt. 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Council Corner: Strategic plan sets goals for city ... Ashland Calendar, Tuesday, April 28 ... Our View: Child care conundrum ... Council Corner: Strategic plan sets goals for city ... Ashland Calendar, Tuesday, April 28 ... COMMENTARY Jeffrey Gillespie: Bad cops vs. smartphones DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Apr. 24, 2015 @ 12:01 am Posted Apr. 24, 2015 @ 12:01 am » Social News p bs:newslist StartDate="20121121" EndDate="p bs:datecalc Months="3"" DateSort="1" UseObjects="1" ObjectClass="81" Taxonomywords="2324,665" ExactTaxonomyMatch="1" Image="1" Count="4" --> On April 4, Walter Scott, a black man, was shot to death by Michael Slager, a white police officer, in South Carolina. Scott was shot in the back five times, apparently because Slager "felt threatened" (and despite the fact that Scott was approximately 20 feet away at the time, and running away from the officer). The entire event was caught on videophone by an eyewitness. There have been multiple similar captures of police violence in the past year or so, including the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, the killing of Eric Garner in New York, and just this week, the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who had his neck severed and died while in police custody in Baltimore. And there are more videos to be seen: a California Highway Patrol officer beating a homeless woman on a the side of a Los Angeles highway; an Ohio patrolman who shot a 12-year-old boy to death on a playground in Cleveland. All of the victims were black; all of the cops, white. In this writers opinion, the single greatest benefit resulting from the rise of the smartphone is the ability that ordinary people now have to take on problem behavior and brutality in a profession that has historically done far more to provoke and intimidate people of color than to protect and serve them. But is there a link between the racial bias seen behind the thin blue line, and the approach to gun ownership and constitutional entitlement in front of it? In a recent study by Harvard, Duke, and Columbia Universities, it was found that 9 percent of American gun owners have a history of impulsive and belligerent behavior. If we consider that there are around 300 million guns in private hands in America, we can approximate just how many of those weapons might be in the hands of troubled people. Needless to say, the more guns any one individual owns, the more likely they are to carry them around. In fact, people with six or more firearms were 400 percent more likely to carry a weapon at all times. Perhaps these findings, once they are processed and digested by law enforcement, become yet another statistic unfairly skewed towards the inner city? Interestingly, black people in the United States are exactly four times more likely to die in custody, or while in the process of being arrested, than are whites. So while police may be aware of the statistics, when it comes time for things to go badly during an altercation, an officer's trigger finger is reliably at its twitchiest when confronting a person of color. On top of that, blacks face an infant mortality rate that is higher than it was in 1950, have an average household net worth that is about 6 percent of the median for whites, and represent nearly half of all incarcerated persons in the United States. The most vicious of all possible vicious circles, then, and all indications are that things will only get worse. As more and more people in this country are forced to make do with less, it's clear that those who will continue to take the most weight on their backs are the very ones who are feared most by the men and women who enforce the law. While the odds continue to be stacked heavily against those citizens unlucky enough to be categorized as "urban" or "poor" or "high-risk" or whatever other euphemism might daily be plucked from the menu of prejudice to the benefit of its enforcers, there is a light that shines in the darkness. That light gives the once-silent witnesses to such perennial atrocities a potent weapon of their own — a supercomputer in the palm of their hand. Jeffrey Gillespie's writing has appeared in the Santa Fean and Art Collector magazines, the Portland Mercury and Willamette Week. He lives in Ashland. DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Apr. 24, 2015 @ 12:01 am » Comment or view comments /* $( document ).ready(function() { // Jquery mobile is trying to style the button and leaving a blank gry button on top of a white button $("#viafouracoms .vf-comment-controls li.vf-right").html(' Submit '); });*/ » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with DailyTidings.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Alerts Email alerts RSS feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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