The murder video of Charley “Africa” Keunang, a homeless man who was shot multiple times by three LAPD officers in Downtown Los Angeles’s Skid Row neighborhood on March 1, instantly went viral.
Within days, Africa’s murder became headline news in international media outlets like BBC and Al-Jazeera.
Alongside the Department of Justice’s decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown, the murder of Africa has only added to the world’s perception that the U.S. allows it’s police to shoot unarmed civilians without consequences.
Compared to other similarly developed countries, the U.S. has one of the highest murder rates against civilians by the police by far.
The FBI’s “Crime in the United States” report concludes that law enforcement committed 410 “justifiable” murders in 2012, and this is the most recently released data.
However, this does not account for any “unjustifiable murders,” so one must assume the actual number of murders is higher.
Additionally, “only 750 of the nation’s 17,000-plus law enforcement agencies contribute data to the FBI’s justifiable homicide database,” according to the Washington Post in Aug. 2014.
In the UK, Channel 4 news reported that there were only two police-related fatalities in 2011-2012, while according to The Wire, German law enforcement only killed six people in 2011.
According to Deutsche Welle, a German broadcast news source, German police are trained extensively on how and when to use a gun.
With courses titled “Don’t Shoot,” students at German police academies are told to avoid reaching for their gun at almost all costs.
Furthermore, training with guns not only includes target practice, but also several hours of role-playing exercises that teach students how to handle high-stress scenarios without utilizing a firearm.
It is a rare and tragic incident when police in western European countries have to resort to murder as a means of public safety.
In the U.S., it is relatively common, and not many people are shocked when these incidents happen.
The Ferguson incident sparked much debate in the U.S. about whether Officer Wilson legally used his gun as a means of self-defense when he killed Brown, an unarmed black teenager.
Still, it took the video of NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo putting Eric Garner into a lethal chokehold to convince Americans that excessive force by law
enforcement is a structural problem in the country.
Police confronted Garner because he was selling untaxed cigarettes on a sidewalk in Staten Island, New York.
Another factor that differentiates the U.S. from other developed countries is that the U.S. has some of the most lax gun ownership laws.
In Australia, where gun ownership is heavily regulated, only 5.2 percent of the population possesses a firearm according to a Licenses and Registered Firearms in Australia report.
This leads to less crimes that involve firearms and police who are less inclined to use guns to protect themselves.
Meanwhile, in the U.S, one third of the population owns a gun, according to Pew Research.
Overall, Americans need to realize that police murders should not be considered a standard approach to defending themselves and the public.
Rather, police need to be better trained to ensure that those convicted of a crime are detained without the risk of death while the country reconsiders its current stance on firearms.
Had such measures been taken in the past, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Africa and countless others would not have had to face such a tragic, premature end to their lives.
