We've all seen the abundance of cell phone and police body-cam footage released on social media and news stations demonstrating the epidemic of unwarranted police violence in the US, particularly against people of color. The immense number of black lives lost in recent years with little to no punishment for the officers involved has sparked an outrage in US citizens of all genders, race and socioeconomic status. We've heard excuses (the body-cam fell off during the incident) and we've heard ignorance (the cops don't know how a man died during transport), and yet the mostly-white officers involved always get away with a slap on the wrist, if that. Our judicial system protects these men, men who know they have committed an injustice but who still use their white privilege to escape consequences.
NC Governor Pat McCrory recently signed a new state law "regulating the release of recordings from police body and dashboard cameras," according to newsobserver.com. From what I've heard, the footage of body and dashboard cameras will now be considered part of an officer's personnel file; this footage, previously categorized as public record, can no longer be requested by the public. And to be honest, I'm furious about it. While McCrory states that the law is meant to "strike a balance between improving public trust in the police and respecting the rights of officers," I believe that the law is meant to further protect those officers who continuously abuse their responsibility and spread hate and violence.
What's worse? RedState reports that "the North Carolina General Assembly easily passed the law with a vote of 48 – 2 in the Senate and 88 – 20 in the House." This means that the law was passed with very little opposition. I'm sorry, but I can't seem to wrap my head around how this man, who represents all of North Carolina, has not been more challenged than it appears.
This isn't even the first time McCrory has moved NC away from the progress of the United States as a whole. Just this year, McCrory signed HB2, a law that "prohibits transgender people from using public bathrooms in schools and government facilities that don’t match the gender on their birth certificate, and it also barred local governments from extending civil rights protections to gay and transgender people" (washingtonpost.com). Even when he revised the law due to public backlash, he managed to ignore the most outrageous part; he stood by his order that trans* individuals are now required to use bathrooms associated with their legal birth gender and were not allowed to use restrooms corresponding with their preferred gender.
McCrory's behavior, as well as Donald Trump's and other conservatives', is only stirring up fear and paranoia among our citizens. They are making it OK to attack change and the makers of change; they are encouraging that other conservatives throughout the US take matters into their own hands and they are giving those crazed individuals the power and means to do so unscathed. McCrory's decision to make police-cam footage private is not going to create a balance of any kind. Instead, it's going to topple the scale entirely and create more mistrust and more anger in those citizens who stand for justice and for lives lost.
