Would Eric Garner and Michael Brown be alive if the police officers who shot them were colorblind? This is the question that has occupied the minds of many American citizens the last few months. The wrongful deaths of these black men caused a national uproar that questions the credibility and honesty of the police officers that were involved in the shootings. Prejudice still exists in the police force, as can be seen in the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
Eric Garner and Michael Brown were murdered on July 17, 2014, and August 7, 2014, respectively. Both were unarmed and did not seem to endanger the lives of the police officers who were involved. In En Vogue’s song “Free Your Mind” there is a line “Before you can read me you got to learn how to see me”. This perfectly illustrates the story of these men. The police arguably acted based on their prejudices, before assessing the situation. Also, the most abhorrent part of the entire
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The detective that performed the tests on the gun (that Wilson used to shoot Brown) found out that the gun was stored in an unsealed envelope and was placed in evidence by Wilson himself. Wilson ignored police protocol in both of these actions. The police officers and paramedics involved in the homicide of Eric Garner did not follow protocol either (Joselit). One of the police officers, Daniel Pantaleo, tried to put Garner’s arm behind his back, Garner refused this. As a reaction Pantaleo put his arm around Garner’s neck, and pulled him towards the ground. Garner kept repeating his soon to be last words “I can’t breathe”, and then he lost consciousness. After seven minutes the ambulance arrived, but the paramedics did not perform CPR on the scene, even though they were supposed to. All of the paramedics and police officers were not indicted, although they are all partially responsible for the death of Eric