link to original reddit post by /u/MasterTeacher123
I was thinking about this the other day, reports of deaths by US law enforcement the last 10 or so years say the cops kill about 1000 people a year give or take depending on the source.
But for the most part only about a handful of those deaths a year go viral. Meaning you have politicians/celebrities talking about them, it’s covered in The NY Times, hashtags laws passed in their names etc. Why do think this is? What is it about these 6 or 7 cases that causes this uproar in comparison to the other 993?
I’ve heard people use the following answers but I don’t necessarily agree
1.)Race. The problem with this argument is while a guy like George Floyd Or Eric Garner were black, there’s hundreds of other black guys who are killed by police whose names you will never know. Same with white guys.
2.)Well these ones were in camera. Not really true, for example Breonna Taylor’s death wasn’t caught on camera and that went viral. There are videos online of police shootings that never became national stories.
3.)Well those are the REALLY BAD shootings/deaths. You can’t tell me those are the only “bad” police shootings. It has to be something else.
Are some people’s families just more politically connected? It’s really crazy when you think about it. I remember researching this in the summer and there was a older man maybe 30 mins from my neighborhood who was killed by the police in his home and I never heard about it. The only people who knew are
A. The cops
B. His family
C. Anyone who bothered to read the small excerpt of the story in the local paper