Who Gave Police the Right to Murder?

A reflection on the history of law enforcement and local legalized violence [Originally Published in 2019]

Who Gave Police the Right to Murder?

By Steven Underwood

I do not like that way the conversation on Police Brutality has gone so recently after the shooting of Ma’khia Bryant in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio just neighborhoods away from where I went to school. It’s focusing a lot on whether or not it is acceptable to say Black people hate the Police (when many of us do) or if the Police are inherently racist or ethical (when I do think they’re racist and unethical). It’s a rehashing of conversations that are older than Black Lives Matter, playing at convincing people that just this once, it was not okay for a Police Officer to commit one of the few acts we resolve no one should have the power to do: murder. It’s why I also don’t like debates on Critical Race Theory or the White House’s refusal to call the country racist all for spots on the chessboard that begs the question of what is the Police Force allowed to do, has been allowed to do and to whom? We spend so long justifying Black lives to white people that I don’t think we’ve ever had the opportunity to beg the question: who and what gave the Police these unalienable powers to kill?