Tendency.
As we mourn the injustice visited upon both the life and death of Tamir Rice, I also want to remember John Crawford III, whose name is oddly absent from most of the lists I’m seeing right now. A 22-year-old father who picked up a toy gun being sold in an Ohio Wal-mart and was then shot dead by police after white witnesses claimed (and later recanted) that he’d been threatening other customers with it.
And no, the grand jury did not choose to indict this officer either, an officer who was investigated previously after a shooting, an officer with close family ties within his department.
This happened twice. The same way. In a span of three months. In a state where citizens have been given the right to openly display actual firearms. And there is literally no way you can convince some people that there might be suspect patterns in the way black people are assumed to be threats in any given police confrontation, and at fault in their own shootings.
Creative Control 