Learning to Shoot Without Bullets

Sean Bell was shot and killed back in New York. He was shot by the police because they were mistaken. They thought he had a gun. He didn't have a gun. The police thought he was going to try to hurt them. He was trying to get married. Simplistic summation of events, I know, but there was one thing that hurts all of us. That was the simple fact that the police shot this guy fifty times.

Why fifty? Why not a thousand? Well, that was because they didn't have assualt weapons handy at the time - all they had was pistols. Why not just one shot? You know, the old John Wayne way? One shot – to any part of his body would have accomplished the same result - and been a lot neater - and might have spared his life - and saved the police a lot of trouble.
Why not a shot into the air, or down at the sidewalk?

They were probably trained to shoot just like I was, back in the military: to unload your weapon on the enemy, zap him with 4, 5 shots (we had revolvers - if we had had automatics, we probably would have gove to 10 to 15 rounds). That was the way we treated the enemy. The military way. Fine for shooting in a war zone, facing emenies everywhere, alien creatures - we didn't speak their language, know what they really meant except to hurt us.

Police have a very different job. a constabulatory role. That means they need to know their neighborhoods, know who lives there and what they do, how they talk, what they mean. It also means educating the people on your beat and also learning from them.

I guess that's what hurts so much about this senseless, stupid killing. It was not only not necessary, it was also a notification for all of us that more and more of our police are out to get us. They are not trying to protect us because they are afraid of us. That's scary.

© John Womack 2007, All rights reserved.

War Comes Home

Former Marine Sgt. Ty Ziegel and his fiancée Renee Kline were married on Oct. 7, 2006, in Metamora, Illinois.

The photogaph is compelling and I thought it should be in the public domain especially when I read that it has never been published in any major magazine. Apparently it was made for People Magazine who did not use it. It is copyrighted by Nina Berman and you can see this part of her work here: http://www.ninaberman.com/index3.php?pag=prt&dir=marine

Liberman to Switch Parties?

digg
Well, Liberman is pretty Republican already, and probably could be persuaded to move - except for a few things. Number one is that right now he is one of the most powerful men in the world. With the senate so closely divided, he can swing some things one way or the other - he has become a de facto "Decider" – in the sense of that word which referrs to the fait accompli instead of the Bush-like wishing it were so. And if he were to just simply switch parties, he would become just another Republican and lose a great deal of his present power. Number two, with the world so tied in knots in the Middle East, the true axis of which is oil, Israel and the American corporate need for oil, Liberman has other important constituencies as well as his American ties. Finally, what if Cheney should step down before the conventions? Who would be a possible vice-presidential replacement? Could it be Liberman? Well, of course not. He is clearly not as suitable as McCain, or Juliani, or Romney, or that snappy senator from South Carolina, or . . . . So what would have to happen for Liberman to switch in a great big way?

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.