God bless cell phones, dash cams and Youtube, for without them, we would be less aware of all the actual craziness that exists in the world.
Without them, we’d rely on police reports, traditional media, and word of mouth — which are all heavily influenced by the powers that are watching out for their own or protecting the status quo. And in cases like the following, in place of dash cam evidence, we’d rely on a personal accounts – the words of a black man against the words of a white police officer… in South Carolina.
The officer, Sean Groubert, said that he opened fire because he felt threatened. The black man, Levar Jones, said he was going back into his car to grab his drivers license as he was told to. Without visual evidence — how would the case have turned out? I have no doubt in my mind it that the officer would have gotten off.
Instead, social media and technology allows us to witness or follow an event as it happens, or watch evidence after the fact. There’s no forgetting. No he said she said. We see the awful acts of inhumanity and discrimination in 480p. Groubert was fired and is being charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison.
