On the surface, it looks like another unarmed black man was shot by a white police officer. But behind the images on the video (black man running, black man's hands in the air, black man being tackled and pinned to the ground, black man being shot in the back while on the ground), there are a number of astonishing details that reveal a situation that's structured much like a safari hunt.
The first and most important detail is that the white man who killed the black man was not really a police officer but a rich insurance executive who donated loads of equipment to the department, and in return got to participate in high-level and often dangerous police operations. (We can guess with some certainty that the police department in Tulsa needs donations from wealthy people because it can't tax them for revenue; similarly, the lack of substantive tax revenue in Ferguson resulted in its police officers and judges fleecing the black community with traffic and court fees—all of this more and more representing the essence of law enforcement in the age of budget austerity.)
The insurance executive killed the black man, Eric Harris—an ex-convict caught in the web of a sting operation with undercover cops—when, according to an official account, his confused mind pulled out a Taser and fired it at the prone/pinned/panicked body on the ground. But in reality, he pulled out a handgun and fired the last shot Harris would hear in his life.
Tulsa World reports that the 73-year-old insurance executive is not the only rich donor in the department's reserve program, which appears to have a rigid class structure. Those at the bottom get to guard crosswalks; those at the top get to join the Violent Crimes Task Force and are authorized to use violent force. The department also seems to think that it's normal to get guns and other supplies (such as the fancy sunglass cameras that recorded Harris's final moments in a world that has yet to witness one honest-to-god resurrection) from men or women who want to play the thrilling game of cops and robbers, cops and drug dealers, cops and the poor.
The insurance executive exits the car, follows the cops who capture a real, live criminal, and gets to Taser him. In structure this is very much like the way rich people hunt in safaris or wildlife parks. Indeed, I once saw a video of the retired professional basketball celebrity Karl Malone hunting a mountain lion in a similar fashion: His guides corner the beast in a cave, he's handed a rifle, points it at the prone/pinned/panicked animal, and pulls the trigger—another day, another successful kill. The insurance executive was not, however, supposed to dispatch his animal to eternity.
And this is very much what the American economy is about these days: The public will most likely have to pay for this rich man's fun and mistake.
