The Consequence of Power

Life Magazine is gone but in its heyday created a portfolio of film that represented a time and place. Volume of film has diluted significance now. But some film rise above the stupefying norms. The film of the shooting in Charleston, where a man is shot in the back by a policeman as he flees a traffic stop,  will become an iconic moment in American history, like the pictures of the helpless, hopeless men marooned on the roofs of the New Orleans apartments during Hurricane Katrina. It will be said the film is limited and selective--and that is true--but it is difficult to imagine a scenario where an armed law enforcement agent could reasonably fire eight shots at an unarmed man who is running away from him.
The specifics here must be stunning; there is little of the usual rush of the racial entrepreneurs to the scene, no hyperbole. This is so astonishing that it probably will take some time to digest.
There will be more scrutiny here, more to worry about. Will there be evidence of a struggle? Probably. Will the policeman say he was afraid? Certainly. Will the victim have some responsibility in the police response? Likely. But there is little aside from a significant wound to the policeman that could make this reasonable.
Strangely, the anxiety here will be extremely focused and ethnic when the real problem is inherent to the very fiber of the nation: The risk to everyone of the whim of power.