Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

October 21, 2017

Chili Yazzie -- No Justice for Loreal, Murdered by White Cop in Bordertown, Winslow, Arizona


Loreal Tsingine, Dineh mom, murdered in Winslow, Arizona
Chili Yazzie: My statement before the Navajo Human Rights Commission on their hearing on the murder of Loreal in Winslow by a bad white cop.

By Chili Yazzie
Censored News
There is no justice in a 200 lb. police officer tossing a 100 lb. woman around, putting 5 bullets into her and the authorities saying he was right to do what he did. Is it because the guy behind the trigger is white and the person on the ground breathing her last breath is brown?
What is the mentality of this cop, is he a racist, is he deranged, is he a great grandson of Kit Carson, did he just want to do it to see what it felt like and watch a person die or was he truly fearful for his life. What is the degree of a real threat from a small Native woman with a pair of scissors from ten feet away? No matter how one tries to ‘reason’ this, there is no reason, it is the taking of a human life with no justification. It is wrong.
Police officers are trained to stay physically fit, to learn self-defense, take down procedures and techniques on how to defuse potential violent situations; then they have body armor, a baton, a tazer, pepper spray and firearms.
That badge says To Protect and Serve, the understanding being that it is the public who are to be protected and served. For a bad cop who is itching to react with deadly force to a threat whether real or imagined, the motto becomes a case of protect the cop first and above all else. 
The Navajo leadership needs to compel border town law enforcement to review their use of lethal force procedures and require that the ‘shoot to kill’ option be the absolute final recourse. There needs to be consensus on what constitutes a threat, because of the apparent ambiguity, the consequence is the violent terminating of Navajo lives, as in Loreal’s killing and the killing of Clint John in Farmington. The interpretation of a threat seems to be the slightest provocation, which gives a bad cop all the excuse he needs to shoot to kill. These faulty lethal force procedures must be examined and rectified, otherwise the message will be clear that governments condone the unnecessary taking of human life.

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1 comment:

Jrock said...

As Native people we have to understand there is two denfitations at play right now. The author stated in his letter that police officers are trained in police procedures such as employing take down procedures, maintaining physically fit routines and self defense techniques. The definition of what a police officer is to follow correct police protocol in situations like the one that occurred in Winslow, Arizona. Obviously, the Winslow police department and the two
"professional police officers" did not follow correct protocol in the in the death of Loreal. For example, all across the nation you see White Americans who instigated a hostile situation while using a firearm, are often meet with "Professional Police Officers" who employ correct procedures in handling dangerous situations. And in most cases involving hostile White Americans there is no violent tactics employed by "Professional Police Officers" to subdue threatening White Americans. So the questions remains, are the police officers who were involved with the death of Loreal "Professional Police Officers" or are they race solders for white supremacy.