Last weekend’s fatal shooting of New York City police officer Omar Edwards by a fellow officer is an unbearable tragedy but is not an instance of police racism (Edwards was black; the officer who shot him was white), however much the usual suspects, including the New York Times, Al Sharpton and Rep Charles Rangel (D-NY), despicably try to portray it as such, writes Heather MacDonald in City Journal.
And though painful to consider, it appears as of early this week that Edwards's own actions in the heat of the moment, while understandable, may have put him at greater risk of friendly fire, MacDonald says. In the split second available to him, an officer staring down the barrel of a gun cannot possibly gather the evidence to rule out that he is facing a fellow cop before firing, she says. It appears that white officer Andrew Dunton did everything he could under the circumstances, and everything he was trained to do: identify himself as an officer and shout for Edwards to drop his gun. When Edwards spun toward him, Dunton had no more time to ask: “Are you a police officer?” and wait for an answer.