Louisiana

Good thing we're in a post-racist society, is it?

After a police officer guns a 73-year-old man down on his front steps, during a picnic, in the middle of a family picnic, for the high crime of protesting that police officer's invasion of his house -- the police officer had been harassing the man's son, who was innocent of any crime, and had chased him into the house when the young man had enough of it and went inside -- the police in Homer, Louisiana not only (allegedly, I suppose we have to say, since the witnesses to the act are all black citizens) planted a gun on his body, but claim they're wholly justified in their behavior:

"People here are afraid of the police," said Terry Willis, vice president of the Homer NAACP branch. "They harass black people, they stop people for no reason and rough them up without charging them with anything.

"That is how it should be, responded Russell Mills, Homer's police chief, who noted the high rates of gun and drug arrests in the neighborhood."If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names," said Mills, who is white. "I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested.

Via Pam at Pandagon.