A writer writes!
There have been a number of incidents over the past year with deadly results for African American males. In each case an unarmed African American male was killed because the other person feared for their life. Some of these incidents involved policemen, authorized to carry deadly weapons which they decided to use when they felt "fearful".
The question that came to my mind regarding those incidents is if the policemen were armed and the person they shot not armed, what were the policemen fearful of? Were they afraid of being choked to death, beat up, or what?
In another incident a white male, who later was found guilty of manslaughter, claimed the reason he shot a young black male was because the white male was fearful of his life being threatened. Thankfully the court saw that there was an alternative to the man using deadly force.
The rationale that fearing for your life needs to be examined carefully in each individual case. Yes, if someone has you trapped in a corner and is approaching you in a menacing manner, I would see a person being fearful for their life and taking the appropriate defensive/deadly action. But if you are a policeman and someone is just approaching you without a weapon, I would question why would there be a need to shoot and kill an unarmed person.
Fear by itself is not the reason that defines that it's okay to kill another person.
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