“they taught him in training that at any moment someone could be pulling a weapon from their pocket instead of a wallet.”
Translation: Fuck the public. We have more “Rights” to kill because our job is dangerous.
“I immediately placed bets with my police officer neighbor that this time the black, Muslim officer would be convicted.”
This is highly circumstantial from a PR seat because in some areas he would be even less likely to be convicted for the currency of tokenism.
A fairly recent example involving group persecution was the Pulse murder night and how the public and police reacted. In the six months prior to the shooting over 180 bills were filed to restrict equality from lgbt Floridians. It is doubtful that environment evaporated because of Pulse. The insane paranoia over Isis trumped bigotry for Pulse’s patrons because the currency was much higher.
However, there has been no serious inquiry into why the police killed patrons along with Mateen. Since Mateen and the police did not use the same bullets autopsies could have provided a definitive answer and at last count, they fired more bullets into Pulse than Mateen.
There were several available options for non lethal force to end the stand off but it did not matter because who is really going push the police over lgbt lives lost in a hostage situation? They cared more about exploiting the murders than the murders themselves.