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Dec 11, 17

Daniel Shaver was Killed by the State & Murdered by the Police

You need to watch the body cam video of the police murder of Daniel Shaver. You don’t want to, and I don’t blame you, because I didn’t want to either.

The footage is the most painful thing I have ever watched. I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I was in tears after watching it. Once I had collected myself, I hugged my children and told them how much I loved them.

Daniel Shaver was a husband and father of two children. He was 26 years old, basically the same age as me. His daughters are about the same age as mine. They will grow up without a father because of the police officer who murdered him. He was also innocent of any crime. He had a job in pest control, and another guest at the hotel mistook his equipment for a firearm. The State murdered him with only the information they got in a phone call.

As I said, I didn’t want to watch the video. Nobody wants to watch a man die, weeping and begging for his life. However, I argue that every single person in this country should watch the video. I argue that it should be played on every news channel, in its entirety, over and over until every person in our country has seen it.

You need to watch this video because you, as a part of this society, are complicit in Daniel’s murder. You need to watch because your apathy is why the man whose finger pulled the trigger was acquitted of all charges and walks a free man. Your choice to look away killed Daniel Shaver, left his wife without her husband and left their children without a father. You murdered Daniel Shaver.

You may believe you are innocent. “How could I have killed him? I wasn’t there, I didn’t pull the trigger! This has nothing to do with me.” I understand your confusion. It isn’t easy to admit you’ve killed a person.

Daniel Shaver was killed by the State. He was murdered by the police who work for you. You, as a part of this society, employ the police who are supposed to protect and serve. You gave the police their mandate, you purchased the military style weapons they used to commit this murder, and you engraved “You’re Fucked” on the gun that killed Daniel.

As a part of this society, you and I are the source of the State’s power. You and I are the ones who give the State the authority to murder men and women in cold blood while they beg for their lives.

You and I are the source of this violence, whether you believe it or not. This is why you should watch the video of Daniel’s death, because you killed him. If you have any humanity left, the video will cause you a great deal of pain. You will see him die from the point of view of the man behind the gun, and you will know what it was to kill him. You will wish you had never watched it and hope you never see anything like it again. You will hope you never again know what it was to kill a person.

After time, the feeling may fade. You will return to your life, and may never again consider the feeling you had when you took the life of another human being. But this will continue to happen, every single day, just as it has for years. You won’t hear about most of them, but your continued compliance will continue to kill people every day. You now have a choice. Few choices in life are truly black and white, but this one is:

Will you take back the power we have given to the State, or will you kill again?

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