Earlier this month former South Carolina state trooper 31-year-old Sean Groubert shot and wounded an unarmed man during a seat belt violation stop. The victim was 35-year-old Levar Jones, who was pulled over in the gas station as he was coming home from work. This wasn't your normal violation stop at all. Former officer Sean Groubert seemed very nervous from the start when he pulled over Jones, as the dashcam shows. That doesn't seem like a state trooper who is highly decorated to me.
One thing I noticed was Jones just got out the vehicle without being told to. I don't know how they do it down in South Carolina, but in New York and other states you wait to the officer comes to your vehicle to tell you why he/she stops you. That stood out to me how Levar Jones was pulled over and he then got out the truck without being authorized. We all know that's a big no no for black people to do, and especially down south. I hear a lot of people around the nation that are saying this is another case of police brutally against blacks.
Trust me when I tell you, this is much different than the Mike Brown saga or other police shootings against black people in the past. The reason I say this is because the violation stop started all wrong from the beginning. You can't have a trooper that's supposed to be highly trained tell Jones to get his license while he's out the car. Once Levar Jones got out of his car, Groubert should've said get back in your truck and then proceed with proper protocol. This was a bomb waiting to explode from the start.
So there were mistakes on both sides. Now that Sean Groubert asks Jones for his license, he then tapped his pocket to see if it was in there and it wasn't. So then he puts his head in the truck to retrieve it, and that's a major mistake on Jones. He should have said to the officer that his license isn't in his pocket and he's going to get it from inside the car. That would've put Groubert at some kind of ease. I watched this video over and over and I don't know why Jones didn't let the officer know that he'll be putting his head in the vehicle.
Once Levar Jones did that, you already know what was going to happen next. The shots were fired and Jones got hit. It's a disturbing video to watch and just a sad story in general on how blacks are viewed by police. I'm just happy that Jones didn't die in the shooting because this officer let the bullets fly close range. This is way deeper than racism. You have many police officers around the country that are predominantly white and you are suppose to tell me that they aren't scared of blacks and Latinos.
How can we as a country expect them to go into the urban communities and be for the people. It's just not realistic. The police force needs to put the proper officers in the areas that the people can relate to. If this is done, I think that crime can go down and the people of the community will feel less targeted and threatened. Many white officers seem to be scared of black people, from what they've heard or seen on television and that's why they're so aggressive towards them. Even if that means killing them.
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