copsuseblackstarget

Officers from the North Miami Beach Police in Florida have been caught using black teenagers for target practice.

This was discovered when one woman, Sgt. Valerie Deant, a clarinet player in the Florida Army National Guard’s 13th Army Band, turned up at the Medley Firearms Training Center after members of the department had been practicing, and recognized one of their targets – a mugshot of her brother from when he was just 18-years-old.

All of the other targets were also black men. Her brother Woody, who was arrested for drag racing in 2000 and is now married with children, was also shocked to discover that cops were still using an old picture as target practice.

However, a spokesperson for the police department said that using the mugshots of black men as target practice did not violate their policies.

He added that the technique is widely used and the pictures are vital for facial recognition drills.

In a country whereby unarmed black men are shot down and killed regularly by the police, such a practice – which could subconsciously program officers to see young black men as shooting targets – is more than a little worrying.

There are others who have defended the practice, saying that there is nothing wrong with using black men as shooting targets.

However, would the reaction be the same if they were using police photos as shooting targets, or that of elderly women?

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