WASHINGTON: New body camera footage released by the Illinois State Police shows officers shooting dead an unarmed black woman in her home after she called for help over a possible intruder. In the United States, where police shootings of minorities have become painfully common and polarizing events, the killing has attracted national attention, with President Joe Biden saying Sonya Massey “should be alive today.” So far one of the police officers involved in this case has been charged with murder.

Massey, 36, called 911 to report a possible intruder at her home, with police arriving after midnight July 6, according to the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office. In video footage released Monday, Massey is seen talking to two officers in her home, while they ask for ID and she searches through paperwork. The sheriff’s deputies then ask her to check on a pot of boiling water on her stove, saying “we don’t need a fire while we’re here.” When one of the deputies steps back, Massey asks why, and he responds with a laugh: “away from your hot steaming water.”

Holding the pot, Massey calmly responds “Oh, I rebuke you in the name of God” - prompting a deputy to respond “You better not. I swear to God I’ll shoot you at your face,” drawing his weapon. Apologizing, Massey crouches behind a counter as officers scream “drop the pot.” They then round the corner of the counter and open fire.

Afterward, one of the officers said they were afraid of “taking boiling water to the head.” Officer Sean Grayson, who is white, has been charged with murder. Biden on Monday called Massey “a beloved mother, friend, daughter, and young black woman.” “When we call for help, all of us as Americans - regardless of who we are or where we live - should be able to do so without fearing for our lives,” he said in a statement. — AFP

High-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the family of Massey, called it “one of the worst videos of a police shooting ever.” Police shootings and brutality — especially instances of white on Black violence in a country with a long history of discrimination — often attract outrage and protests in the United States, as well as defenses and pushback from ardent police supporters.

America’s decentralized policing system, where individual towns and counties are responsible for their own policing, means there are no national training requirements and this makes reform extremely difficult. Adding to complications, the United States is home to more guns than people, meaning police often train for violent encounters with the general public. — AFP