Police killings of working-class people do not happen in South Dakota as often as in big cities like Oakland or New York. South Dakota police officers, however, can and do shoot people without worrying about the repercussions.
South Dakota statutes justify homicide if “necessarily committed” by an officer who is “overcoming resistance to arrest, capturing escaped felons, arresting felons fleeing from justice, suppressing a riot or keeping the peace.” (Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Nov. 18)
Over 20 years after a Supreme Court ruling overturned a Tennessee state law that justified killing a fleeing felon by police, South Dakota has yet to take its similar law off the books. Before the ruling, police legally were allowed to kill any “felon.” That is no longer the case, but South Dakota never changed the law.
While police are given the benefit of the doubt by the media and ruling class in other states, in South Dakota it is the rule.
Out of 12 police shootings in the state since 2001, Attorney General Larry Long has cleared the cops involved in all 12 cases. Six of the victims died at the hands of police. The state deemed each of the shootings as “justified.”
In fact, seven cases occurred in one city, Rapid City, and three of those cases involved the same officer.
One of the cases involved Lucas Ghost Bear, who was shot three times and killed by police officer Marc Black. Ghost Bear was brandishing a knife and was suicidal. Although it was alleged that Black did not follow police protocol, he was cleared in an investigation.
Police brutality is much higher on Native American reservations and in Rapid City than in the eastern part of the state where more white people live.
No matter where one lives in the United States, police brutality is a fact of life for workers and oppressed people. Laws like South Dakota’s help police get away with their crimes with impunity.
With our without these laws, cops still kill under capitalism. Exposing this truth and building a genuine movement of working-class people to stop killer cops is necessary.
35 1 minute read
