Early on the morning on Dec. 6 in Alamo Heights Texas, Christopher Carter, campus cop for the University of the Incarnate Word, pulled over student Robert Cameron Redus. Carter alleges that Redus was driving erratically. Minutes later Carter fired several shots killing Redus. This is yet another case of police terror that has expanded from the neighborhoods to the college campuses.
Redus was described by his friends, now in shock at the police killing, as a gentle person. He was an honor roll student and anchor person on the television program at the Catholic college in the San Antonio area.
Although other police vehicles are equipped with video cameras on the dashboard, Carter’s camera was not on the dash. Police claim dashcam fell off because low temperatures caused the glue holding the camera to malfunction.
According to the campus police, Carter has “an extensive law enforcement background.” He is now on administrative leave. The Alamo Heights Police Department is carrying out an investigation in conjunction with the Texas Rangers.
When someone is killed by police, chances are that any investigation of the cops by the cops will result in blaming the victim as seen in the university statement that promotes the notion that Redus was driving erratically on campus, did not identify himself as a student and used the officer’s baton to attack him before the officer responded with deadly force to “restrain the suspect who repeatedly resisted.”
Carter also claims that he told the Redus to stop resisting arrest 56 times. One must wonder how Carter was able to utter this phrase so many times during a six minute arrest!
Any unarmed individual with a gun pointed at him at close range would undoubtedly struggle to survive—for Redus this was in vain as he faced a killer cop. As Carter was stopping Redus, the officer apparently gave an incorrect location to police dispatchers delaying a response from other officers.
Comments posted on a CNN article covering the incident show the outrage in the community. One comment stated that law enforcement are the biggest law-breakers. Other comments raise questions about Carter’s version of the incident. Others pointed to the countless other police killings in Texas, not unlike this one.
It is clear that the people are aware of the role of the police in the community and schools. Likewise it is clear that the people are capable of carrying out an independent investigation of the police. It will take a struggle to win this, but ultimately there will be no justice for Robert Cameron Redus, and police killings will continue unchecked until the people control the policing of our own communities and schools. Only then will the last chapter be written on the scourge of police terror.
