(Newswire.net — December 5, 2014) — In an interview for Russia Today news, Rev. Jesse Jackson expressed skepticism over the President Barack Obama’s plan to equip police with body cameras. Rev. Jackson explained his concern saying there was video of Eric Garner and it didn’t lead to an indictment of the officers that choked him to death.
President Barack Obama wants to spend $75 million to put body cameras on the nation’s police, however, the problem is not a video footage, but the interpretation of that content.
“It was so obvious that four police sieged [sic] a man on a basis that does not stand to reason and choked him to death. And while one basically did the choking, the others watched him. They did not defend or protect him, and so he is dead,” said Jackson.
Rev. Jackson said that Garner is just another unarmed black man killed by the police who are paid to protect and serve. “They didn’t protect and they didn’t serve, and the jury set them free. It’s an act of terrorism,” he said.
Jackson recalled the long list of unarmed black victims of the police brutality from Emmett Till and Medgar Evers in Mississippi through to unarmed Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old recently shot in Cleveland (who was carrying a pellet gun).
Answering to a question about Obama administration’s plan to introduce 50,000 body cameras to the nation’s police departments, Jackson he was not convinced that would help in defusing encounters with police and the public.
“The cameras were on the police who beat Rodney King in California and they walked away from a jury that was stacked. The cameras were on Eric Garner – and he was filmed – and they walked away,” said Jackson.
The focus should be on the economy, not on the police, said the civil rights campaigner.
He said the banks foreclosed on homes, and bankers drove down the economy.
“Ferguson is a metaphor for abandoned, neglected urban America. It’s a metaphor for racial disparity. Blacks are 12 times more likely to be arrested than whites, spend more time in jail for less crime,” campaigner said RT.