Imagine a world where all you had to do to get away with shooting a disabled man in the face was say you felt endangered and the law would be on your side.
State Attorney Bill Cervone announced Friday that the University Police Department officers involved in the March 2 shooting of Kofi Adu-Brempong will not face criminal charges for their actions.
We cannot say that we find this shocking because the only people who witnessed the events at Adu-Brempong's apartment were the officers and Adu-Brempong himself, but we would be lying if we said we are not disappointed in the state's decision.
When police showed up to the apartment in Corry Village, they were responding to reports of screaming coming from inside. Adu-Brempong was alone and in a state of mental distress. Cervone said police decided to force entry into the apartment because they were concerned about the doctoral candidate's safety.
This would have been all right if police were working to protect the Ghanaian student and diffuse the problem, but somehow their initial concern for his safety ended in the man being shot in the face by an assault rifle. He is still recovering from his injuries and being fed through a tube. It is hard to imagine that doing this to a man who walks with a cane could ever be legally justified.
When violence is committed against a police officer, the perpetrator is dead to rights. Protecting the safety of our police officers is a righteous cause, but turn the tables and somehow we are expected to accept a police officer's word on whether a shooting is warranted.
When it comes to the law, police officers are given a blank check, but that does not mean there is nothing we can do to keep this from happening again.
UF President Bernie Machen still has to decide how the university is going to respond to the shooting, possibly changing university policy on how the University Police Department responds to calls like the one to Adu-Brempong's apartment.
We think there needs to be more oversight and control governing when police officers are justified in shooting someone and a way to accurately review incidents like this without having to take an officer's word at face value. There is a forward-facing camera in most squad cars that records officers whenever they pull someone over. Measures like that protect officers and citizens and make sure everything is done by the book.
Cameras do not lie; we would feel better about the UPD officers getting off the hook if there was a way for us to see an unbiased account of what led up to their decision to shoot Adu-Brempong.
University police departments may have a good deal in common with other law enforcement agencies, but they are also unique because they make sure we can get our education in a safe environment.
UF is not just another piece of land. People send their children here, people grow up here, and maybe once in a while people go through something where they just want to scream in their apartment.
We just want to be assured that the UPD knows that, and until it proves that to us we will not be satisfied with how this situation is being handled.
