“I normally incline to give the police the benefit of the doubt,” says Ian Tuttle over at National Review. And that’s true. In fact, it’s fair to say that pretty much everyone at National Review supports the police under almost all circumstances. Nobody at NR ever manages to mount much concern over charges of racism—except to ridicule and disparage them as products of liberal victimology, of course—and they have especially little patience for charges of racism in police conduct.
And yet, Tuttle says the case of Cedrick Chatman “bears close scrutiny.” Why is that? What’s different about Chatman’s case? Just this:
Following the release of the Laquan McDonald video and the revelations that Rahm Emanuel & co. almost certainly worked to bury it until after his tough reelection contest, the newly released video of the shooting of Cedrick Chatman in 2013 raises serious questions….The video is not conclusive. But the optics are not reassuring….Policing, even the “routine” aspects of it, is dangerous work, especially on the South Side of Chicago. But this is a case that bears close scrutiny — and so does the relationship between the city’s elected officials and its law enforcement.
Whew. For a moment I thought that NR had gone soft. I figured I might wake up tomorrow and find them running sympathetic stories about #BlackLivesMatter and railing against institutional racism in American law enforcement.
But no. It’s just that this makes good ammunition against Rahm Emanuel. All is right with the world.
