First of two parts.
Of course Police Chief Scott Bixby saw The Video — of the white North Charleston, SC, cop fatally shooting a fleeing black man in the back eight times before he was quickly fired and charged with murder.
“When I saw the video, I thought ‘Oh, my God!” Mr. Bixby said of the latest white cop vs. black suspect case to rivet a nation.
“It looked horrific. I don’t understand.
“Let me preface this again, as I have in the past: I wasn’t there. I don’t know. All I know is I saw what everybody else saw.
“Based strictly on what I saw… I don’t know what words can describe it. It looked horrific. It looked terrible.
“I realize it is not fair when any group – whether it be a profession, race, gender, whatever – is painted with a broad brush,” said Mr. Bixby, whose first anniversary as chief of Culver City is just days away.
“I realize we get that sometimes,” Mr. Bixby said.
“In that regard, I felt embarrassed.”
Thirty-five years in uniform, the chief is stung in the same way law enforcement veterans across the country have been after suffering eight months of unrelieved, unprecedented batterings from the White House, the Justice Dept., and any activist with a megaphone. Starting with the police takedown of Michael Brown in Ferguson last Aug. 9, police departments in every state have been subjected to a steady drumbeat of heavily publicized threats and accusations, few of which have stood up.
Taking care not to impugn, Mr. Bixby said that “I am not the chief of North Charleston. I don’t want to make any remarks about things I don’t know about.
“Strictly based on what I saw, I was shocked. I don’t know if there are enough adjectives to describe what I saw, what I feel.”
(To be continued)
