Attached is a video of police on the gulf coast of the “Caribbean” sea executing Fallus Williams Polk, a 42-year-old Black parent for not wanting to be their property.
There are many critiques of videos of police killings in general & of Black people in particular. In many ways, they serve as “snuff films” – the violence is framed as justified by the society that produces them. The suffering recorded may or may not elicit sympathy, but rarely elicits action. The proliferation of police body cameras (critiqued by anarchists & others since at least 2014, in the wake of the armed uprising against “Ferguson, Missouri” & its armed defenders) has done nothing to prevent the proliferation of police bullets into Black people.
With the above context in mind, this video is being shared because (to me) it appears to have been produced & shared “independently,” as an initiative between people rather than released to the public by the state. Many local governments, particularly in the “u.s.” south, rely on suppression of evidence, including videos, to silence outrage in the wake of particularly stark incidents of slave patrolling. It also may allow some viewers to understand what kind of behavior, when undertaken by Black people, can be construed as a “threat,” in order for aspiring rebels to better shape resistance efforts. I hope it serves as a reminder to others, in particular others who will take action, that anti-Black violence is ubiquitous &, presently, unending. It does not only exist in neat containers like “2020” or “Black Lives Matter” or “when an article is published in the enemy’s news media.” The footage may also be useful for those interested in identifying the footsoldiers who carried out the killing.
The video source is a fedbook post by a cousin of the victim, Fallus Polk. It’s not clear to me how the cousin obtained the video.
One discussion of the limits of recording can be found by searching for the publication “Don’t Film, Act: A Call for Confrontation.”