Policing concerns don’t stop at the border

Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. They’re the names of just some of the people who’ve died at the hands of police officers in the United States. This week, two more were added: Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. And with their deaths, the power of the gun and the power of social media again collided.

Police shot two black men dead within 48 hours of one another. One shooting was caught on cellphone video. The aftermath of the other was shown to the world in real time on Facebook Live.

The first, Sterling, 37, was killed in Baton Rouge, La. Two cops had him pinned to the ground when he was shot. He had been selling CDs in a parking lot. The second, Castile, 32, was shot in Falcon Heights, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul. His girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, used Facebook Live to broadcast what happened.

Castile died in the driver’s seat of the car, during a traffic stop. Mercifully, perhaps, the video doesn’t capture the exact second the gun was fired. But it does capture Castile slumping back, shirt covered in blood. An officer is at the window, pointing a handgun at him. Reynolds’ four-year-old daughter was also in the car, the Washington Post reported.

The public’s ability to witness these dreadful events has come a long way since 1991, when video of Rodney King being beaten was sent to a news station. Now, cellphone video transports Canadians, Americans and everyone else to the scene. It puts us in the moment, though it doesn’t tell the entire story of what happened. But it is a powerful, disturbing tool, not just of journalism, but of civic accountability.

For those who have little to fear from police, who’ve only ever had convivial or supportive contact with officers, these incidents — and the others before them — thrust us into the shoes of communities whose members do fear the cops. It is beyond voyeuristic: perhaps for the first time, we feel some of their terror.

Canada isn’t immune from police violence or troubled relationships between police and certain communities. Sammy Yatim’s death, allegations of abuse of indigenous women by police in Val d’Or, the disturbing history of “starlight tours,” where indigenous people were dumped outside a city in winter by police in Saskatchewan — there are more than a few problems in Canada.

We, too, have lessons to learn. We need a sustained effort on the part of all levels of government, activists, minority communities and police forces to inspire public confidence.

We have our own list of names. But we should be working hard to ensure it doesn’t get any longer.