Police brutality, memtall illness, domestic violence: all on Aura Rosser's shoulders
Between 2013 and 2020 police killed at least 7680
people. A quarter of these people were black.
Aura Rosser was 40 years old when she was killed at her
home by officer David Ried. She and her boyfriend Victor Stephens had an altercation
and he called the police to escort her out of the house. The incident took
place in Ann Arbor, Michigan on November, 9th, 2014 where Aura Rosser
had moved to search for carrier opportunities.
Aura Rosser was a mentally ill woman, however her
friends and relatives described her as a lovable, out-going and caring person.
She was very creative as she loved to paint.
The police had been called several times before the
tragic day. Aura and her boyfriend had several domestic violence cases at the
house they shared.
When the police arrived to this woman for the very
last time, she approached the officers with a knife. The second officer’s name
was officer Raab. Both of the officers reported to had been 5 to 10 feet away
from Rosser.
It remains unclear why being confronted with the same
risk the officers chose different measures for self-defense. Raab fired a taser
and Ried fored a loaded gun. The taser wouldn’t kill Aura but the story didn’t go
that way. The County Prosecutor said that it didn’t matter which actions were
taken by the officers because they were taken for the purpose of self-defense.
The officers were not charged. However, some reforms
were implemented. The city of Ann Arbor hired more psychologists and social workers
to minimize the number of mentally ill people. Mental illness being Ann Arbor’s
community policing reforms is why its citizens demand to reallocate more police
budget towards mental health.
Links:
https://groundcovernews.org/2021/11/30/the-tragedy-of-aura-rosser-police-brutality-domestic-violence-and-community-policing-reform/
https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/know-their-names/index.html
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