OF THE
TIMES
A sheriff's deputy in Georgia has been fired following an investigation into videos of an extremely violent arrest in which a black man was beaten bloody and unconscious, sparking outrage in the community and online.
The incident took place on September 11, when the unnamed Clayton County deputy pulled over an off-duty rideshare vehicle for an alleged broken taillight.
Passenger Roderick Walker, 26, was asked to show his identification, which he questioned as he was not the driver, at which point the deputies asked him to exit the car. A scuffle ensued and the deputies were filmed brutally beating Walker bloody and, eventually, unconscious.
Warning: The following footage may contain scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.
The brutal beating took place in front of at least one of Walker's four children. At one point, Walker can be heard saying "I can't breathe... I'm about to die."
"He bit my hand!" one of the deputies can be heard saying, as the woman with Walker is heard pleading: "please stop, baby don't bite him."
Walker remains in jail, charged with two counts of battery and two counts of obstructing or hindering law enforcement officers.
However, following an internal investigation, Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill announced Sunday that the deputy seen violently and repeatedly striking Walker in the videos was terminated for "excessive use of force."
Neither of the deputies involved have been named and the decision on whether to pursue a criminal investigation remains with the Clayton County District Attorney.
Later on Sunday, amid calls for Walker to be released and for both sheriff's deputies to be fired, the sheriff added more context to the case, stating that Walker has a "felony probation warrant out of Fulton County for cruelty to children, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and a failure to appear warrant."
Walker has received medical attention and no skull fractures were detected on x-ray scans. Small demonstrations were held over the weekend, calling for Walker's release.
Author's note: The essay below was accepted on September 11 for publication by the opinion editor of Newsweek, and after some changes by the editors not reproduced here, was published on the morning of September 14, by 7:00 a.m. or a little after. Two hours later it was taken down by the editor-in-chief, Nancy Cooper, with no explanation on the publication's website.
I was told that Newsweek would like to publish it again โ for keeps this time! โ a week later, but only when a piece commissioned from the opposing viewpoint could appear alongside it, in a feature called "The Debate." Would the author of that piece be able to have a look at mine? There was no reason to think not, since my essay was saved on the "Wayback Machine." But would I see the counterpoint essay before publication and be able to respond with slight revisions of my own? I was given no assurance of that.
Meanwhile a lively two-hour conversation on Twitter about my essay, with readers both pro and con, had turned into a conversation about where the article had gone. Critics, some of whom now couldn't read it, assumed that the essay was bad or intolerable in some way. If I agreed to Newsweek's terms for its reappearance, this impression would be reinforced. As many conservatives know, their views must always be "balanced" and "contextualized" in conjunction with liberal views in the mainstream media โ but liberals' opinions are never treated that way.
Comment: In other words, the University of Chicago can only have a very small number of students for its 2021 English program due to Covid restrictions, and it might as well capitalize on the situation by showing accademia just how woke they are.