Yes, that was my point. The first comment was in reply to an earlier comment that:
I didn’t agree that Cory had summarized the article without changing its tone or exaggerating a little, although I did agree that it was unbelievably reckless (trying to shoot a suspect in the middle of a major intersection near Times Square?) and an appalling misuse of force. I was just surprised that the colour of his skin didn’t come into the summary, as Cory has posted a few times about stop and frisk and other police policies that disadvantage people who aren’t white and male. People’s skin colour can have an influence on the way people interpret their ambiguous actions, so I’m surprised it wasn’t brought up here.
In this case, if we rule out the possibility that Broadnax was lying about what was going through his head at the time, the police officers mistakenly mistakenly believed that he was reaching for a gun, when he was actually just reaching for his wallet. Reaching for his hip was an ambiguous action, and it is entirely possible that it would have been interpreted differently if he were a smaller white woman.
