A white police officer shot an off-duty black police officer in St. Louis

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published 25 June 2017

A black St. Louis, Missouri, police officer was shot by a colleague while off duty this week, an encounter in which the injured officer's lawyer says race was a factor. "In the police report you have so far, there is no description of a threat [the shooter] received," said attorney Rufus J. Tate Jr. in a local news interview. "So we have a real problem with that. But this has been a national discussion for the past two years. There is this perception that a black man is automatically feared."

The off-duty officer was at home when he heard commotion outside and took his police-issued firearm to investigate. When two cops pursuing a suspect saw him, they "ordered him to the ground." He complied, and was recognized by his coworkers, who told him "to stand up and walk toward them."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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