L.A. Watts Times: Opinion

Inglewood Police officials were tight-lipped about the police shooting of Kevin Eugene Wicks. There was a good reason. The shooting of Wicks, like the killing of at least three other African American males by Inglewood police officers, again raised many troubling questions, not just about the murky circumstances of the shooting, but also about such thorny issues as Inglewood police department policies and procedures on the use of deadly force, training methods, discipline of officers, and most importantly, whether a police department be trusted to conduct a full and impartial investigation of itself.

Two weeks ago, leaders of the world’s richest countries, the Group of Eight (G8), met to chart the course of the global economy at the luxurious Windsor Hotel Toya Resort and Spa in Toyako, Japan. While President Bush and his colleagues discussed world hunger over a six-course lunch, women in Haiti were preparing cakes of dirt for their children’s dinner.