WASHINGTON -- When Cleveland white police officer Michael Brelo walked out of the courtroom on Saturday without any conviction for his role in the 2012 shooting spree by 13 officers at two unarmed black motorists, an eerie sensation of witnessing a hideous serial with almost duplicate plot line inevitably descends on you.
Inside the courtroom, Brelo cried apparently out of relief and hugged his attorney who later called the prosecution "ruthless". Outside the courtroom, relatives of the slain couple, Timothy Russell, 43, and Malissa Williams, 30, cried out of despair and outrage and protests were once again ignited.
"No justice, no peace," protesters chanted, brandishing fists in front of police in riot gear.
Ever since the killing of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white officer Darren Wilson last summer in Ferguson, Missouri, the chant "no justice, no peace" continues to ring out in protests across U.S. cities.
Last month in Baltimore, Maryland, in the wake of the death of 25-year-old black man Freddie Gray who died in police custody, Xinhua reporter asked protesters what the slogan meant to them.
"We want change. Not small changes, but radical ones for the criminal justice system," one student from Towson University in Baltimore told Xinhua. "I feel like (the criminal justice system) is rigged against us, it's like value of our lives is not the equal of theirs (the whites)."
Less than one month after the exclamation, Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, also an African-American, issued a hotly worded statement shortly after the courtroom announcement that cleared Brelo of all charges, in which she said the acquittal was "a stunning setback on the road to justice" for the slain couple and people in Cleveland.
"Today we have been told -- yet again -- our lives have no value," she said.
"The decision may not be what we want but our march for justice continues. We still have a long way to go toward racial equality and justice on Ohio, and in the United States of America," she concluded.
As in the death of Brown, who got 12 shots from Wilson, and the death of the New York peddler Eric Garner, who allegedly died from a chokehold by white officer Daniel Pantaleo last July, the death of Russell and Williams and the acquittal of Brelo is doomed to soon sink into obscurity as new cases of police brutality, which most likely will end up with either no indictment or not guilty verdict for white officers, emerge elsewhere.
According to an analysis report by the U.S. daily The Washington Post and researchers at Bowling Green State University in April, only 54 officers have been charged among the thousands of fatal shootings at the hands of police since 2005.
No database of police-involved deadly shooting exists since the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation does not require police department nationwide to report office shootings.
"...even in these most extreme instances, the majority of the officers whose cases have been resolved have not been convicted," said The Post analysis.
According to The Post, extreme instances usually have factors including "a victim shot in the back, a video recording of the incident, incriminating testimony from other officers or allegations of a coverup."
Philip Stinson, a researcher taking part in The Post analysis, said that to charge an officer in a fatal shooting, "it takes something so egregious, so over the top that it cannot be explained in any rational way," said The Post report.
The most recent case that conveniently qualifies as an " egregious" one happened in North Charleston, South Carolina on April 7, in which white officer Michael Slager was filmed by a bystander during his killing of an unarmed black man after a traffic stop.
In the video footage, Slager shot Walter Scott in the back as the latter tried to run away. Eight shots were fired.
Though Slager was arrested on a murder charge the same day the video was handed in, progress on Slager's trial has slowed to a slog. No date for his first court appearance has been set yet.
"Police officers know that it's very unlikely that they'll be punished even when they knowingly use excessive force against citizens," Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor told reporters earlier following Slager's arrest in April. "If they thought there was a realistic chance that they would be investigated and prosecuted, that would be an effective deterrent."
Unfortunately, the deterrent does not exist yet, and the bizarre serial of police killing will continue to stay on display.
