What if there had been no videotape? A Counter-point to Mary Mitchell

From Mary Mitchell’s column today:

“[W]hen a petite, young white woman is pummeled by a liquor-crazed police officer, and the videotape is played repeatedly around the world and on the Internet, someone's head is going to roll.

Obrycka's wasn't the worst case of cop abuse against a woman that's been brought to the city's attention.

That happened to the young South Side woman, allegedly at the hands of Herman -- and with the help of other police officers after the fact -- and it is something you'd expect to see only in an R-rated film about dirty cops.” (emphasis added)

The column, titled “What if that beaten bartender had been a black woman?” is offered as "proof" of Mitchell’s belief that when “citizens of color are on the receiving end of police misconduct, the brutality is often treated as if the victim had it coming.” While there may very well be other cases out there to support this supposition, Mary’s case, as presented today, is embarassingly weak.

What Mary fails to even consider as a possible explaination for the disparate responses to the Abbate and Herman incidents is that in only one was there videotape to be played repeatedly around the world and on the Internet. In other words, the existence or lack of graphic visual evidence, and not the skin color of the victims, is arguably the most salient difference between these stories.

So, to return to the title question: what if that beaten bartender had been a black woman, and the videotape was played repeatedly around the world and on the internet? If Mary wants to convince me that no heads would have rolled, she'll need to try again.