This has got to be one of the most infuriating examples of racist police brutality made public in at least the past few months.

When I watched the available video, I became nauseated, and my body shook with fierce anger.

The police union’s response was typically brutal and inhuman, but so was a response from the hierarchy of the police department. An assistant commissioner went on the record soon after the event to say that the officer’s actions were “required” by police protocol.

While Rochester’s mayor and the new police chief are saying some appropriate things, it is highly doubtful that any significant reform is going to come of these events — — unless the people of Rochester exercise political force to make fundamental personnel changes at the department. The odds of that happening are low.

What’s probably going to happen instead is that the same racist officers are going to patrol the same streets with the same racist attitudes and the same inhumane, brutal police procedures they accept as ordinary and appropriate, protected by the same uniformed thugs who lead the police union.

I don’t know what to do about it. I tried leveraging my platform by raising a stink on Twitter after the video came out, to harness some righteous fury — but people are tired, it seems, of social justice. Attention has turned to Washington, covid, and other matters.

For the moment, brutal cops are going to continue to prowl, terrorizing Black children and other people.

I hope one day we as a people decide definitively to put an end to this. But that day is definitely not today.