This PSA About Police Brutality Is Told From a Particularly Unusual Point of View

One victim often lost in the shuffle

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Police brutality doesn't just affect its victims. It affects the moms of the cops who inflict it. And it's their responsibility to speak out against it, argues this hard-to-swallow new PSA.

At the beginning of the one-minute clip, the hashtag appears: #AsAMotherSpeakOut. Viewers might naturally assume the grieving woman is the mother of an unarmed teen killed by a cop. But as the story progresses, it turns out she's actually the mother of the police officer who pulled the trigger.

It's easy to imagine the knot of emotions a person might feel in such a scenario—sorrow and regret over the dead teenager; compassion and protectiveness toward her son; disgust with the violence he's perpetrated; shame for indirectly bringing it to bear on the world; and in the ad's key point, a moral obligation to decry it.

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