On the night of Dec. 5, a familiar scene unfolded at a gas station in Petersburg, Virginia. Police pulled over Caron Nazario, a Black and Latino second lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps, claiming that his car didn't have license plates. (Reports said that temporary plates were taped to the inside of the new car's back window and that they were visible.)

Videos of the incident, some of them from Nazario's cellphone, as well as police body cameras, underscore the deadly truth we have long known about police interactions with people of color: Lawfulness is not always a recipe for safety. Obedience is not always a recipe for safety. The only person who can control the bodily health and well-being of the person pulled over are the people with the weapons. This is the bloody Catch-22 of modern policing in America.

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