Local teacher speaks out about officer-involved shootings

A Tacoma teacher is weighing in on the two officer-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota this week.

On Thursday morning, Nathan Bowling -- who is Washington state's Teacher of the Year -- tweeted about his thoughts on law enforcement:

Bowling has written a guide for how students should handle encounters with law enforcement.

Click here to read the guide.

Bowling is an AP Government teacher at Lincoln High School in Tacoma.

KIRO 7 reached out to Bowling Thursday, but he was at a teacher’s conference in Colorado, where he says teachers were distraught over the two shootings.

Bowling said it seems more and more like "it's open season on African-American males" when it comes to police officers. Specifically, he thinks current policies allowing police to use lethal force when they they're in danger, gives officers too much control over what happens.

"They could use force and justify it in front of a jury.  And so I think this is going to continue until we change use of force policies,” said Bowling. "There's more Americans killed by police in the United States every month than there are in an entire year in some European nations.  It doesn't have to be this way.  We allow it to be this way."

KIRO 7 asked Bowling about the dramatic Facebook Live video from Wednesday night's shooting in Minnesota. He said social media and technology is shining a light, brighter than ever before, on the issue of officer-involved shootings.

"It sounds cliché, but if law enforcement spent more time getting training on de-escalation than they do on target practice, I think we'd be better off,” Bowling said.

Cox Media Group