Tag: Stephon Clark

On Being Safe in America

             The current administration is pushing for billions of dollars to build a wall on the Southern border of this country because he says the country is being “invaded” by what are being  called “bad people.”

In his push for this wall, the president has fed fear into the minds of those inclined to believe everything he says. Nobody will forget how he said, in his bid for the presidency, how Mexico was sending its worst people. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/?utm_term=.c7f42d7cfd86) According to him, all that is bad, or much of what is bad about America is because of the “bad” people coming over the Southern border. Because of them, he says, Americans are not safe.

At the same time, to justify his ban on people coming here from Muslim countries, the president is quick to connect terrorism with anyone who is Muslim. He uses the few times in this country that a crime has been carried out by a Muslim as proof for his claim that America must keep all Muslims out.

He is strangely quiet, however, about the young white men in this country who have been radicalized by white supremacist ideology, and he gives little to no attention or verbiage that mass murders in this country are being carried out by these American citizens.

We don’t need to belabor that truth, but what we really do need to pay attention to is the fact that so many non-white people in this country are afraid. We are afraid of these thugs who carry guns and drink beer, ready to attack and kill people of color on a whim, knowing they can do it and get away with it. We are watching white people, filled with hate, spewing the worst of verbal attacks against non-white people, some as young as middle school age. (https://www.ktnv.com/news/parents-demand-more-communication-after-racist-threats-at-las-vegas-high-school) Synagogues and mosques are under attack,  (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html) as well as individual members of the Muslim community. (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/15/assaults-against-muslims-in-u-s-surpass-2001-level/). Dylann Roof, who walked into a black church and killed nine people who had welcomed him to their Bible study, was treated with respect after his mass murder, being taken to a Burger King by police who apprehended him before being taken into custody. Everyone knew he was a murderer who had a gun, and yet he lived; black people are shot in the back when police officers say that they thought the person they killed had a gun. They say and do that over and over – and nobody cares.

Stephon Clark was shot in the back in his backyard by police officers who said they thought he had a gun. He didn’t, but the officers got off and will face no charges. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/stephon-clark-police-shooting-sacramento.html) Years ago, Amadou Diallo was shot in excess of 41 times by police officers who said they thought he had a gun. (https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/05/nyregion/officers-in-bronx-fire-41-shots-and-an-unarmed-man-is-killed.html) (https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/26/nyregion/diallo-verdict-overview-4-officers-diallo-shooting-are-acquitted-all-charges.html)

This week I had an interesting conversation with my son. He hates guns. When he was a child, he would pray every night that all the guns be destroyed. He is now 30 years old and he said to me, as he said he was considering getting a gun, “Ma, I’m afraid of these white folks.”

Many of us are. Non-white people are walking targets in this country; we cannot count on either the police or the justice system for protection or for justice. While the world is upset about Jussie Smollett, few people are concerned that unarmed black people continue to get shot and killed by law enforcement officers, who are never held accountable.

The history of being targeted by racist and hate-filled people is one known well by black people. From Emmett Till, who was murdered by two white men who were acquitted to Trayvon Martin, who was murdered by George Zimmerman, also acquitted, we know what it is to walk with trepidation.

Black, brown, transgender, Muslim, and who knows what other groups are targeted by radicalized white people who know they can kill us and get away with it. We are not safe. The Southern border and who comes here that way has nothing on the breeding and nurturing of white supremacist terrorists in this country.

My son said he is afraid of “these white folks.” I am, too.

A candid observation.

A Solution for Police Officers Who Shoot Out of Fear

With the most recent shooting death of an unarmed black man by white police, we are hearing the same story of why the tragedy happened: offending officers said that they believed 22-year old Stephon Clark had a gun and they were “in fear for their lives.”

It turns out that Clark had an iPhone in his hand; no gun was found at the scene.

The post-shooting rhetoric is always the same. “Police say” the suspect “lunged” at them or was “reaching into his waistband,” giving police just cause to shoot. In the case of the killing by police of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, the offending officers responded to a dispatch call which indicated that someone had called in to say that there was a “man with a gun” at a local park. The caller also said that the gun “was probably fake.”

Police, though, acted on the call. Reports say they drove their cruiser over a curb and came within feet of Tamir. Without warning, they shot the young boy at close range and afterward, did not render medical care. He most likely freaked out when he saw the police car lurching toward him and may have “reached into his waistband,” as police reported. Nonetheless, they didn’t identify themselves and shot and killed him. (http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2017/01/tamir_rice_shooting_a_breakdow.html)

They were “in fear of their lives.”

The excuse given by police officers as their reason for taking down black people is the standard line but it just does not work. How can a police officer be in fear of his or her life that often, especially when that same fear is not apparent when they take down white suspects?

It is very troubling that in the case of 22-year old Dylann Roof, the young white man who shot and killed 14 people in a church in South Carolina, who was known to have an assault weapon that he used in a crime, the police had no fear for their lives. They pursued Roof, found him, arrested him and then took him to a Burger King for him to get something to eat before taking him to the police station. (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dylann-roof-burger-king-cops-meal-article-1.2267615).

If one reads police accounts of these shootings of black men, they too frequently say that the officers “were in fear of their lives.” In the case of John Crawford, who was shot in the toy aisle in a Walmart while holding a toy gun, the officers shot first and asked questions later. Crawford’s last words before he died were said to have been, “It’s not real.” (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/07/ohio-black-man-killed-by-police-walmart-doubts-cast-witnesss-account)

People can only take so much. The scenario is nearly always the same. There is an “investigation,” a grand jury is called, but the offending officers are found to have been in the right because they were “in fear of” their lives.

That’s just too much fear and too easy of an excuse to keep letting police officers wage assault on unarmed black people. In the case of Clark, “police said” he was smashing windows and video shows that he ran from police when they began pursuing him. Though it’s not a smart thing to do, complying with police orders has not necessarily been a good thing, either. Black people have no reason to trust white police officers.

But, the officers said – as they so often do – that they were afraid. They weren’t afraid of Dylann Roof, a known murderer.

If their fear of black people is that intense, then perhaps the solution is that they not be assigned or even allowed in black neighborhoods. Perhaps, for the good of innocent people, police departments should send the officers who are afraid of black people to the suburbs and let men and women who have the capacity to “serve and protect” people and give them a fair chance and treatment worthy of any human being serve in black neighborhoods.

Black communities  are tired of so many officers who kill black people get off because they were “afraid.” Send them elsewhere, and give our communities a chance to experience real police work and the justice that such work can bring.

A candid observation…