The violence in the world has ceased to make sense thousands of lives ago. With every prominent step towards racial equality comes the pointless deaths of innocent victims at the hands of those our public trusts most.
Last week it was Terence Crutcher of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His car had broken down – he needed help but instead was shot and killed by a responding officer. In the video that was later released, we can clearly see that Crutcher had had his hands up and did not possess a gun, though Betty Shelby, the killer, claimed that she had been in danger. Further investigation revealed that Shelby’s husband, who is also an officer, was in the police helicopter and that someone in the chopper had dismissed Crutcher as a “bad man,” though there was no evidence to suggest that he had threatened the lives of the police in any way.
Crutcher’s death was pointless – he needed assistance. He needed the help of the officer who instead murdered him, all because he was black and she felt threatened by his blackness.
Followed by this act of violence was the murder of Keith L. Scott, who was shot and killed earlier this week by officers in Charlotte, N.C. Reports state that the police had been in the vicinity looking for another suspect with an outstanding warrant. It is not clear whether they mistook Scott for the man they were really looking for, but I would guess not. My guess would be that they saw a lone black man, sitting in a car, and that had been enough to get him killed.
He was waiting to pick up his chid from the bus. He was sitting in his car, reading a book, and stepped out when he saw the officers. He did not have a gun, though that shouldn’t really matter since North Carolina is an open carry state, but nevertheless, the man was reading a book and now he’s dead.
These senseless killings have taken away two fathers, all because they happened to be born with the ‘wrong’ skin color.
There is something seriously wrong in our justice system, a festering infection that has corrupted its very core. There is no justice in gunning down innocent black lives while a racist, white mass murder can walk into prison after being bought McDonald’s. There is no justice, no sanity in the way our system operates today. The police are not gods – they are armed. They are trained. They are doing their god damn jobs, which should be to protect and to serve the public, though some seem to have forgotten or misinterpreted this. To protect and to serve – not just the white lives, the entire public, black and brown lives included. These officers have chosen this path – they made their decision to voluntarily enter into a potentially deadly occupation, and they should not hold the power between life and death for so many of our people.
It is tiring to have to mourn so many lost lives. It is tiring to be so afraid that my black friends could die, that the next name I hear about will be of someone that I love. Something needs to change and until it does, may the voices of the oppressed flood the streets in protest. Black Lives Matter.
If you’d like to take action, please support the BLM movement by visiting their site, and please remember the names of the lives lost.