More Than A Powder Keg

More Than A Powder Keg

The country has been torn in half again.

Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown — an unarmed man witnesses say had his hands up, but that police and authorities say struggled for Wilson’s gun — was not charged for the shooting following a Grand Jury decision. It doesn’t really matter where you stand on Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, because the news doesn’t end there.

Michael Brown

Michael Brown

One of the big things that came out of Michael Brown’s death was the demand that police be required to wear body cams; video recording devices capable of being attached to a button or pin on the officer’s uniform. Many people feel that this would take away many instances of officer-related violence and excessive force, and drop down the number of people who end up dead because of these things.

Then you have Eric Garner. Eric Garner was captured on video. Everything that happened to

Eric Garner

Eric Garner

Eric Garner is right there, waiting to be seen. People like to say he was resisting arrest, because I think that makes them feel like he was actually doing something to draw the officer’s ire. What Eric Garner did was raise his hands, a universal symbol for “This is stressful and I don’t want you to touch me.” What the officer then did was put him in a chokehold. The chokehold ended up killing him. “I can’t breathe” were his last words.

For anyone saying that being able to speak one sentence means you can breathe, take it from someone who has been there, and felt that: you are very much able. Survival instinct is a pretty incredible thing, and accounts for feats far greater than saying “I can’t breathe.” That was enough for me, but it wasn’t for Eric Garner. He’s dead, and the officer who strangled him is also not facing any charges. He is also getting off scott-free. All of that was on video, readily available, yet still there was nothing done. What good would button cameras do when we deny the truth in front of our own eyes?

Darrien Hunt

Darrien Hunt

In November, in Utah, officers involved in the shooting of 22-year-old Darrien Hunt, who was cosplaying as one of his favorite anime characters, were cleared of any wrongdoing by a Grand Jury. This anime character had a sword, and as any good cosplayer would, so did Darrien. This was all following his attendance of a comic convention, where 95 percent of the population is in costume and carrying fantastical weaponry.

Someone called the police to report suspicious activity, and the officers showed up and saw Darrien Hunt with a sword. So they shot him. They would go on to say that he rushed them with the sword, and even if that’s true, a gun is much more powerful than a piece of metal, especially one designed to look like a video game sword.

John Crawford III

John Crawford III

In Ohio, officers have been cleared in the shooting of 22-year-old John Crawford III, who was carrying an air rifle in order to purchase it around a Beavercreek area Walmart. There is no video of the shooting, but there is video of Crawford innocently walking around the store. He was carrying a gun, yes, but it was an air rifle that Walmart sells that he was going to buy. Still, he is now dead, and the men responsible for his death aren’t going to pay any consequences.

Lastly, we have 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Tamir’s big crime was daring to be a kid. He was playing with an air pellet gun that he had gotten earlier in the day from a friend. Officers were called and shot Tamir Rice dead seconds after arriving on scene. Again, this is all on video. Tamir Rice was beyond innocent, but I’ve heard the same lines coming from people about his death as well.

“His mom shouldn’t have taught him to act like a thug!” is a pretty popular one. “It’s his fault for pointing a gun at the police officer!”; it wasn’t a gun, and it took the officer less than a two seconds to open fire on the boy. The officer says he feared for his life and that he thought the 12-year-old boy was 18. This systemic racism is so ingrained in us that a 12-year-old kid is dead because the man with the gun assumed that he was a gang banger. Parents shouldn’t have to fear for their kids walking to the store, or going to play in the park. No parent should have to worry that saying goodbye when your kid leaves to go out and play will be the last thing you ever say. Tamir Rice’s mother is worried that there will, once again, be no justice this country is willing to give her son.

Tamir Rice

Tamir Rice

Many people are ready to stand behind these officers. I am not so foolish as to think that the cops that are so consistently making the news represent their brothers in blue as a whole, but it’s what we are seeing. I have friends whose children cry when they see a police officer now, because they’ve seen the world reacting to cops, and they’ve seen the things that cops seem to do on a weekly basis now. Children, who are supposed to trust police officers, even want to be police officers, reduced to tears at the very sight of them. This is the opposite of OK.

For anyone looking at and judging people on the rioting, don’t be angry at the people. Be angry at the system that is so broken, all that is left when it fails is to lash out, to let anger overtake you. For anyone calling these men and women ‘thugs’ and ‘animals’ for their rage-fueled actions, please remember Woodstock ‘99, the firing of Joe Paterno, pumpkin festivals, or any number of reasonless, meritless, ridiculous reasons that lots of white people have rioted. I saw a great quote about all of this the other day, “‘Why’d they burn their own ships and tea?’ said no history book ever.”

I don’t know what to do to stop this. I know I’m angry. I’m angry that these results keep pouring in, I’m angry that there seems to be absolutely no system of checks and balances to hold officers of the law accountable for their own actions. Being the law does not make you above it, but more and more it sure seems like we’re willing to let that be the way. I said in an article on Ferguson before that it’s protect and serve, not punish and slay. Those words still hold true, maybe even more now than they did before.

To any of the families that we know about and all the ones we don’t that are being effected by all of this, for Eric Garner’s wife, Michael Brown’s parents, Tamir Rice’s mother, and anyone who loved any of the unarmed young men whose lives have been cut short, whose names have been slandered, and whose deaths have ignited an outcry for action; I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.

Categories: Commentary