I have witnessed two black men die on camera after police
officers fired multiple bullets into their bodies. One man, Alton Sterling was
being held down by two police officers when they shot him multiple times. One
officer yelled “get down!” after the man was shot while he was already being
held down. After Sterling was shot multiple times, one of the officers took
something out of the dying man’s pocket, it could have been a gun, but if the
gun was still in his pocket that meant it wasn’t in his hand threatening the
officers. One view of the video shows Sterling’s right hand up by his chest
right before he was first shot. Sterling’s left arm was held down by the weight
of the officer sitting on top of his body. From my view Sterling was executed
in the streets by those we call in times of crisis, but the response to our
call should not be the crisis.
The second on-camera death of a black man occurred in
Minnesota and is even more frightening because it involves something many of us
have been though, a traffic stop. Philando Castile was driving a vehicle
that was pulled over by police for a broken tail light. The vehicle was also occupied by his girlfriend and her young daughter who was in the back seat of the
vehicle. From all accounts Castile was an upstanding citizen, a supervisor at a
school cafeteria and had a license to carry permit. Castile's girlfriend streamed
the aftermath of Castle being shot live on facebook® and he literally died
before our eyes. Castile’s girlfriend recapped the actions leading up to the
shooting and from her account her informed the officer he had a gun and right
to carry permit and was reaching for his license. Keep in mind that Castile was involved in a traffic stop for a broken tail light and
ended up dead. It reminds us how something that seems so mundane can lead to
you losing your life.
I recall a traffic stop in my past when after I was driving
with my family in my hometown. I had the cruise control of my SUV set at the
posted speed limit. My vehicle had no mechanical or safety defect that would warrant
a traffic stop by the police, yet that night after leaving a Walmart and
driving to my relatives’ home the road lit up behind me as a police cruiser’s lights
were activated. I slowed and pulled my vehicle over to the shoulder of the
highway. The police officer approached
the driver’s side of my vehicle. I asked the officer what was the problem.
I was told that he got a call on his cell phone that a
vehicle was driving slowing on the highway. I informed the officer that I was
using my cruise control that was set at the posted speed limit. The officer
shined his flashlight in the face of my, my wife and son who was sitting in the
back seat. He shined his flashlight beam on the vehicle’s registration sticker
on the windshield. I quite sure the officer ran my license tag number before he
stopped me. After failing the find any legitimate reason to hold me, the
officer’s voice became shaky and he praised my safe driving and said he wished
everyone on the road drove as safely as I did. Now, I realize how dangerous
that apparently mundane traffic stop really was since it never should have
happened in the first place. If there had been any minor issue to give a reason
for the officer to cite some potential violation of the law it could have been
a reason for a potential escalation of tension, that as we have seen over the
years, could lead to death. When the wrong cop shows up nothing else matters. Your
social status, wealth, education or profession matter little when you are
engaged with someone frightened, but has the authority and means to end your
life in an instant. Everyone this happens to is not black, 26-year-old Daniel
Shaver from Granbury, Texas begged an Arizona police office not to shoot him,
before the officer shot him 5 times with his AR-15 rifle. Shaver was White and
unarmed. Shaver was killed in March of
2016.
We have entered a very dangerous period where an attitude of
fear and aggressive reaction seem to be quite prevalent in law enforcement. If
some police officers can’t deal with other individuals as fellow citizens,
human beings and mostly rational people in mundane situations like a traffic stop,
then they need to find another profession, stop killing us and staining the
name of real police officers doing things the right way.
