Amber Guyger
I recall marching on the state capital in Tallahassee, Fl
when I was a student at Florida A&M University 39 years ago after a
group of police officers were acquitted in the death of Black ex-Marine
and salesman Arthur McDuffie, who they chased as he rode a motorcycle
through the streets of Miami, Fl. It was December 1979 when McDuffie
died from what the police said were injuries from a motorcycle crash.
During
a trial that was moved to Tampa, Fl, a cop at the scene stated McDuffie
was beaten to death with flashlights, fists and police batons by the
officers that were chasing him. Testimony from a cooperating officer
stated McDuffie’s motorcycle was ran over by a squad car to damage it so
it appeared to have been in a crash. An all-White jury in Tampa
acquitted the officers of all charges related to McDuffie’s death on May
17, 1980 and Miami exploded into riots that resulted in 18 deaths,
hundreds of injuries and arrests. Over $100 million of damage occurred
in Miami.
Tallahassee,
Fl is 483 miles and 0 miles from Miami, Fl because many students
attending Florida A&M were from Miami. After the acquittal verdicts
the campus and Black community was wound tight as a drum and ready to
explode. Someone ran to each apartment door where I lived off-campus and
knocked to let everyone know that the police officers got away with
killing a Black man and a March on the capital was scheduled.
Florida
A&M was a powder keg with a lit fuse. Bob Graham, the then Governor
of Florida, came and gave a speech at Lee Hall, but was almost booed
off stage.
Tempers
cooled down with time and I left Florida A&M in December of 1980
having completed my 4 years course of study in Marketing. Some 39 years
later I got to witness Amber Guyger, a White female police officer get
convicted of murder for killing her neighbor while he sat in his
apartment because she said she thought it was her own.
Has everything changed since the Miami riots, no, but Guyger is going to prison for what she did to Botham Jean.
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