As I write this, I have just learned of the death of Korryn Gaines, a 23 year old black woman shot and killed in front of her 5 year old son. A son, who by the way, was shot as well during the rain of fire aimed at his mother sitting next to him. They claimed she was "holding him hostage," but the child was recorded saying that he did not want to go out there and face those officers. So this mother, thinking that she was protecting her son, sat by his side with a shot gun in her lap and a cell phone in her hand.
The saddest part of the whole video was when she asked the young boy who was outside, and what they had come there to do. In his small voice, you could hear him say that the police had, "come to kill us..." Not that I agree with holding a gun and having a stand-off with law enforcement, because I DON'T, but a rational mind would beg to question why SWAT would be called out for traffic violations? One would also have to wonder if these officers were taught during training to use deadly force while there is a child present?
This woman, who felt she was protecting her son, addressed the officers at her door by their title, and even calling them sir. No disrespect was in her tone, yet the words you hear on that video are the last words she spoke before being killed by them. I wonder if she felt that this would be her end? It was said that she actually spent time, prior to her death, filming police brutality in her Baltimore neighborhood. Could that be another reason why SWAT was sent out in the first place?
WE THE PEOPLE, the ones who help/ed to build this nation are in a stand-off with the hired exterminators (and those who allow/support their actions by not speaking up) who pray on the powerless. But aren't we all really? Powerless I mean, because the only side the law is on is their own. It is a modern-day Civil War under the guise as one of the world's greatest countries.
On September 27th, of 2011, Chad Chadwick, a Ft. Bend County Caucasian resident, and father, went home after having a few drinks, and fell asleep in his bathtub. A concerned friend called the Missouri City Police to go over and check on him. Approximately 5 members of the city's SWAT unit were sent out instead. They arrived, and without announcing their presence, kicked down his door, and entered his apartment without a warrant. They found him sleeping in the tub, but instead of checking on him, they chose to pull him out naked and snap photos of his body. After that initial humiliation, they proceeded to knock him to the ground and shoot him with a 40mm non lethal round (which if he was black would have been a SUPER lethal round). To add insult and more injury, they tazed him in the back of the head and beat him until he had permanent hearing loss. This gentleman was then hauled off to jail with no known charges, and no prior record. I can only imagine what they would have done to someone who had a record (RIP Alton Sterling)...
Not only had these officers wrecked Chad Chadwick's life with their violent unlawful acts, but they also tried to ruin his reputation by covering their tracks and saying he was holding hostages as the reason why they used such brute force. I saw the video, there were no hostages. These lies they told under oath, have put a barrier between he and his child, as he is being kept from performing his parental duty as her father because of the false charges on his record.
In Austin, TX Breaion King, an elementary school teacher, who so happens to be my sorority sister, and Black, was pulled over for a minor traffic incident by an Officer Bryan Richter. Without provocation, I watched as his dashboard camera caught him pulling Ms. King from her car and slamming her into the ground; holding her there by what appeared to be a knee to her neck. He then commenced to man handle her while drawing cuffs from his belt. Pulling her up sharply by her arms, which were so far behind her, I was afraid they might break, he and his partner finished cuffing her together, and shoved her into the back of their cruiser. She did not resist, or provoke the officer to produce this type of treatment. Her only question as she was being carted off to jail was why. Why was this happening to her? In response, the officer posed a question right back to her, one as ignorant as his actions had just displayed. He asked if she knew why people were so scared of Black people. He then went on to answer his own question by saying that it was because Black people had "violent tendencies." Even though HE was the one who had just BEAT HER without reason or provocation.
Needless to say, all the charges against her were immediately dropped by the court, and a public apology was issued; not by officer Richter or his partner, but by the city's Chief of Police. Though I'm sure the memory of this experience, for her, will never disappear.
I thank God for the bold citizens who are willing to risk their own lives to film police brutality, and those dashboard cams that capture the corrupt actions of ones who should not be members of the systems law enforcement. WE THE PEOPLE are at war, in hopes that one day our current system of injustice will be turned on its head and held accountable. These amateur videos bring to light what has been long since looked over and even dismissed.
More power-hungry cops eager to flex their position, were recently caught on camera brutally beating a motorist in the middle of a busy street. A passer-by noticed and took it upon himself to start filming the incident so that he may publish it on social media. One of the officers noticed, and chose to cross that busy street so that he could take down the passer-by using his defense weapon. Now why would he do that if what he was doing were legal?
I'm not one to judge the whole group by the ignorant few. As a Black woman living in America, I already know how it feels to be on the receiving end of someone's hatred simply for being different. It seems only skin color to be a curse in the mind of a fool. A dog can be different, so can a horse, yet these animals are accepted as some of the most beloved pets by the very people who don't accept others because of the shade of their pigment. A pigment that only runs 1/16th of an inch deep in skin. Yes, 1/16th of an inch separates us, but this same color in a dog, a horse, even a cat is of no consequence.
There was a woman, a Black woman, taken into custody for a first time minor shop lifting offense. What baffled me was not the crime, but the punishment. She was sentenced to 75 days in jail and during her initial three day, while waiting to appear in court, had her pants taken away; totally unclothed from the waist down. To top that off the jailers refused to provide her with feminine products, and they escorted her into court this way.
The judge in this case was blown away, as anyone in their right mind should be. Did this woman deserve to be stripped of her dignity and stand in front of a judge with a courtroom full of spectators because of a first offense with no previous record? I think not! And neither did the judge. She called the jail where she was being held and asked how such a thing could be allowed. She also reduced her sentenced to time served and gave her a credited $100 fine; saying in essence that it was absolutely ludicrous for them to give that woman such a lengthy sentence, and shame her in that way. Would the story have been the same if the woman's skin was pale, eyes blue, hair blonde, and came from more income than those who reside in a trailer park? You know the answer...
These things are not all happening in the past! This is not 1964. We are no longer in a Civil Rights Movement, yet things that happened then are still fresh on the screens of the nightly news. When will law enforcement honor the oaths they take? When will the injustice system stand for justice? Did you know citizens that you have a lawful right to resist unlawful arrest, even to the point of taking the life of the arresting officer? DID YOU? I'll bet that is a law that will never be told, you have to research it for yourself. Check it out, its in the books. Know your rights, you are a citizen, you have a right to be treated with dignity and respect, but without the knowledge of those rights, and an accountable system to back them up, we will continue to perish. WE THE PEOPLE have a right to know.
