Yesterday, we learned that the officers involved in 12-year-old Tamir Rice’s shooting death will not be indicted. Prosecutor Timothy McGinty, in perhaps the understatement of the year, said: “The outcome will not cheer anyone, nor should it.” Lemme fill in the blank:
The outcome will not cheer anyone, nor should it — because it means that we’re currently stuck with a system in which immediate deadly force against civilians is not only permitted but also protected; and in which people of color are stereotyped as dangerous and therefore unfairly targeted.
Truth: although the majority of mass shooters in America are young white men, they are able to stroll through open carry states armed to the teeth with real guns, whereas black men (like John Crawford) and black boys (like Tamir Rice) are shot and killed for holding toy guns.
Earlier this year? Some guys decided to videotape white-guy-with-AR-15 and black-guy-with-AR-15. The disparity in police response is both heartbreaking and terrifying.
x YouTube VideoDespite (and because of) the Cleveland Grand Jury’s decision, things must change. So, I’ve combed through Prosecutor Timothy McGinty’s speech for ideas. Here’s an excerpt:
At the point where they suddenly came together, both Tamir and a rookie officer were no doubt frightened. If we put ourselves in the victim’s shoes, as prosecutors and detectives try to do, it is likely that Tamir, whose size made him look much older and who had been warned that his pellet gun might get him into trouble that day, either intended to hand it over to the officer or show them it wasn’t a real gun. But there was no way for the officers to know that … Police are trained that it only takes a third of a second or less to draw and fire a weapon upon them, and therefore they must react quickly to any threat … [The officer] had reason to fear for his life. It would be irresponsible and unreasonable if the law required a police officer to wait and see if the gun was real.
Disturbing bit #1: “But there was no way for the officers to know that.”
I know a way the officers could have known that Tamir had a pellet gun rather than a real gun and that he meant no harm! Maybe instead of driving their police car like a bat out of hell and stopping only a few feet away from the kid, they could have parked … you know … farther away, crouched behind the car, and yelled at him to throw down the gun — which he would have no doubt done, gladly.
x YouTube VideoDisturbing bit #2: “Police are trained that it only takes a third of a second or less to draw and fire a weapon upon them, and therefore they must react quickly to any threat.”
So, basically, police are conditioned to fear the civilians they’ve pledged to protect.
And ^this^ video is the result.
Part of the problem is that the fear for their own lives too often trumps what should be the greater fear: accidentally killing an innocent person/child and having to live with it.
Another part of the problem is: Police *do* get killed in the line of duty (although the idea of a “war on police” is silly and has been discredited — e.g., 2013 was the safest year for police in recorded history, reports NPR).
But, as Vox’s Matthew Yglesias argues, we do a disservice to our constabulary when we allow our citizenry to be armed to the teeth:
Widespread gun ownership creates a systematic climate of fear on the part of the police. The result is a quantity of police shootings that, regardless of the facts of any particular case, is just staggeringly high. Young black men, in particular, are paying the price for America's gun culture … A system in which legal police shootings of unarmed civilians are a common occurrence is a system that has some serious flaws.
Think police-shootings-of-civilians is just what happens?
From The Guardian: “In the first 24 days of 2015, police in the US fatally shot more people than police did in England and Wales, combined, over the past 24 years.”
Think about ^that^ and scroll up to the image, above: real democracies don’t use death squads. The current state of things in America does not equal freedom, despite what gun-advocates would have you believe.
Truth: Police in some countries don’t even feel the need to carry guns (see: Britain, Ireland, Norway, Iceland and New Zealand).
Disturbing bit #3: “It would be irresponsible and unreasonable if the law required a police officer to wait and see if the gun was real.”
No. Here’s what’s irresponsible and unreasonable: to suggest that a police officer should employ deadly force before he’s ascertained whether or not the “threat” is real.
Even my children get this, partly because we’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Suzanne Collins’s Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods. Here’s a conversation b/t 11-year-old Gregor, his 11-year-old friend Luxa, and solider-turned-pacifist Hamnet:
“So, don’t you ever fight now? I mean, what if something attacks you or Hazard?” he asked.
“I do fight on occasion, but only as a last resort,” said Hamnet. “It is a method of survival I have learned from Frill. It turns out there are many alternatives to violence if you make an effort to develop them.”
“Like what?” asked Gregor.
[Here, Hamnet talks about what he’s learned from watching his lizard, Frill, and all the techniques she employs (camouflage, or observation, etc. before she attacks)]
“But if … she is cornered, and something is trying to kill her?” said Luxa.
“Then she fights. She has very wicked teeth if she chooses to use them. But it is always her last choice, as opposed to the Regalians, who seem to conclude it is their only option almost immediately,” said Hamnet. “Living out here, I have found that many creatures would prefer not to fight. But if your first instinct is to reach for your sword [or GUN], you will never discover that.”
Collins, Suzanne (2010-09-01). The Underland Chronicles #3: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods (pp. 291-292). Scholastic Inc.. Kindle Edition.
But here’s something from prosector McGinty with which I agree:
I want to call on the Legislature and the manufacturers of toy guns not to make guns that look so much like the real thing. If the color and design of Tamir’s pellet gun had screamed toy, then the call that set this tragedy into motion may never have happened.
We’re all culpable when people of color die, if we do not challenge the inherent racism that makes their treatment so unequal to their white counterparts.
We’re all culpable when police are unjustly killed in the line of duty, if we do not make their chosen profession safer by challenging the guns-for-everyone! mentality that’s been the status quo for far too long.
And we’re all culpable when we allow the marketing and distribution of both real and designed-to-look-real guns for our children.
I haven’t talked to my children about the gun-marketing problem, but I think they’d get that too, because here’s another excerpt from the same book … Gregor runs into trouble when he and his toddler sister encounter the real-life version of her poison arrow frog toys. After narrowly escaping, he tries to explain, to an underlander-child and his father, why his sister was so drawn to the deadly creatures in the first place:
“She says you have the same kind of frogs at home. She says they sleep in her bed,” said Hazard to Gregor.
“They’re fake, Hazard. They’re just toys,” said Gregor.
“Strange playthings you choose in the Overland,” Hamnet commented.
It must seem strange to them. Making a toy out of something so deadly. Encouraging a little kid to want to pick one up. But then again, poison arrow frogs weren’t exactly hopping down Broadway.
Collins, Suzanne (2010-09-01). The Underland Chronicles #3: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods (p. 188). Scholastic Inc.. Kindle Edition.
We choose even stranger playthings in America … making a toy out of something as dangerous as a firearm … encouraging little kids to want to pick one up … knowing, as we do, that there are 300 million guns in America.
In short: yes. The system, as it is, remains grossly unjust … one in which color-of-skin too often influences the outcome; one in which deadly force is too often employed; and one in which deadly weapons (and toys that mimic them) are too readily available.
But the system doesn’t hold all the power. So do we. We’re the makers-of-systems, which means that we can change them.