Barriers to Rebuilding the African American Community. Tywan Ajani
in the officer(s) being charged with a crime, and only two of these deaths (Matthew Ajibade and Eric Harris) resulted in convictions of the officers involved.
Sadly, there very few improvements in the numbers a year later. Mappingpoliceviolence.org reported the following data for 2015.
• African Americans have the highest likelihood of being killed by American police departments than other racial groups.
• Police departments disproportionately killed black people, who were 41% of victims despite being only 20% of the population living in these cities.
• 41 of the 60 police departments disproportionately killed black people relative to the population of black people in their jurisdiction.
• 14 police departments killed black people exclusively in 2015, 100% of the people they killed were black.
Interestingly, there is no recorded incident an African American police officer accused or convicted of shooting and killing an unarmed Caucasian American in the history of the United States of America at the time of writing this book. According to datausa.org (5), there are approximately 737,000 polices officers in the United States, of which nearly 80% of them are Caucasian. Datausa.com reports that the national police force comprised approximately 13% of African Americans; yet, they are without a history of a single record of major racial profiling and racially motivated, unarmed killings of white Americans.
In June 2018, prominent African-American actor and author, Terry Crews, made some paramount statements regarding the issue of wrongful imprisonment and treatment of African Americans. During Crew’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 2016 relating to the sexual assault of his agency’s film producer, he made several comments regarding the plight of African American males overall. “As a black man in America,” he said, “you only have a few shots at success. You only have a few chances to make yourself a viable member of a community. I’m from Flint, Michigan. I have seen many, many young black men who were provoked into violence, and they went to prison. Or, they were killed. They’re not here (9).” What a dismal predicament for Americans to face just because they were born a particular race; a choice that they did not have a say in.
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Balch Springs, Texas
In the Spring of 2017 a Caucasian police officer shot and killed a 15-year-old African American teen, named Jordan Edwards, in Balch Springs, Texas. What is fascinating is that prior to this incident, Officer Roy Oliver had been disciplined in the past, which included a 16-day suspension for what sources at Nbcnews.com describe as, “anger-related problems (2).” In January 2017, Oliver had also performed poorly on an evaluation on questions about the code of criminal procedure, problem solving, and critical thinking. Oliver was, nevertheless, dispatched, along with Officer Tyler Gross, to the scene of a teenage house party, to investigate a report of alleged underage drinking.
According to witnesses at the party, gunfire rang out from somewhere in the vicinity of the house. When that happened, Jordan and his brother along with two friends decided to leave the area by driving away from the home. Officer Oliver claims to have ordered the driver to stop the vehicle upon arriving on the scene. But when Edward’s sixteen-year-old brother continued to drive away with Jordan in the front passenger seat, Oliver opened fire on the vehicle. Oliver shot through the front passenger side window with his police-issued Carbine MC5 rifle, striking Jordan in the back of the head and killing him instantly.
The careless and irresponsible actions of a low competent police officer with a history of anger issues led to the death of yet another innocent black, unarmed young male. No drugs, alcohol, or weapons were found at the party or in the teen’s vehicle. Though officer Oliver was consequently fired from his position at the Balch Springs Police Force, no amount of civil compensation or punishment to the former police officer will return Jordan back to his family.
Jordan Edwards was a happy, healthy, normal teenage American kid, who played football in high school, and who was loved by his family, teammates, and friends. He has been permanently deprived of the opportunity to grow up, graduate from high school, attend college, marry, and have children of his own because of his race. His death could have been prevented through a series of administrative quality control checks aimed at removing high-risk officers with a history of anger issues.
Former Officer Oliver was later convicted of murder and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Sadly, he will likely be released early contingent upon “good behavior,” which is common legal practice in the United States. Even if Mr. Oliver served the full sentence of 15 years, he will be released before his fifty-fifth birthday. He will have ample time to restart is life and to live the American dream. Nevertheless, the Edwards family will never again have the opportunity to hug ←15 | 16→their beloved son Jonathan, attend his college graduation, and to watch him get married and to raise children.
Shot in the Back
Another not long past killing of an unarmed black male hails from Sacramento, California. The police were looking for a burglary suspect during a cool spring evening on March 18, 2018. Mr. Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old father of two, had no idea that he would not have the opportunity to take his one-year-old and three-year-old boys (at the time), to the beach, or Disney Land, or the county fair the upcoming summer. As two local police officers stormed Mr. Clark’s vicinity looking for a suspect, they fired 20 rounds at Clark in his grandmother’s backyard, believing that Clark had pointed a gun at them. Even more shockingly, Stephon Clark was gunned down from the back, holding no weapon, but rather just his cell phone.
In many cases police officers use what they refer to as a ‘perceived threat to the officers’ as the primary justification for the use of excessive violence. Nevertheless, several of the unarmed killings in the past couple of years were executed by officers shooting suspects in the back or while the suspect was in a position of submission and while even laying prostrated on the ground. While the officers involved in Clark’s case enjoyed paid administrative leave and were able to relax and watch the NBA finals on television in their homes with their loved ones, the Clark family has been delivered a crushing, and brutal lifestyle change without their son, father, and provider no longer available to them. In overwhelming sadness, despite the officer’s perceived threat, rationale, and/or excuses for killing Mr. Clark, the police officers have permanently removed any and every opportunity for his children to receive a hug from their dad in this life. The officer’s use of excessive force was unwarranted, and their decision will last a lifetime for the Clark family.
Another more recent and deeply deplorable cases of a police officer killing an unarmed man happened in Dallas, Texas. A young, single black male accountant named Botham Jean was quietly relaxing in his apartment on a chilly January evening when he lost his life. Mr. Jean was 26 years old when he was killed by former officer Amber Guyger. The former Pricewaterhouse Coopers firm accountant was alone in his apartment eating ice cream when Ms. Guyger placed two rounds from her pistol in his chest.
During her trial, she was emotional and continued to state that she was “afraid for her life.” She accused Mr. Botham of being in her apartment when in fact she ←16 | 17→was mistaken and accidently gone to Mr. Botham’s apartment. The prosecuting attorneys delineated that the former officer behaved with incredible error and distraction as she was exchanging romantic texts with another officer moments before the shooting.
In the end, she was fired from the police force, and convicted of murder. The victim’s brother Brandt Jean made international headlines by requesting to hug the defendant during her sentencing. He told her that “she was forgiven.” Amber was subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison. Civil rights community and community members believe that the sentence was shockingly light, another example of racial inequality and injustice. Guyger was given a ten-year prison sentence for the murder of an armed African American male eating ice cream alone in his apartment.
An even more frightening twist to this story is Mr. Jean’s death did not stop with him. Just a few days