Police Killings Of African Americans In The United States

The word running is a present progressive tense which was extracted from the word ‘run'. According to the dictionary, running can be defined as an act of traveling by foot at a fast pace. In this context, running simply means reasons people should avoid police officers. Over the years, there have been sad encounters between people with the police officers. A recurring one is as a result of racial discrimination.

Discrimination means an unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice. Discrimination of race and skin color is one of the challenges of humanity in the world at large. This has led to deaths of people – both young and old. It has also created segregation amongst humans and most of all caused pain to people. This discrimination is seen as consisting of particular negative behaviors directed at a distinct group of people based on their own prejudices, which are undesirable attitudes towards the group or other people.

A lot of authors have tried to do justice to the term Racism but Wikipedia succinctly describes racism as the belief, the existence of or the exercise of the superiority of one race over the other, thereby resulting in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. Discrimination is a prominent and critically important matter in American life and it has been throughout American history. It may always exist for years to come. Heck, it always will. The only action we can take to beat it down into the ground is to keep advocating against it, however best we can. Paint it however you want, we cannot divest America, as great as it this nation is of racial discrimination. It is accepted as a norm, a fundamental part of the system. It is a fabric broken woken into the seams of our beautiful nation.

There has been no time in the history of America that there has been a national consensus that everyone should be equally valued in all areas of life. In spite of the better efforts of Americans of all races to change the status quo, the nation is so deep in the murky waters of racism that it seems almost infeasible to achieve such a desired feat.Without mincing words, Blacks are unjustly segregated from Whites in several instances. There is the killing of blacks by police officers in America yet the justice system never does thoroughly examine this unpalatable situation, despite that she claims she has a string of nonpareil ocular measures to weed out injustice in its system.As a result of the continuous injustice suffered by African Americans, a group of people with a common goal, who can no longer stomach their griefs and pains no thanks to the incessant happenings in their societies joined forces to form a movement in America against the killing of African Americans by policemen in America. The rampant killings of the blacks in America led to the establishment of Black Lives Matter Movement. This group of people is activists. Activists are people who advocate for a cause or propound an idea.During the past year, a series of police killings of African Americans across the country has inspired reactions, outrage, and protest.

The Black Lives Matter Movement was formed on July 13, 2013, by Alicia Garza who is an African American activist and an editorial writer who lives in Oakland, California. She is known for organizing programs that focus on issues such as, ending police brutality, anti-racism, rights for domestic workers, amongst others. The Movement was also co-founded by Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. Patrisse Cullors is an African American artist and activist who is from Los Angeles. She is an advocate for prison demolition in Los Angeles. Opal Tomato is a New York-based Nigerian-American writer, strategist and community organizer.In many ways than one, we may infer the Black Lives Matter Movement is an international activist movement which originated in the African-American community. A 55% majority of Americans say they strongly support the Black Lives Matter Movement.On February 6, 2012, the Black lives Matter Movement made her activist role in social media after the death of a 17-year-old African American teenager from Miami Gardens, Florida, named Trayvon Martin, who was fatally shot by a white policeman, George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, without committing any offense. Consequently, when the case was discharged by the court for lack of defensible evidence and the policeman was released based on the conclusion that he acted in self-defense, these activists voiced out their opinions on the partial judgment of the case. This got the organization national recognition.

August 9, 2014, was a dark day for the residents of Ferguson, Missouri as an 18-year-old teenager named Michael Brown was killed. He was an African American who was fatally shot by a police officer named Darren Wilson. Michael Brown was accompanied by a friend on the day the sad incident occurred. He was said to have been involved in an altercation with a police officer. Wilson, the policeman said an altercation took place when Brown attacked him in his police vehicle for the control of his gun until it was fired. After the scene, Michael Brown and his companion, Johnson, fled the scene while Wilson ran after Brown. Wilson fired twelve bullets and Brown was hit six times from the front. Wilson who is white shot and killed Brown, who was unarmed and black. In the wake of the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, which occurred less than a month apart in Summer 2014, activists, students, and many groups of various racial, class, and social backgrounds came together to protest the ways in which law enforcement handled these prejudicial situations.

In New York City, a rally emerged using the slogan "hands up, don't shoot!" which was also being chanted in Ferguson, Missouri. Other cities around the country took notice and joined the demonstration in solidarity.This incident led to agitation in Ferguson. The residents of Ferguson protested the unfair treatment meted on the black community in the event of the death of Michael Brown. An investigated was conducted by the FBI but there was no proof that Brown held his hands up and said "I surrender or said ‘don't shoot' before he was shot. The U. S Department Of Justice did not believe that there was enough evidence to file a charge against Wilson for what he did so it was concluded that Wilson shot Brown in self-defense. Many Americans believe(d) that Wilson should not have killed Brown in order to protect himself and he would not have acted in such a way if Brown was white. The 17th of July, 2014 marked another day in a string of others where an African American would die in the hands of a trigger-happy police officer; a sheer of an act of law enforcement brutality, no questions asked.

Eric Garner died in Staten Island, New York City after a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer used the chokehold method of arrest on him which had since been prohibited by the same department. Garner was in a chokehold for no fewer than fifteen seconds during his arrest by officer David Panteleo. Garner was approached by NYPD officers based on the suspicion that he sold single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. In the process of his arrest, Garner denied, supposedly guilty of selling cigarettes illegally. Daniel Panteleo attempted to handcuff Garner with his wrists behind his back but Garner pulled his arms away. Then, Daniel Panteleo put him in a chokehold while four other officers restrained Garner. It was said that Eric Garner repeatedly said ‘I can't breathe‘ eleven times before he eventually lost consciousness. The police officers turned him onto his side from the face laying position on the sidewalk to ease his breathing while the officers waited for an ambulance for seven minutes. The officers and emergency medical technicians did not perform Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on Garner at that period because they believed he was still breathing and it was not right to perform Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on someone who was still breathing. An hour after Garner was taken to the hospital, he was pronounced died. Daniel Panteleo denied using a chokehold on Garner but the medical examiner concluded that Garner was killed by compression of neck, chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.

On December 3, 2014, the Richmond County grand jury decided not to indict Panteleo. It was announced by the United States Department of Justice that it would conduct an independent investigation. This action led to public protests with charges of police brutality made by protesters. A protest was organized by Al Sharpton in Staten Island on July 19, 2014, which condemned the police's use of chokehold on Garner amongst other protests by people.Despite Daniel Panteleo's use of chokehold on Garner, which was prohibited by NYPD, he was not indicted. Eric Garner's death has since been cited as one of many a police killing of African Americans which was vehemently protested by the Black Lives Matter Movement.Philando Castile was shot by a police officer based on the assumption that he – Philando Castile – resembled robbery suspect. He was shot on July 6, 2016, in Falcon Heights, Minn. Officer Jeromino Yanez claimed he pulled over Philando Castile for a broken tail light and he thought he resembled a robbery suspect. Philando Castile informed Yanez that he had a gun in the car. Castle had a permit to have the gun. Yanez shot Castile twice in the heart. Yanez was not found guilty in all counts in the fatal shooting of Castile.Walter Scott was also shot by a white police officer, Michael Slager on April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, S. C. A video captured Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott who was unarmed in the back five times as he fled. A broken tail light started the encounter in which Slager wrestled with Scott in the ground after an initial attempt to flee. The police officer, Michael Slager planted a taser beside Scott's body and he later claimed that Scott tried to tase him. Alton Sterling was shot on July 5, 2016, in Baton Rouge. Sterling was selling CDs outside a convenience store when Officer Howie Lake and Blane Salamoni approached him amid a report of a man with a gun. The officers wrestled Sterling to the ground because he refused an order according to them. One of the officers, Salamoni, shot Sterling three times, claiming Sterling reached for a gun in his pocket. While Sterling sat up, Salamoni shot him three more times on his back. They later found Sterling, a convicted felon, was illegally carrying a gun. There were no charges against the officers.

Terence Crutcher was fatally shot by a white Tulsa Police Officer, Betty Shelby on September 16, 2016, in Tulsa. The officer called the unarmed Terence Crutcher ‘a bad dude' before shooting him with his hands up as he stood near his vehicle on a street. Ezell Ford, a black man who was unarmed and mentally disabled according to his family was killed by a Los Angeles police officer. His autopsy showed that he was shot three times, including one in his back at close range.Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old man and a father of a young girl was shot on November 20, 2014. He was shot by an Asian American officer in an open fire in a dimly-lighted staircase in a Brooklyn, New York apartment block. On the day of his funeral, December 7, 2014, New Yorkers took to the street to denounce the pile of police killings. Shall we not mention Tamir Rice and John Crawford's deaths too? A video emerged of US police officers in Cleveland, Ohio, shooting dead a 12-year-old black boy carrying a replica gun.

Also, there was another scene that took place in Ohio, which was about a fatal shooting by a policeman who was responding to a 911 call, shot and killed a black man named John Crawford, in a Walmart store while he was carrying a toy gun sold there.Jonathan Ferrell's story is also one of the numerous unjust killings carried out by the police officers in the US. Jonathan Ferrell crashed his car then went to a house in the Bradfield Farms neighborhood and banged on the door. The resident, Sarah McCartney called the police and three officers came in response to her call. Ferrell, who was unarmed, ran towards the officers. One of the officers fired a taser at Ferrell and missed him. Kerrick, another officer then opened gunfire on Ferrell, thereby shooting him twelve times and killing him. On August 21, 2015, after the mistrial declaration of the case, protesters took to the streets of Charlotte.

Aiyana Jones was a seven-year-old African American girl from the east side of Detroit, Michigan who died on May 16, 2010. Aiyana was shot during a raid conducted by Detroit Police Department Special Team. The gunshot led to her death. Her death drew the attention of the national media and bestirred the U. S representative John Conyers to ask U.S Attorney General, Eric Holder to conduct a federal investigation into the incident. In May 2016, Black Lives Matter, Detroit and BYP 100 Detroit Chapter held a rally in memory of Aiyana Jones. Families of people killed by police officers and activists gathered at the feet of the Spirit of Detroit Statue in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal building in Detroit. Stephon Clark was an unarmed black man who was shot dead by police officers in his backyard on March 18, 2018, in Sacramento. Stephon was in his grandparents' backyard when he was fatally shot by some police officers while holding a cellphone which they thought was a gun. The Sacramento Police Department said the officers were responding to a 911 call that a man was breaking car windows in the area. Stephon was shot eight times and was hit by the bullets six times according to the independent autopsy reports that were released.According to the Doctor who carried out the autopsy on Stephon, He was shot four times on his lower back, twice on his neck and once under his armpit. The shooting made the public voice out both locally and nationally.There were protests on the streets of Sacramento for more than a week calling for the officers involved in Clark's death to be prosecuted.

My take on the whole gamut of illustrations is that many blacks have been killed as a result of racial discrimination in a police shooting, may it be direct or indirect, purposeful or supposedly inadvertently, driven or unexpected. Many unarmed men and women are experiencing deadly encounters with police officers every day. And sadly enough, I do not think it is billed to end anytime soon.Call me defeatist or pessimist, the truth remains that we have a long way to go if we ever desire to curb this menace that has eaten deep into the sacred roots of this great nation.But, inasmuch as we have groups like the Black Lives Matter clamoring for gun control, equal rights among others, perhaps we have hope after all. It goes without saying that it is a good thing that the Movement has become a recognizable hashtag on social media, which has been used to connect individuals and organizations in solidarity against police brutality, excessive force by law enforcement, and racial profiling.

As much as we try to shift the blame on every White that wields a gun without check, the question that needs be asked is: Is there an acute or compulsive need for one as a Black to take to one's heels without cause every time one sees a cop? Well, this question cannot be answered with a yes or no right now. You need to take your time to internalize it, reflect on it and you can only do that by punctiliously reading through this revealing material.In the next eight chapters, we shall be reviewing a lot of topics together. I do hope you enjoy it as much as I do.