A cellphone or a wallet equals a gun

 

“Acknowledging the suffering of others positions your heart to never petrify.” Dr. BLR

 

If you’ve ever just sat with your thoughts, you’d be surprised by what you’d come up with. I just gave my students an assignment on the First and Second Amendments in light of the recent shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As I sat back and thought about what they would say, my mind took me back to 1999. I was a detective in the Central Security Unit of the New Jersey State Police when the world was shocked by the events at the New York City Police Department.

While searching for a rape suspect, four plainclothes detectives accosted an unarmed 23-year-old Guinean student, Amadou Diallo, standing in front of his building. The detectives believed Diallo fit the description, drove up to him, and demanded that he show his hands. For an unknown reason, Diallo ran into his building, and when asked to show his hands, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. At that moment, the detectives assumed he was drawing a gun. One detective fired one round at Diallo. Believing their partner was being fired at, the remaining detectives fired their weapons as well. They fired 41 rounds, striking Diallo 16 times. When I heard the story, I wondered whether a wallet could be considered a weapon. Given the circumstances, including a stairway, a potential suspect running away from the plainclothes detectives, and then reaching into his pocket to retrieve his wallet, a reasonable person would probably give the detectives the benefit of the doubt. Mind you, police officers have to make split-second decisions. I tested the theory in a few of my classes.

I started discussing the Diallo shooting with my students, then instinctively grabbed my black wallet from my back pocket and asked what they thought, saying it might as well have been a gun. Overwhelmingly, they said they understood how the detectives could have made that grave mistake. I had proven my point, but I was left feeling deeply conflicted. 

Diallo was a young Black man like me; his life was ended in a split second because the detectives “feared for their lives.” I wondered whether, if Diallo had been white, they would have been afraid. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but deep down, I think they were more afraid of him because he was Black than because he might have had a gun. It’s just an assumption. Or is it a pattern?

He wasn’t the only Black man to meet the same fate. Donnie Sanders, a 47-year-old Black man, was killed by a Kansas City police officer who believed Sanders had a gun in his hand when he ran. Sanders was shot three times, and a cellphone was retrieved from his right front pocket. No weapon was found.

Flint Farmer, a Black man, was killed by a Chicago police officer responding to a domestic violence call. Farmer ran from the police. According to the Chicago Police Department, Farmer then walked aggressively toward the officer and pulled something from his pocket. The officer fired 16 shots at Farmer, initially striking him in the thigh. The officer then walked around Farmer, who was incapacitated, and shot him in the back three times. It was later determined that Farmer had a burgundy cell phone, and no gun was found. 

While each of these cases had unique circumstances, and the police officer is often given the benefit of the doubt, it makes me wonder what training the officers received, how they were raised, and what prejudices they held toward Black men.

I could go on about these killings, but it would be redundant. The main issue is why some police officers are spooked by the mere sight of anything in a Black suspect’s hand. The boogeyman syndrome has given too many excuses to police officers who claim they were in fear for their lives. If I had an answer to this problem, I’d be a rich man. However, when I was a state trooper, and even after I retired, I’ve been placed in similar dangerous decision-making positions, and I never shot or killed anyone. I know it had a lot to do with being raised in the inner city, which gave me a set of balls and made me not be afraid. 

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