Dr. David J. Leonard: A Lynching Happens Every 40 Hours

20.7.12

Dr. David J. Leonard: A Lynching Happens Every 40 Hours
Among its victims are: Rekia Boyd, an innocent bystander shot and killed in Chicago; Dante Price, who was shot 22 times, while trying to pick up his children; and Travis Henderson, a "a suicidal man sitting in a church parking lot with a gun. When he got out of the car, he allegedly pointed the gun at an officer and was shot." An Orange County Sherriff killed Manuel Loggins, a former marine and father of two daughters, in front of his children. The "sheriff initially said he feared for his own safety and later revised his story to say he feared for the girls' safety." And there is Anton Barrett, "who was allegedly driving without headlights and running stop signs when a DUI Saturation Patrol signaled him to stop. According to the report, "he led the officers on a high speed chase, when his tires went flat, he fled on foot. One officer confronted him in a darkened alley and shot him multiple times, claiming he thought he saw him pull a 'metallic object' from his sweatshirt pocket. After Barrett was shot, he attempted to rise and a second officer tasered him. He was cuffed and died at hospital. Police admit they mistook wallet for gun." The history of state violence, of the consequences of systemic racism, a story often imagined as a concluded chapter in American history, remains a grave problem of the twenty-first century.
via Dr. David J. Leonard: A Lynching Happens Every 40 Hours.