Its happened again—another Black boy has been snuffed out by an overzealous, self-righteous police officer. And again, the Black community is reeling with how to process yet another innocent life being taken away for absolutely no good reason at all.
I am going to take the liberty of speaking on behalf of my community as a member and as a mother of two teenagers. The killing of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in Balch Springs, Texas on April 29 has left us numb and dazed. We cannot understand why on earth these incidents are continuing to happen often unchecked, justly anyway. It’s as if our young black boys and men are marked for death at the hands of police for which there is no escape. Nothing, absolutely nothing makes them immune to the police violence that awaits them daily.
Last month, I was delighted to be able to praise my county’s police department, The Gwinnett County Police Department for the swift and correct action they took in terminating two police officers who were involved in a roadside assault on a young Black man. From all accounts, these two officers were perceived to be real stand-up officers, but the video from the traffic stop told quite a different story about their character.
Fortunately for Edwards’ family the video has done the same thing in this case, told the undisputed truth about what really happened instead of the concocted convoluted fairy tale officer Roy Oliver told before he realized the video camera really does only take what it sees, and not what one wants to believe. Before the video, police chief Jonathan Haber was on-camera telling a different tale about the teens in the car driving away before Officer Oliver unloaded on them, killing Jordan.
Although it took at least four days, the Balch Springs Police Department has finally taken the correct action and terminated Oliver. Far too many times, the officer gets a parade and paid time off after they kill a black person. Hopefully we are moving in another direction where police officers are forced to be accountable for their deadly actions. We continue to pray as a community that, that accountability extends to the courtrooms and jails, where trigger happy cops like Oliver belong.