“It turns out to not be a firearm in the sense that [a firearm] fires real bullets,” Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs to reporters, at a press conference following Wednesday night’s fatal police shooting of Tyre King
According to police witnesses, 13yo Tyre King had a bb gun in his waistband.
According to early reporting, Tyre was a man who had just started 8th grade at Linden STEM Academy.
Children today grow up so much faster.
Black children today grow old so much faster.
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At 13, I started 8th grade too. Shooting spitwads from the back of Mr. Taylor’s 6th period, were those men? Was Lance Trumble a man the day he drooled into the English teacher’s water glass when she stepped out of the room?
Was I a woman when I laughed?
Adulthood comes unlikely early to those whose fruition is feared.
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A spitwad is not a bb is not a Glock 9mm.
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Columbus, Ohio, is the same department that served and protected 12yo Tamir.
Tyre is the second Ohio citizen Bryan Mason has served with a bullet and protected out of life in four years.
According to policy: Office Mason has been placed on paid administrative leave and will be receiving psychological support counseling. According to policy: Officer Mason will be offered leave time to assist in recovery from a traumatic experience.
What support counseling available for the King family.
What trauma recovery offered to Tyre.
Nothing ages a child faster than death.
Well, dang, I think you could be a little more sympathetic toward the poor cop. This is the LAST THING he wanted to do in his career, after all.
Except … it won’t be.
I feel sick.
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Me too. 😦
Your comment makes me think you’ll appreciate Damon Young’s take:
http://verysmartbrothas.com/lets-wait-until-the-facts-are-out-before-we-rush-to-conclusions-about-tyree-kings-death/
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I totally get why Colin Kaepernick isn’t saluting the flag. I don’t get those who don’t get it.
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I’m with you.
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If we have a right to carry/own/have guns, why are the cops killing people who are assumed to have guns? Why are we reporting people with guns? In a room full of people with guns, how are the police supposed to know who to go after once a shot is heard?
This guy had to die because he had a BB, but Roof goes around murdering and yet he lives.
Whatever happened to ol’ tasering people?
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I also have a problem with police tasering children, fwiw, but yes. Point taken.
Open Carry states (of which Ohio is one) are freakin’ dangerous, just in general. How could police not get twitchy, knowing anyone can be armed anywhere, anytime? AND YET: the central, unacknowledged tenet of all Open Carry laws is “No Blacks Allowed.”
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“Nothing ages a child faster than death.”
So true. Hadn’t thought of that before, but it explains much of what’s going on now with kids. Good observation.
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Yeah, well. The violence unleashed against Black Americans leaves me undone and reduces my language to acid sarcasm about how this ish gets reported.
Black children MUST be allowed to be children. They MUST be seen _as_ children. Or this slaughter will never stop.
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When I read these things it makes me wonder how much strength and restraint a movement must have ONLY to engage in non-violent protests at a football game. The strength and commitment to fighting violence with non-violence and awareness astounds me.
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I agree completely. When I can step away from the horror for a moment and think it through: the dance between violence and nonviolence movements reveals such fascinating undercurrents. Nonviolence movements _provoke_ violence–which activists use as part of their larger strategy.
Also, there are plenty of instances of African-Americans choosing strategies of resistance that were/are not at all non-violent. These get written out of the official history of civil rights activism, and instead we get a sanitized version of Rosa Parks sitting down cuz her feet were tired.
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Mason will not even get a reprimand.
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Nope. Not if statistics and history are any indication.
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That is the heartbreaking truth. And as long as there is no reprimand, there will never be any change.
(Anthony has family in Ohio, but I heard about this and said, “I don’t want to go to Ohio again.” Too many of the lives whose names I wish I’d never had to learn have began and ended far too early there.)
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Names we should never have had to carry in our mouths. Exactly.
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