It just never stops

Those are the words of a woman on the street in Minneapolis interviewed last night on NPR.  She’s talking, of course, about police violence against Black men, police killings of Black men specifically, and police killings of Black citizens in general.  She was being interviewed after the guilty verdict against former police officer Derek Chauvin on three counts of murder, but she was talking about the killing on April 11 of Daunte Wright during a traffic stop.  The trial of Chauvin was not even completed, and already another Black man killed by police lay dead in Minnesota.

And now comes news that yesterday afternoon as demonstrators gathered at the courthouse in Minneapolis awaiting the reading of the verdict, yet another Black citizen was shot and killed by a police officer, this time in Columbus, Ohio, as the officer responded to a report of a domestic disturbance.  Body camera footage released by Columbus police today shows a chaotic scene outside a house in a middle class neighborhood in Columbus. 

As the officer gets out of the car, a fight is going on in the driveway of the house.  The officer advances on the scene, shouting “Hey!  Hey!  What’s going on?”  The body cam footage is jumpy and the action is difficult to discern, but what appears to happen is this:  A woman with a knife is attacking another woman and pushes her down just in front of the officer.  The woman with the knife then turns and moves toward a second woman standing next to a car.  The officer yells at her to “Get down!  Get down!” and pulls his gun.  The woman with the knife starts to move her arm clearly attempting to stab the woman next to the car.  The body cam footage then stops, but four shots can be heard on the audio of the officer shooting the woman holding the knife.

Her name was Ma’Khia Bryant.  She was either 15 or 16 years old, according to differing reports of the incident.  One report says she was in foster care.  It was unclear if she was in foster care of the people living at the home where the incident took place.  Also unclear was what caused the fight that was taking place or why she was armed with a knife.

What is clear is that yet another life of a Black citizen was lost in a confrontation with police almost coincident with the verdict in a trial of a police officer for the murder of a Black citizen 750 miles away.  This time, the citizen who was killed by police was armed with a knife.  However, neither George Floyd, killed by Derek Chauvin, nor Daunte Wright, killed by Kim Potter, was armed.

The shooting in Columbus was the third police killing in that city in as many months.  In December, 23 year old Casey Goodson Jr. was shot to death as he returned to his home from picking up take-out sandwiches at a nearby Subway fast food restaurant.  Goodson was standing at a side door to his house holding his keys, his mask, and a bag of Subway sandwiches when he was shot by a sheriff’s deputy, Jason Meade, who was searching for someone else as part of a fugitive task force.  Goodson apparently had a gun at the time he was shot.  His family reported that he was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.  Openly carrying a firearm in the state of Ohio is legal without a permit.  Casey Goodson Jr. was Black.  Jason Meade is white.  Meade was in plain clothes and was conducting a search for a fugitive suspect that had nothing to do with Goodson, who had no police record and had never been in trouble with the law.  No charges have been filed against Meade.

Three weeks later, 47 year old Andre Maurice Hill was fatally shot by another police officer, Adam Coy, a 19 year veteran of the Columbus police force.  Coy was said to be responding to a report that an SUV was parked in a residential area with its engine running.  As Coy and his partner approached the vehicle, which was parked in a garage, Hill walked slowly towards them holding a cell phone in his hand.  Body camera footage of the incident showed that within seconds of seeing Hill, Officer Coy pulled his gun and shot him.  Andre Maurice Hill was Black.  The police officer, Adam Coy, is white.  Hill was unarmed at the time he was shot, and no gun was recovered from the scene.  Officer Coy was fired from the police force and has been charged with felony murder in the killing.  His case has not yet come to trial in Columbus.

Even as Minneapolis breathes a sigh of relief after the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the trial of three more officers involved in the arrest of George Floyd has not yet taken place.  Kim Potter, charged in the killing of Daunte Wright, has not been tried either.

It just never stops.