Makes Me Sick
Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Bothem Jean. George Floyd. And 694 other African-American people killed by police officers since 2017. That’s 698 more people than deserved to die. 698 more people that should be here still, spending more time with the people who loved them. It makes me sick.
It makes me sick that Ahmaud Arbery was just going for a jog, something I do every. single. morning, when he was shot by two white supremacists who thought that he was trespassing. Even if he had been, trespassing is a misdemeanor and CANNOT warrant a death sentence.
It makes me sick that Breonna Taylor and Bothem Jean were murdered in their OWN homes. Breonna’s door was kicked in by police officers who had a warrant to search a nearby house and ended up in hers. Even if it hadn’t been her house, she could’ve been there for any number of reasons but they killed her before she could say anything. Bothem Jean was killed in his Dallas apartment by an off-duty cop who thought it was her house. She walked in and shot him, didn’t say anything first, just pulled out her firearm and killed a man in cold blood. On top of that, she hesitated to call the paramedics and didn’t administer ANY life-saving procedures.
It makes me sick that George Floyd was buying groceries when someone called the police because they ASSUMED he was using counterfeit money. When the police arrived they threw him to the ground while one of them put his knee on George’s neck, not a procedure taught at the academy to restrain someone. The other officers stood their and watched as George shouted that he couldn’t breath and that he thought he was dying, at one point he even called for his mother.
Now there are hundreds of mothers and fathers who buried their children, when in fact, it should have been the other way around. There are mothers and fathers left childless because an officer thought that they had the right to rob families of thier members. There are kids standing at their siblings funeral unable to comprehend the fact that they are NEVER going to see their brother or sister again. And their are ideas which will never be spoken into life because the lungs they should’ve came from aren’t breathing anymore.