Forgiveness is acceptable. Advocating for repentance and recommending Jesus is commendable. But killing an innocent man in the comfort of his home while he was eating ice-cream and watching television deserves real jail time not a slap on the wrist and a hug. Ten years, with the possibility of parole, will not cut it. The punishment did not fit the crime.
Young Brandt Jean’s emotional act of compassion in his tight embrace of the white female police killer Amber Guyger tells more about his state of mind and the condition of his heart than about Guyger. Testimony in court revealed that long before she pulled the deadly trigger, she was texting racist musing.
Evidence: On September 4, 2018, a person named Ethridge appeared to playfully offer to give Guyger a German Shepherd, “Although she may be racist,” Ethridge wrote. “I wish I could have one,” Guyger responded. “But not in this apartment (smaller than my old one).” She added, seconds later, “It’s okay, I’m the same.”
Police killing of innocent black men in America is an epidemic. Fatal Encounters, which leverages public records and media coverage to document every person killed in an interaction with police, has made it possible to speak more precisely about the nature of police-involved deaths. US records show that from 2012 to 2018 there were 9,795 police-involved deaths. Men comprised 88 per cent of the deaths, with 6,295 adult male victims of police homicide over this six-year period, or about 1,000 per year.
The Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics acknowledged the following: “Our analysis shows that about 0.7 white men per 100,000 are killed by police annually. Latino and black men are killed at higher rates, at about one death per 100,000 men and 2.2 deaths per 100,000 men per year, respectively. This means that black men are, on average, three times more likely to be killed by police than are white men. Latino men’s risk of being killed by police is about 40 percent higher than the risk faced by white men.”
It concluded: “The inequalities we found in the likelihood of being killed by police are similar to previously published estimates using official data, though we estimate the rates of police homicide are about twice as high as prior estimates.”
These chilling and mind-boggling figures show that black men in America are an endangered species. Recently, while driving with my son, he expressed concern about the possibility of being shot by police. For a teenager to harbour such preoccupation is frightening. His anxiety gave me an opportunity to talk to him about how to react during an encounter with the police, but it also left me terrified at the dastardly prospect of my son being killed by a police officer.
Botham Jean was shot in the chest twice. He did nothing wrong. He committed no crime. He was not even on the streets. By all accounts he was a model, straight-up and disciplined citizen. He did not deserve to be mercilessly gunned down by a white female officer. Unfortunately, as the previous figures show, he is not alone.
The split screen news item that covered the sentencing phase of the trial showed Brandt Jean begging the judge to hug his brother’s white female murderer; it was juxtaposed against an image of a shackled, homeless and mentally sick black man being escorted by a white female and black male police officer on horseback and paraded on the streets of Dallas.
To serve ten years and be out in five, or less for good behaviour, demonstrates the inequality of the justice system. There are young black men in prison for twenty and more years for being in possession of a marijuana joint. Where is the mercy, fairness and compassion as shown by a young grieving, forgiving and compassionate Jean?
We have forgiven them for slavery. We have turned the pages of history on Jim Crow. We have tried to move on from America’s evil, but endemic and persistent racial structures in the system of justice remind us constantly that unless we remain vigilant, the gains of the Civil Rights movement are in danger. It does not help to have a president who gives comfort and solace to those who march with torches in the streets, howling racial slurs.
