Earlier today a grand jury failed to indict the police officer who killed Tamir Rice, a 12 year old child carrying a TOY gun who was shot to death within a couple of seconds of police arriving to the scene.
Details about the shooting, which has been widely publicized and criticized can be found in an article by German Lopez at Vox, which has been updated today (emphasis mine):
On November 22, 2014, Tamir Rice was throwing snowballs and playing with a toy pellet gun in a Cleveland park when a police car rolled into the snowy field. Within two seconds of getting out of his squad car, officer Timothy Loehmann shot and killed the 12-year-old. The officer has claimed he thought the pellet gun was a real firearm.
I am black. I have an 18 year old son, and every time he leaves the house, whether it is to go back to college after a break, or to go around the corner, I am concerned for his safety. Every. Single. Time. It doesn’t matter that he graduated at the top of his class, is a freshman at Stanford, or volunteers at our church. He is a target, and this is something his white classmates will never know about.
When police claim they are acting reasonably by killing black males 12 year old children, I have no words. My husband, however summed it up -— “they ain’t from our world”. True indeed. No amount of education, “law abiding”, or respect for “authority” matters if you’re black in America.
My husband, my son, my brothers, my nephews: ALL are targets simply because they are black, male and American.