Kimani Gray, aged 16, shot at 11 times, hit by 7 bullets from guns fired by officers of the New York City Police Department, dies, bleeding to death on the street as they stand over him.
This is so horrible, and the complicity of all of us who have failed to complain (in which I place myself in that group) is so great. The burden -- not of guilt (which is part of it), but sorrow and despair -- is so heavy.
11 shots. Who said that was a good idea? Why do the NYC police feel that it's OK if everyone takes a shot? Who gives the order, shoot? Weren't these guys wearing vests? And the 16 year-old, did he have a vest? Who was the designated shooter in the "response in force" doctrine of the NYPD? And who behind the lines, out of the adrenaline burst, had the radio and said: "take the shot"? What kind of policing discipline is there that let's something like this happen?
Not once. Just weeks ago in Times Square when a homeless man surrounded by police was gunned down.
And more times than I remember.
If you are going to be Mayor, Mr. Bloomberg, you have to remember that there is more to this City than buildings, and budgets, and banks. If you want to be remembered as a good Mayor, Mr. Bloomberg, you have to show that you understand that people live here who have lives, not just bank accounts. If you want to be the Mayor of this City, Mr. Bloomberg, you have to know and care about the places like East Flatbush, that by the report of people who live there is not a great place.
The violence of the NYC Police Department against the people of this City is such a crime. Is it as bad as the violence of the shooter in Newtown against roomsful of helpless children? Is it as bad as the violence of heavy weapons carrying troops, our citizens, against unarmed civilians in more than one country around this world? Is it as bad as the destruction of lives of non-combatants by briefcase carrying drone operators in Nevada? Personally, I don't see why it is different.
The violence of all these people is my problem. It's my moral problem. I read William Rivers Pitt tonight. He wrote about the war abroad, saying in part ...
The pornography of America's global killing spree is intolerable, and, by the by, I am sick of hearing about drones. A child killed by a Hellfire missile that was fired from a drone is exactly, precisely as dead as a child killed by a Hellfire missile fired from an Apache attack helicopter, precisely as dead as a child killed by a smart bomb, precisely as dead as a child killed by a sniper, precisely as dead as a child killed by a land mine, or by a cruise missile, or by any of the myriad other ways instant death is dealt by this hyper-weaponized nation of ours.
Exactly, precisely as God damned dead, and the blood is on our hands regardless of the means used to do the killing. The issue is not the drones. The issue is our hard, black hearts, and the grim fact that the debate in this country right now is not about whether the killing is wrong, but about the most morally acceptable way of going about that killing. Drones are bad, but snipers are better, because you don't hear the buzzing sound in the sky before your lights go out forever. Or something.
It is the killing, it is the permanent war, it is our deranged national priorities. It is the system we live under which requires the serial deaths of all those innocents to maintain our economic health that should appall us. We sup upon the blood and bonemeal that is the byproduct of the idea that is America, and we sleep. And we sleep.
But what about the war in this City? There is no excuse for this. There is no excuse for the political leadership (Mr. Bloomberg) that tolerates this. There is no excuse for the organization of the NYC Police Department that permits such unsupervised murder. There is no excuse for the policeman that pulled the trigger.
I would so want for us to be a generous, kind, civilized society. But actions this brutal show we're not even close. And we'll never be.
Whatever it is that I could have done, whatever I could have said -- in public, to my friends, in a writing, in a blog post, at work -- I am sorry I didn't do it. It's my fault I didn't do it. This is really a catastrophe.