Today is the last day of 2015 and police in the United States have killed more than 1,000 people. More than 1,000. Out of those cases, 14 police officers either have stood or will stand trial for a handful of those deaths. That’s the largest number of officers ever. Ever. That in and of itself is a sad commentary on the power and prestige that law enforcement wields in the U.S. But it gets worse: Of the many highly publicized cases of police officer killings in the last year or so (many of whom were unarmed civilians), prosecutors declined to bring charges against 14 of them in 2015. That would kinda equal a cancelling-out-type of action, don’t you think?
Many of those people killed by police in this last year were unarmed. Many others may have been armed—the words “may have” are used because we only have one side of the story to go on. Many others, armed and unarmed alike, were killed under circumstances so questionable they should have warranted criminal investigations. And some of those killed by police this year were children like 12-year-old Tamir Rice, shot by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann in November 2014. Of these 14 highly publicized shootings that left someone dead, prosecutors declined to charge anyone. The Huffington Post gives a snapshot of those 14 cases here.
Each case is unique, and every person has a story that is unique to their life and their unfortunate death at the hands of law enforcement. But one of the cases that stands out as outrageously sad is that of Jason Harrison. Here’s the snapshot provided by HuffPost:
Jason Harrison
Dallas police shot and killed Harrison, who was schizophrenic, in June 2014, seconds after they told him to drop a screwdriver he was holding. Harrison, 39, was killed in front of his mother, who claimed she had earlier requested help bringing Harrison to a hospital. In April, a Texas grand jury decided not to indict the officers involved in the case.
The local NBC affiliate’s story from the day of Jason’s death is equally outrageously sad.
I don’t know Jason Harrison or his family, but that’s not going to stop me from saying that the picture used by the Dallas NBC affiliate (and the picture that Huffington Post also used in its article) feeds the perception of black men in general—and Jason Harrison in particular—as being scary and dangerous. Take a look at it below:
Is that what the officers saw when they went to Harrison’s mother’s house that June day? We are able to see only a portion of what they saw, thanks to the officer’s body camera footage, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s stay here with Jason’s photograph. This photograph, coupled with the news story of the shooting, is the first information that the general public receives about the incident. When you read the news story, this is part of the text you see:
“Dallas police officers visited the home and made contact with the woman's son, who came out of the home holding a screw driver.”
“After repeated requests for 39-year-old Jason Harrison to drop the weapon, police said he acted aggressively and both responding officers fired.”
When you listen to the news reporter she quotes the police saying, “when police knocked on the door police say Harrison came outside with a screw driver and didn’t follow orders to drop it.” The camera then cuts to a police representative who says “the suspect did have a weapon, which caused the officers to respond with their weapon to protect themselves.”
Jason Harrison was not a suspect who came outside of his house with a weapon. Jason Harrison was a man standing in the doorway of his own home. That is the first thing that needs to be established. Second, orders and requests are two different things. If Harrison was “requested” to put down the screwdriver then why is he dead? When did refusing a request become a death sentence? Don’t answer that; that’s a question for the NBC-local affiliate’s news team to deal with in terms of their style and reference guide. Let’s move forward to the real issue.
When viewing the video we see that Harrison is holding a screwdriver in a position that is non- threatening. It was not raised over his head or in a stabbing position. In fact, it looks like he’s twirling it. And I repeat, he was standing in the doorway of his own home. Once the police officer sees the screwdriver he begins to tell Harrison to “drop it.” It is at this point that the outrageous sadness begins. Harrison’s mother begins to yell his name; now both officers are yelling at him to “drop it.” The body camera footage is never aligned with Harrison’s head so we do not see the expression on his face—we are unable to tell if he is angry, scared, annoyed, or what. The part we are able to see is that after numerous yells, Harrison appears to try to run away, and that is when the officer farthest away from him pulls his gun out and shoots Harrison. It was Harrison’s mother who placed a call looking for a trained mental health team to assist her with her son. Unfortunately, she called the police department looking for that help. If you are able to withstand the wails of Harrison’s mother, as well as stomach Jason Harrison’s final moments, see the video below:
We are able to (eventually) see that one of the officers is wearing a Taser. But of course, no need for a middle man of non-lethal weaponry to be deployed here—let’s just get right down to ending another life.
Is there nothing in the Dallas Police Department’s–or any police department’s, for that matter–training about yelling at people who are schizophrenic? About yelling at people who are schizophrenic, when you are wearing all black, with guns and all kinds of other stuff that can hurt people? No? Nothing? Nada? Really?
Jason Harrison should not be included in HuffPost’s 14 notable cases of 2015. Jason Harrison should be alive today. He is no longer with us simply because of the overreaction of police officers who will not be made accountable in some way for that overreaction. And that is outrageously sad.
Happy New Year.