Walter Wallace Jr. - A Black life that mattered
The Daily WorldOct 29, 2020
By
If your Black son is mentally ill and is behaving erratically, think before you call the cops.
If you do, he may wind up shot multiple times like
Two cops fatally wounded him in front of his mother as neighbors watched, leaving a community traumatized not just by the shooting but by the rioting and destruction that took place in the streets after.
I viewed the cellphone video of the shooting numerous times and can't get the sound of his mother's wails out of my head. Or the questions we don't yet have answers to: Why didn't the officers use a nonlethal method before shooting him like a dog in the middle of the street in front of his mother and other onlookers? Did they even have Tasers and had they been trained to use them? Would they have even worked on him?
What we know is this: Police arrived on the scene in the 6100 block of Locust and ordered Wallace to drop the knife he was brandishing but he didn't. Instead, the video shows him brushing off his mother's efforts to hold him back and advancing toward the two cops. Then, even though they were multiple feet away they opened fire and Wallace crumpled to the pavement.
He was pronounced dead at
I hate to see that kind of looting and vandalism. At the same time, I understand the frustrations of those who took to the streets in outrage.
Here's another harsh reality: Had the police not arrived on the scene, someone else might have ended up injured or worse.
"Anyone can say that he shouldn't have pulled a knife," Toliver told me last night. "But there's something underlying."
In the end, he said, "I don't know if the officers used wise judgment."
I don't know either.
It's easy to second-guess. It's a completely different thing when you're an officer and face to face with a man brandishing a weapon and wondering if you're going to make it home that night.
But so was everyone who witnessed Wallace shot down like an animal in broad daylight. His parents must be wracked with grief and guilt right now second-guessing everything they did or didn't do for their troubled son.
"I've cried with his family outside of their house," said state Rep.
"What would #deescalation have looked like earlier this afternoon in my community? Would
Police arrest armed white homicide suspects such as
Had Wallace's skin color been different, would the police response have been the same? It's hard to say but I know this:
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