22 years old. A father. Shot in the back while laying on his stomach, with the knee of an officer at his neck. In front of hundreds of witnesses. On the subway.
It is not easy to watch. It shouldn't be. There is no reason. There is no justification. There is a child left without a father; a family struggling to figure it out; a company scrambling to justify it, a community trying to make sense of it, an attorney hoping to quantify it, a race praying to make it stop, a life lost. Senselessly lost.
Does it make it easier to ignore it if you knew that he was fighting. That he was a convicted felon. That he worked in the fast food industry. That he only has a GED?
Does it matter that he is a Black man, and all of the officers were not.
Or rather... he was.
BTW Officer Johannes Mehserle is reported to be the officer that confused his taser with his hand gun. And one day after the murder he became a proud father. Hmm, what does one say to him. What would Sophina Mesa -- the mother of Oscar's daughter Tatiana say?
I struggled with writing about this. Wonder if I'm just getting soft. Cause I won't say what I want to say. I'll just let it be inferred.
TTYL
Robbin
17 years ago