2 Apr 2012
Author: drjelks
The Root has run a moving slide show of 17 unarmed black men shot by law enforcement. We often forget that the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, California to protect black Americans in their own communities from police brutalization. Let us mobilize to create better protection and end the criminalization of black Americans. Check out theRoot slide show here.
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Beyond Trayvon: Black and Unarmed
These 17 sad stories prove that it's nothing new for a black man without a weapon to be killed.
Stansbury family photo; Allen family photo; ABC
The killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood-watch captain who deemed him "suspicious" and claims that he shot the 17-year-old in self-defense has started a heartbreaking national conversation about race and justice. His story is all the more tragic because it follows a familiar pattern. The Root reviewed incidents in which black men and boys without weapons lost their lives to law-enforcement officers or others who decided that they were dangerous enough to die.
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Family photo
Ervin Jefferson
There are still unanswered questions about this case, unfolding a month after Trayvon Martin's shooting. But police have confirmedthat the 18-year-old Jefferson was shot and killed by two security guards -- also African American -- outside his Atlanta home on Saturday, March 24, 2012. His mother says he was unarmed and trying to protect his sister from a crowd that was threatening her.
CBS
Amadou Diallo
In 1999, four officers in street clothes approached Diallo, a West African immigrant with no criminal record, on the stoop of his New York City building, firing 41 shots and striking him 19 times as he tried to escape. They said they thought the 23-year-old had a gun. It was a wallet. The officers were all acquitted of second-degree-murder charges.
Family photo
Patrick Dorismond
The 26-year-old father of two young girls was shot to death in 2000 during a confrontation with undercover police officers who asked him where they could purchase drugs. An officer claimed thatDorismond -- who was unarmed -- grabbed his gun and caused his own death. But the incident made many wonder whether the recent acquittal of the officers in the Amadou Diallo case sent a signal that the police had a license to kill without consequence.
Dallas Weekly
Ousmane Zongo
In 2003 Officer Bryan A. Conroy confronted and killedZongo in New York City during a raid on a counterfeit-CD ring with which Zongo had no involvement. Relatives of the 43-year-old man from Burkina Faso settled a lawsuit against the city for $3 million. The judge in the trial of the officer who shot him (and was convicted of criminally negligent homicide but did not serve jail time) said he was "insufficiently trained, insufficiently supervised and insufficiently led."
Family photo
Timothy Stansbury Jr.
Unarmed and with no criminal record, 19-year-oldStansbury was killed in 2004 in a Brooklyn, N.Y., stairwell. The officer who shot him said he was startled and fired by mistake. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called his death "a tragic incident that compels us to take an in-depth look at our tactics and training, both for new and veteran officers." A grand jury deemed it an accident.
Family photo
Sean Bell
In the early-morning hours of what was supposed to be 23-year-old Bell's wedding day, police fired more than 50 bullets at a car carrying him and his friends outside a Queens, N.Y., strip club in 2006. Bell was killed, and two of his friends were wounded. The city of New York agreed to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family and two friends of Bell. The three detectives who were charged -- one of whom yelled "gun," although Bell was unarmed -- were found not guilty of all charges. Just this March, the NYPD fired four of the officers involved in the shooting for disobeying departmental guidelines on the scene.
Review Journal
Orlando Barlow
Barlow was surrendering on his knees in front of four Las Vegas police officers when Officer Brian Hartman shot him in 2003. Hartman was 50 feet away and said he thought the unarmed 28-year-old was reaching for a gun. The deadly shooting was ruled "excusable." But a federal investigation later revealed that Hartman and other officers printed T-shirts labeled "BDRT," which stood for "Baby Daddy Removal Team" and "Big Dogs Run Together," and that they'd used excessive force during two separate investigations.
Family photo
Aaron Campbell
In 2005 Campbell was shot in the back by Portland, Ore., police Officer Ronald Frashour, who said he thought the unarmed man was reaching toward his waistband for a weapon. Witnesses said the 25-year-old was walking backward toward police with his hands locked behind his head moments before the fatal shot was fired. A grand jury cleared Frashour of criminal wrongdoing but sent a letter to the county district attorney's office condemning police handling of the incident. Campbell's motherreceived a $1.2 settlement in the family's federal wrongful-death lawsuit against the city of Portland.
