For a brief moment, everything surrounding this poor woman disappeared, and nothing else mattered. Not the charges against the police officers, not the attorneys' vibrant openings, not the protestors picketing outside the courthouse. She took several seconds to compose herself. The question remained there, hanging-the attorney wanted to know where she had seen her fiance the morning of Nov. 25, 2006. Then the answer: "He was in the morgue."
Nov. 24, 2006. In only a few hours, Sean Bell would be a husband. He was already a father, a fiance, a son. This night, he was still a bachelor, partying at a nightclub with two friends. They were outside the club, all drunk, shouting at another man. There was mention of a gun. No altercation occurred and the partiers decided to leave. As they got into a car, an undercover detective approached and asked to speak with them, not properly identifying himself. The men jumped into the car and started to make off, hitting the officer in the leg and slamming into the unmarked police van. Gunfire.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. Over and over again, until 50 bullets had been fired by police officers. Detective Gescard Isnora, the one who had been struck in the leg, discharged his weapon 31 times. He reloaded at least once.
Sean Bell, the man who was to be married in only a matter of hours, was dead. His two friends were seriously wounded. No gun was found in the car and ballistic evidence places none there.
Monday, the trial for three of the involved officers began. Race has already been brought up in opening statements. Bell was black. Isnora's attorney described the officer as a black man and tried to paint a hypothetical perspective of the victims during the events leading to the shooting.
"They [Bell and his friends] see a Negro with a gun. Just another Negro on the street with a gun."
Though the officer's attorney may have been attempting to use the race card in favor of Isnora, the same wording could easily have been used in describing the police perspective that night.
When will seeing a white man on the street at near a nightclub be the same as seeing a black man in the same environment? What makes the black man scarier than a man who just happened to be born with a much lighter complexion?
According to current projections, 32 percent of black men will serve time in prison. Forty-nine percent of all homicide victims are black, 77 percent of them killed with a gun, and in "single victim-single offender homicides" committed against black people, 91 percent of the murderers were black. Forty-five percent of drug offenders in state prisons are black. The answer is that black men are scarier.
We live in a society in which skin color can be effectively used as a demarcation of economic value. Think about it. You're an employer at a restaurant in Chicago. You have two applicants-a black man and a white man. Both are high school grads. Both have worked restaurants in the area before. But you know that, on average, black high school students perform at a less competent level than white high school students. You know that black men are more likely to go to prison than white men. You know that the black man is much more likely than the white man to get busted for drugs. Who do you hire?
The problem isn't skin color. The problem is the statistics associated with the skin color. And it is a problem we can solve, but not in this column.
Picture this: A slum in Los Angeles, late at night. The officer has just pulled over a man for failing to stop at a red light and speeding. The police operator had sent out an all points bulletin for a gunman of dark complexion driving a dark blue sedan. The car now parked in front of the police cruiser is dark green, not really dark blue, but it is hard to see in the night. The officer emerges from his vehicle, his right hand on his gun, and approaches the driver. He's black, wearing a gold chain, a white do-rag and a black, heavy jacket with gold lettering. The officer's former partner, his best friend, had been shot and killed by a black gang member a year and a half before this stop. The officer can feel his heart pacing a little faster. His grip tightens around his gun. "Where's your license and registration?" Suddenly, the driver moves his right hand off the steering wheel and down toward his right pocket, his jacket swishing. All the officer wanted to hear was the location of the license.
Is it racist to shoot? Is it stupid not to?
What about the code the officer swore to uphold?
What about the officer's wife and 3-year-old son?
People face these decisions every day. What would you do?
Elad Gross is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Thursday.
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