If Black Lives Matter, Don’t Forget the Names of Those Not Being Called
Police kill 1,000 people every year in the United States.
400 lives have been lost to police violence so far in 2020.
Protests rage after the killing of George Floyd, but so many other names are being ignored.
Their families need your help.
In the article How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality, Claire Lampen of The Cut writes about the different ways you can give. She mentions that you should call on your local legislatures “for their plans on ending discrimination in law enforcement.” She points to GoFundMe pages for the families of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and organizations needing donations like The Bail Project and Communities United Against Police Brutality. She says to consider joining a protest, supporting protestors and affected communities, and offering to help with clean up.
As a family of a loved one killed by police, we are so grateful for those around the country and the world showing their desire to address the evil of police brutality. Everything Ms. Lampen said is on point. However, we haven’t seen anyone responding that you should ALSO go find out the names of the people in your own state who were killed by police. We haven’t seen anyone say to push your local police department to release the incident reports and investigative records on these killings, to shed light on the truth — not just what the police say happened.
That’s what we did after our loved one, Ronnie Shorter, was killed by police on January 21, 2017, in Greenville, Mississippi. The Greenville PD officers said — and we quote — “He came out of the house and started shooting at us.” The local media parroted the story. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigations, a rubber stamp for local police, said the killing was justified and refused to release their report without heavy redactions — which Mississippi’s public records law allows.
No one looked into Ronnie’s death any further. But, we knew something was wrong. He was a loving and kind man, and when we started digging we found that a lot of things did not match up to the officers’ scant story. Ronnie’s body wasn’t found near his door, where police allege he started shooting. No officers were injured. He was shot from a distance and primarily to the back. We had to find this out for ourselves and now we’re fighting back to get justice in his name.
How many families are waiting for you to look up those killed by police in your state and community?
How many are waiting for you to send in a request to your local police department and ask for an incident report?
How many are hoping you’ll call the local media and ask them to fairly investigate their loved one’s killing, rather than criminalizing them as “thugs” and deserving of their execution?
How many are waiting for you to call your local lawmakers to make a statement, support an independent FBI or US Department of Justice investigation, or just to call the family and offer their condolences?
How many are looking for you to raise money to pay for their loved one’s funeral expenses or to get a lawyer to fight their case.
We hope you hear them. We hope you answer. We hope you make the time.
We need you to step up where so many have failed to do so.
You can learn more about our family’s fight for justice via Facebook at bit.ly/Justice4Ronnie and hear us tell our story at https://youtu.be/Cz0waOnFNeM.
Names of those killed by police in article’s cover photo:
Trayvon Martin, Keith Scott, Atatiana Jefferson, Jonathan Ferrell, Jordan Edwards, Stephon Clark, Amadou Diallo, Renisha McBride, Tamir Rice, Sean Bell, Walter Scott, Philando Castile, Aiyana Jones, Terrence Crutcher, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Jordan Davis, Sandra Bland, Botham Jean, Oscar Grant,Corey Jones, Ahmaud Arbery.