Dear Officer, How Can I Trust You When All You Seem To Do Is Kill?
A Bay Area teen and a long-time cop have a frank conversation about police brutality.
Dear Carl,
My name is Jessica. I was born and raised in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, and was the first high school graduate from my family. My mom’s Mexican and my dad’s Cuban. They both migrated to the United States in their early 20s and the Mission became their home. The neighborhood is like our extended family; when something terrible happens, the whole community grieves.
One morning last year, in early March, I got a text from my cousin saying his brother, Alejandro, was killed by police officers in Bernal Hill park the previous night. Alejandro would often eat his dinner in the park before going to work. Apparently, that night, while he was eating his burrito on a bench, someone called in a disturbance of a man with a gun. Alejandro worked as a security guard at a nightclub and had to carry a Taser with him. He always had the paperwork to back it up, but the police officers didn’t even ask to see his registration. 14 bullets later, he was dead on the ground.
Our family was so confused. Alejandro was not the type of person who would just pull out his taser on a police officer. He was studying to be a youth probation officer at City College and volunteered at organizations for at-risk youth in his spare time.
We had so many unanswered questions, Carl. If a police officer feels threatened, shouldn’t they take out their own taser before bringing out a gun? Why do police officers shoot at someone so many times, if a man can be brought down with just one shot? Apparently 59 shots were fired between four police officers that came to the scene. Did they really need 4 officers?
Dear Jessica,
I retired from the San Francisco Police Department in 2013, so I wasn’t working as a cop when your cousin was killed. I’m sorry to hear about the pain and heartache that your family and community suffered because of this horrible tragedy. I’ll do my best to answer your questions as they relate to how police operate in general.
Officers are trained to stop any threat either to themselves or to someone else. According this news report, police were informed that someone was in the park with “a black handgun on his hip pacing by a chain link fence near a bench. The caller described a man with his hand resting on what looked like a gun…”
A call of a person with a gun is one of the most intense calls that an officer can get. An officer’s sense of fear and concern for overall safety suddenly goes haywire as they drive to the scene. When the officers got to the park, they were probably already on super high alert. When they encountered your cousin and saw the weapon, the report says that the officers told him to show his hands, which he didn’t do. Supposedly, he then drew the weapon, which was later determined to be a taser, and pointed it at the officers. That’s when the officers shot him.
When one officer fires his weapon, he does so because he feels that there is a credible threat to his safety; the other officers near him probably shared that feeling and joined in what is called “sympathetic fire.” Sadly, when several officers are all shooting at one person, it becomes excessive force, as that person ends up having multiple bullet wounds from multiple guns.
I honestly don’t believe that most cops go out with the intent to hurt or kill someone — they are either poorly trained or unable to control their rage. Too many people, cops included, use violence to justify violence. As police brutality increases, so too does violence against the police. We must stop reinforcing that “us versus them” mentality.
Read the rest of the exchange in Matter. Do you have a question for Carl or Jessica? Join the conversation by writing a response — and don’t forget to @ mention them! The pair will continue to exchange letters over the next two weeks and will try their best to incorporate your queries into their dialogue.
