The world today is perplexing. Just as we are emerging from our COVID cocoons. Just as life is returning a bit back to normal with more cars on the road, more stores and restaurants open.
Just as summer is about to splash into our lives again and we get to enjoy it… something has happened to cause alarm for us… again. It’s not the second spike of the coronavirus that some feared. And it’s too early for the second wave. Something much worse has happened.
It’s the rude awakening that the phrase “Stay Safe” still applies to all of us, for some in more ways than others. It applies to the police officers as they try to limit damage to properties and enforce the curfew. It applies to the news crews, not while they cover the peaceful protests, but as they report on the ravaging riots. Most importantly, “Stay Safe” applies to those who have to be reminded of the phrase daily because death by cop is a reality in their present and future.
Was arresting a citizen who may have passed a counterfeit bill so important that we had to risk his life to do so? He couldn’t be tracked down later if he got away? Was he even trying to get away? Didn’t look like it to me. Was he resisting arrest? Didn’t look like it to the many witnesses at the scene. He just wanted to breathe.
Just breathe. Just like the countless number of coronavirus victims want to breathe. It’s a basic human right and necessity. No one should stop anyone from trying to breathe. We have hundreds, maybe even thousands, of coronavirus patients throughout our nation who are hooked up to ventilators so they can breathe. So they can practice their God-given right to breathe.
But a man on the streets isn’t afforded that same right. Here’s the deal: if you can’t breathe, you die. We have all learned this very well, particularly over the last few months. Patients are put into comas and incubated so they can keep breathing until they beat the virus, and therefore survive.
This man was put into a neck hold and possibly into a coma so he couldn’t breathe or survive. There may not be a bruise on his body, but they beat him senseless. And they let him die as they cut off oxygen to his lungs by choking him with a knee. Not a rope around his neck, but a knee in his neck.
At least the witnesses were protesting and recording the ordeal for what it was – a crime – a murder.
Much different than when nooses were placed around the necks of men in our nation while people watched for entertainment. People enjoyed the spectacle as men stopped breathing. The witnesses today were powerless to stop it just like the few witnesses in the past who didn’t agree with a noose around a man’s neck either.
At least today witnesses want the world to know about it – that what happened was true – because you can see it for yourself.
Can that help change things? Maybe it already has. When the governors, mayors, and police chiefs call it murder along with the rest of us, maybe it has moved us closer to the truth. When they join the protesters and even go down on one knee with them, they show they are listening and finally understand. Maybe that will help change things for the better. Protesting helps. Rioting doesn’t.
I was so looking forward to the start of June and summer. Not now. Not that another epidemic, which we have dealt with for hundreds of years in our nation, is spiking again – is experiencing another wave. When are we going to develop a cure for this recurring virus? Is there a vaccine available? Isn’t it finally time we developed one?
Lynn James is a lifelong resident of Northern Kentucky and has lived in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties. She enjoys living and observing real life with real people.
