Black man warns his young grandson about the police: A Black Child Fears Cops more than Criminals

By Linn Washington, Jr.

I was seething inside as I watched the live television coverage of the recent rebellion/riot in Baltimore as we witnessed yet another explosion caused by America’s historic failures to reign in abusive police. Then I received a text message that lead to a conversation that absolutely broke my heart.

The conversation was with my 11-year-old grandson, who himself was seething from what he saw going on in his hometown of Baltimore.

My grandson told me he was mad…mad because police “keep killing black men.”

When I probed further into his anger he said he feared for his own life -– not because of what might happen when he gets older because of what could happen even now if he encountered a police officer.

“I’m scared Pop Pop," he confided. "I’m scared that police might hurt me. I’m scared because police don’t know how to control themselves!”

The heartbreak of hearing my own grandson’s fear was compounded by the ugly reality that the thing he now fears is a daily fact-of-life for children living in East Baltimore and too many similar places across America.

Children should be focused on fun, like enjoying those computer games they like to play, instead of fearing police violence arising from the reality that too many cops cannot “control” themselves.

In Maryland, where my grandson lives, at least 109 people died in encounters with police between 2010 and 2014, according to a report released by Maryland’s ACLU just weeks before Baltimore burned. Blacks accounted for 79 percent of those fatal police encounters in a state where Blacks comprise only 29 percent of the population. “The number of unarmed Blacks who died (36 people) exceeded the total number of all Whites who died (30 people), armed or not,” that ACLU report stated, noting police were charged with criminal misconduct in only two of those 109 fatal encounters.

Baltimore police have been out of control for decades.

In May 1946 -– four years before I was born -– Baltimore police shot and killed two black men within a 24-hour span: one for resisting arrest, the other shot in the back while fleeing. Authorities filed no charges against the police.

In June 1964 – when I was a little older than my grandson –- Baltimore police severely beat a black man and ransacked his home after he verbally objected to police abusing a woman on the sidewalk in front of his house. That vicious beating occurred days after Baltimore police fatally beat another black man who had just celebrated his 19th wedding anniversary. Authorities filed no charges against police in either encounter.

Last October prosecutors declined to file charges against Baltimore police who repeatedly struck a black teen they were trying to subdue inside a hospital emergency room. Those police also shot the teen six times with a Taser...

For the rest of this article by LINN WASHINGTON, JR. in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, uncompromised, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/2751