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I live in Columbus, Ohio, where two Black men were shot to death by police in recent weeks. One of the victims was 23-year old Casey Goodson Jr., who was trying to enter his home after a dentist appointment on December 4 and was shot multiple times by a sheriff's deputy. No body cameras were present when the officer shot Casey Goodson Jr.

Then on December 22, a police officer gunned down 47-year-old Andre Maurice Hill while he was in his friend’s garage. There was no dash cam footage, and the video from the incident showed that the officers left Hill to die, like someone whose life had no value. He was not given any form of resuscitation, covering of his wounds or even comfort in his final moments of life.

Protests and calls for justice have been heating up right ahead of Christmas, but we (as residents of a deeply racist state and as Black people in general) have faced so many disappointments when it comes to these kinds of cases that most of us cannot “trust the system” enough to have high expectations. To do so would be naive. In those exceedingly rare cases in which justice is served — which it never truly can be in a country that has been murdering our ancestors since the Middle Passage — we’re only allowed to exhale slightly. And then we hear about the next killing.

To add insult to injury, Adam Coy, the officer who killed Andre Maurice Hill, had racked up over 180 complaints against him, including a $45,000 settlement for excessive use of force. Yet, he was still on the streets of Columbus carrying a loaded gun. One could only logically deduce that an officer with his violent history would end up killing an innocent person one day. Apparently none of his employers cared that he posed a danger to the people in this city.

Call it incompetence, systemic racism, a general disregard for Black life or all of the above. Whatever is wrong with the police force here and elsewhere, law enforcement needs to be held accountable. And officers need to go out of their way to not shoot. They need to go out of their way to find another way to mitigate “threats,” just like they’ve done for mass killers such as Dylan Roof (the then-teenaged white supremacist who was peacefully arrested after killing nine Black churchgoers after a Bible study and subsequently treated to a fast food meal by police).

They have other means of self-defense, yet the gun seems to be the only weapon of choice when the person in front of the bullet is Black. And they shoot to kill. They shoot multiple times. They shoot people who pose absolutely no threat whatsoever. They shoot people who are going about their normal daily tasks. They leave people to bleed out on the ground. They shoot as a first reflex, not as a last resort. We’ve seen it twice in just a few weeks in Columbus and countless times nationally.

To say that we’re “exhausted” or “traumatized” is an understatement. We’ve been “fed up” for more than 400 years. We embody the anguish of our ancestors who witnessed lynchings, executions, dismemberments and other cruel punishments throughout the centuries. We continue to trudge along hoping for a better future, with little evidence that things will ever improve. We’ve seen it too many times.

Alice Ragland

Writing since February 2022 · 2 stories contributed