Monday Morning Crisis Quarterback

A man was shot and killed this morning by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Oakland police officers near the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, California.  If this rings a bell with you, you're not crazy -- just over a week ago a former BART officer was found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of a man at the Fruitvale station on New Years Day, 2009.  That conviction -- or more specifically the conviction on manslaughter rather than murder -- spurred protests and looting in Oakland.

On the one hand, these two shootings have nothing to do with each other.  The officers involved are different.  The people shot are different.  The circumstances of the shootings are different.  The only connection is one of coincidence -- both of these incidents happened near the same station.

On the other hand, in terms of impact these two shootings have everything to do with each other.  The coincidence of location means that today's shooting immediately brings to mind the earlier incident and the recent trial.  An officer involved shooting in Oakland, California does not merit national headlines as a general rule.  It is the similarities between the two cases, as superficial as they may be, that get CNN involved.

There is no reason, at least from the initial media reports, to believe that there was anything suspect about the circumstances surrounding today's shooting.  The same could not be said about the shooting in 2009.  But our minds have a funny way of categorizing things.  The 2009 shooting is filed in our memories under any number of categories you might expect --  police shootings, police brutality, riots, protests -- but also under some that aren't nearly as helpful, such as: Fruitvale, BART and Oakland Police. Today's shooting may only share those last three labels with the one in 2009, but because we are opening the "file drawer" where both reside, both come out and their import can become confused.

The general public, furthermore, are not the only ones making these connections. While no police officer wants to shoot and kill a suspect under any circumstances, there is, perhaps, no worse nightmare for an officer in Oakland, California than to shoot and kill a suspect near the Fruitvale BART station, especially this week.  Whatever emotions or reactions a shooting would cause to begin with are compounded because the officers' minds immediately and involuntarily make the connection.  The natural questions (whether acknowledged or not) an officer might ask of himself about whether a shooting was necessary or justified are complicated by the fact that, because of the links between the two cases, on some level our minds do not believe a shooting at the Fruitvale station can ever be justified no matter the circumstances.  Add to that the fact that the officers involved know that the public is making those same connections, and it makes a stressful situation that much worse.

There are plenty of investigations going on about today's shooting, as there should be.  Hopefully, in time, we will know for sure whether it could have been avoided or not.  It might help keep tensions in the community down and police officer's mental health in tact if we all took a deep breath and reminded ourselves that whether this was a justified shooting or not has nothing, no matter what our minds tell us, to do with the fact that it happened near Fruitvale.  Coincidences are complicated, but sometimes they really are just coincidences.

Aiyana Jones was asleep on the sofa of her Detroit home early Sunday morning when police executed a warrant and came looking for her aunt's fiance, who was wanted for a murder earlier in the weekend.  Accounts differ about what, exactly, happened when officers entered the home.  Everyone agrees that, within seconds, Aiyana Jones was dead, shot by a police bullet.  She was 7 years old.

You might imagine that there's a fair amount of crime and trauma discussed in my family.  My tween daughter has heard it all -- probably much more than she should.  As a result, some things that would horrify other kids don't really faze her.  She knows that bad stuff happens, and she also knows, for the most part, that it doesn't happen to her.  My husband and I try, when we can, to make sure that we are the ones to tell her scary news so we have the opportunity to put it in some context, be reassuring, and answer any questions.  That's not always possible, of course, because sometimes we're getting the news at the same time she is.

That's what happened this morning.  News of Aiyana's death came on the radio, and my daughter and I heard it at exactly the same time.  My first thought was, "Ugh, that's going to be messy."  Then I looked over at my daughter, whose mouth was hanging open.  She finally said, "That's -- that's -- that's so sad!!" 

Instantly, I knew that her reaction was the right one, not mine.  Yes, this is going to be messy.  No matter whose version of events you believe -- did the grandmother tussle with a police officer whose gun went off?  Did police fire from outside the house?  Was the girl burned by a flash grenade before she was shot?  Had neighbors warned officers that there were children in the house? -- this is not a good situation.  Police, in the course of their jobs, killed a little girl.  That has the potential to ignite huge problems between police and residents and certainly will trigger a big investigation, as it should.

But whether it's messy or not is really not the main issue.  A little girl died.  Her father and grandmother have just lost an important member of their family, a child.  Whatever anyone inside the house did or did not do, they didn't intend for this to happen.  No parent tucks their child in at night and contemplates the possibility they won't be alive in the morning, at least not due to this kind of incident.

Why did my daughter and I have such radically different reactions?  To some extent, it has to do with age and experience.  I look at things from a crisis point of view, and she looks from a human point of view.  Still, you'd think I would have keyed into the trauma the family experienced a little better than I did.  I've also heard stories like this before, while she hasn't.  Thankfully they aren't common, but they do happen and probably don't shock me the way they shock my daughter.

If I'm honest, though, I have to say that, because of my age and experience and the society in which we live, I have an expectation that "things like this" happen in Detroit.  I would be shocked if it happened in Ann Arbor, but not in Detroit.  My daughter, either because her mother does a better job of teaching compassion than of living it or because she just hasn't been steeped in the negative expectations of Detroit and its citizens the way I have, knows that a child is a child, no matter where you live.  It's one of those moments in parenting when you realize your kid embodies your values better than you do.  I'm very proud.  I'm also a little ashamed.

Early this morning, Seattle Police shot and killed the alleged gunman in the murders of four Lakewood, Washington police officers.  Whatever motivated this man to do what he did, he will never hurt another person again.  So ends the story.

The story doesn't really end there, however, because there is plenty of traumatic stress for those involved and plenty of follow-up news coverage for the rest of us.  The long process of coming to terms with what happened is just beginning for those who witnessed the shootings and the families and fellow officers of the victims.

As this story has unfolded, a lot of anger has bubbled to the surface.  It seems that this anger is pointed, broadly, in two directions.

The first is at the gunman.  This makes sense -- he is the one ultimately responsible for his own actions.  It comes as no surprise to those of us who watch police dramas on TV that the suspect did not come out of his confrontation with police alive.  That is not to say in any way that his shooting was not appropriate, but rather that, when hunting for a cop killer, the preservation of his life is not the highest priority on everyone's mind.  Generally, they come quietly or they come dead.

The second place that anger is directed is at Mike Huckabee, or more broadly at the criminal justice system.  Huckabee, when he was governor of Arkansas, granted clemency to the alleged killer.  This was one of what appear to be a large number of opportunities that were missed, both before the Arkansas clemency and after, to keep this man away from the public.

We all know that Mike Huckabee, or this or that prosecutor, or this or that judge, did not pull the trigger in these shootings.  By being angry and blaming them, however, we are reassuring ourselves that this could have been prevented.  We need to do that, because the alternative is too scary to fathom -- that there are people out there who just want to kill other people, we don't know who they are, and they can't be stopped.  By blaming these officials, we tell ourselves that if only everyone did their jobs we would be safe.  I have no idea whether any one or all of these people should have done anything differently, given the information they had at the time.  I do know that even if they had, they would not have stopped every violent sociopath out there.

If you want to understand the primal fear we are shunting to the side, try talking to the young child of a police officer this week.  They will tell you they don't want their mom or dad going out for coffee.  The bogeyman is real.  The one in Washington may be gone, but we don't want to reckon with the idea that there may actually be other ones hiding in the closet.