As I was driving to work one day with my son, I stopped at a signal and saw the road in front of me teeming with police vehicles. One lane on the opposite side of the road was blocked by a police car. Around eight to ten officers were crowding over something. On looking closer, it appeared as though they were desperately trying to hold down something, using their batons to beat down some terrible dangerous beast. All I could see were their bodies pressing down and arresting the motion of whatever was under them. I gasped when I saw a naked foot sticking out from the crowd of black uniforms. My stomach churned as I realized there were ten police officers holding this man down, several of them pummeling him repeatedly with their batons.
I was filled with loathing. Excessive force, police brutality and other words and faces of many people who suffered the same fate flooded my mind. I felt sick and couldn’t breathe. It was like someone weighing 200 pounds was sitting on my chest.
It is one thing watching clips of police using excessive force and violence on citizens in the comfort of your living room. Watching it unfold in broad daylight just does something to you. I realized my son was in the car with me. I had to say something.
“Oh my God! It’s a man. I don’t care what he did but they can’t do this! This is horrible.”
Images from the past came tumbling into my mind. Men beaten to death by cops just because they could. Kids whose lives were snuffed out because an officer felt threatened and fired his gun. The man who got strangled by a cop. A senior citizen pushed around. A woman pulled by her hair at the beach.
What about all the images that never saw the light of day because no one captured them? What about what goes on in jails behind closed doors? I respect law enforcement but there is a fine line between enforcing the law and treating another person as a lesser being who deserves to be silenced, maimed or even killed.
It was a while again before I could breathe again and focus on my work. But what I saw that day definitely changed me. The next time I read something or see something related to police brutality I’m sure I will be consumed by that sickening feeling of an elephant on my chest.
The man I saw on the road ended up being admitted in a hospital. He left the scene in a stretcher and his family was not allowed to visit him in the hospital. I only hope he doesn’t become another statistic.
Punctuate Life 