Thanks to a bogus 911 call, a 19-year-old black male college student lies dead after being gunned down by a couple of Pasadena, California police officers. Barely a month removed from the shooting and killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, the city of Pasadena will now likely become a hotbed for calls of justice.
It could also be a calling card for more racial divisiveness between the African Americans and Hispanic communities. Both victims were black. Two Hispanic men lie at the center of cause in both deaths.
With the nation and the world galvanized over the shooting death of the 17-year-old Martin, the black youth who lost his life after being pursued and stalked by overzealous neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, there will probably be more outcry for accountability.
However, different mitigating circumstances in the two cases may a play part in determining what level of outrage will spill over from the death of Azusa resident Kendrec Lavelle McDade. At the moment, with tensions and anxiety running high in the black community following the homicidal shooting of Martin, it may not matter.
What the African American community is going to see is another young black male shot down without provocation. A Hispanic male placed a call to 911 to say he was robbed by two black men. According to Pasadena police account of what happened on March 24, Oscar Carrillo, 26, told police he was robbed at gunpoint and that he was following the two men in a Pasadena neighborhood.
Allegedly, the two men stole a laptop computer and a backpack from Carrillo. Within minutes the police arrived on the scene at the intersection of two major street thoroughfares running through the city. According to the police version of what happened that night, McDade allegedly takes off and flees the scene. McDade is shot dead by the two officers who fired multiple shots once they have him cornered.
According to the first account presented by the police-the two officers said they noticed McDade’s hands near his waistband. According to this report, both officers said they feared for their lives and shot McDade.
Of course, neither the weapon nor the stolen items was found on McDade or the other alleged suspect, a minor. Oh, by the way, Carrillo recanted his initial statement to police, informing the law enforcement agency he made up a lie that McDade and the other young man had a gun on them. Carrillo told police he only said that to speed up their response.
Four days after the shooting, police arrested and charged Carrillo with involuntary manslaughter related to the officer involved shooting. Now the Pasadena Police Department is launching an independent review investigation of shooting. There are now community meetings being scheduled about the fatal shooting. One will take place at the Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood this Saturday, as well in Pasadena.
The McDade shooting and the killing of Martin speaks to a larger issue at hand that the public and America needs to seriously address. That is the perceived justification of shooting and killing young black men and the constant vilification of their character. Sean Bell. Oscar Grant. Trayvon Martin. Now Kendrec Lavelle McDade. There are many more. It now has been almost justifiable to kill a young black man and get away with it.
But this is not some new phenomenon. These kinds of tragedies are a historical pattern in our nation’s history. We can start with Emmett Till, but we know there were more who lost their lives for the sake of being black. Therein lays the problem. The victims of such atrocities have more or less been young black people.
When is enough going to be enough? Will America continue to wait to do the right thing in regards to this issue unless a bunch of white youths are routinely gunned down unmercifully? How long will law enforcement personnel continue to hide his behind this invisible wall of fearing for their lives when they encounter and shoot a black man to justify their right to kill another human being?
Martin was on his way home to his father’s girlfriend’s house in Sanford, Florida, minding his own business after leaving a 7-11 convience store with a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea in hand as he was followed and stalked by Zimmerman, first in an SUV-then on foot. Somehow after an altercation is ensued and Martin is lying on the ground dead, the message of justice has been decoded in a decrypted and sinister way.
People, like the media and experts are trying to shift the blame on Martin as the aggressor, when in fact, he was targeted via the many 911 calls made by Zimmerman, hunted down and eventually killed. No person has the right to stalk, intimidate, and invoke fear into someone else the way Zimmerman did when he trailed Martin before he shot him dead with the Tek Dek 9mm semiautomatic handgun that was strapped around his waist.
Should this allow young black men to pack themselves with weapons and shoot first, ask question later if someone follows and stalks them because they ‘look suspicious?’ Wouldn’t Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law apply if Martin felt threatened that Zimmerman was following him and trying to harm him? Any person would feel threatened if someone was following them in their vehicle before they trailed them on the ground.
The facts surrounding the killing of McDade is still sketchy, but it does not excuse the cops who shot and killed the young man, and then pinned the blame on Carrillo for making that fabricated call. Carrillo lied, but he didn’t fire the shots that killed McDade. And the police officers who fatally shot McDade should have to answer for their actions.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com