Last week, opening statements began in the Jonathan Ferrell trial. That's right – the Jonathan Ferrell trial. Sure, if you want to get technical, it's the trial of Randall Kerrick, the CMPD officer who shot and killed the injured and unarmed 24-year-old Ferrell. But we all know how this is going to go down, don't we? The defense, the media and white people in denial will all try their best, and already have begun, to pin Ferrell's murder on Ferrell himself.
Of course, spinning this narrative is going to be tricky. He wasn't holding a toy gun like John Crawford or Tamir Rice. There's no surveillance footage of him committing petty theft like Mike Brown. His death can't plausibly be ruled a suicide like Sandra Bland's. Judging by past cases with these limitations, we can probably expect all the blame to be placed squarely on Ferrell's physical appearance and how threatening he looked to Kerrick. These tactics have already begun with the following statements, uttered both in and out of court:
"He was in a zombie state."
"He had the craziest-looking eyes."
"He was running right at him."
"The first shots didn't even faze him."
There's a lot of talk about Jonathan smoking marijuana, despite the negative toxicology results. On Aug. 10, Kerrick's lawyers even threw in a baseless reference to bath salts, an egregious tactic meant just to put the word in jurors' heads. Several news outlets are reporting on an EMT's testimony that on the scene of the incident, Kerrick had injuries which could be consistent with being hit in the face. Most fail to mention it was said this injury could also be consistent with falling down.
Oh, and the George Zimmerman defense ("He was trying to grab my gun") has also been tossed into this victim-blaming shitstorm for good measure.
All over the country, time and time again, victim after victim of police violence gets the same treatment. Police departments all have the same playbook they've been using since the Civil Rights era, only now with updated PR tactics for the age of social media and the 24-hour news cycle.
Bless the hearts of anyone who thought this would go differently in Charlotte. Sure, we have a black police chief and North Carolina's highest vote count for Obama. You know what else we have? Less than a mile from the courthouse where this trial is taking place, we have a disgusting, embarrassing monument that exalts Confederate soldiers for "preserving the Anglo-Saxon civilization of the South." We also have a group of county commissioners who consider its protection a high priority.
We have shiny, clean new high-rises, but when it comes to racial prejudice and inequality, we still have plenty of dirt.
It speaks volumes that on the night of Ferrell's death, the two white people he interacted with felt afraid for their lives and immediately escalated the situation, while the two black officers on the scene never felt threatened enough to pull their service weapons.
Lately there have been many "viral videos" of white officers helping black people making their way through social media. They're real officers doing what many do every day: protecting and serving their communities. I was recently contacted by a CMPD officer who said the majority of police are good people like those in these videos and they just want to do a good job and go home to their families. He said how frustrating it is that only the worst cops get media attention and his entire profession gets judged, maligned and feared due to behavior only a small percentage have exhibited. It's almost like they're being profiled and discriminated against.
Perhaps the ability to relate in a small way to how shitty that feels can one day lead to reconciliation between the black and blue communities.
A good start would be for Randall Kerrick to admit he shot Ferrell that night because he was reacting out of fear. Fear based on a preconceived notion that Ferrell was a violent criminal. It wasn't because Ferrell was a big black superhuman zombie who was high on drugs. It was a total misjudgment of the situation; an unfortunate mistake that prematurely ended the life of yet another young black man, and it was entirely Kerrick's fault. It would be a phenomenal example of courage and honesty. It would show an intrinsic desire to heal deep and malignant wounds. It would be...about as unlikely as that Confederate monument being jackhammered into dust like it should be. I won't hold my breath for either.