"Black and White and Red" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Black and White and Red

It may be that we will always be reading news items of police killing black teens, but each time there is a fresh edge on the story, one that cuts different ways. The latest was of a 13-year-old boy in Los Angeles. He was shot to death after he rammed a police cruiser with a stolen car at four in the morning after a high-speed chase. As is the case in all of these tragedies, there are two different accounts, at least, of the circumstances.

In this case, the family and friends of the victim say he was a good boy, a "mama’s boy" whose father had died a year earlier. He went into a tailspin then, said one family friend, and had started hanging out with the wrong crowd. He’d been reported having trouble in school over the past year. The night of the incident, he was supposed to be staying overnight at the house of a friend when he decided to go home, with a friend, in another friend’s car, without calling his mother.

The police say they got a report of the car being stolen three hours earlier. A patrol team spotted the stolen car, saw it go through a red light, called it in a suspected drunk driver and went after it. They reported the car jumping a curb on a missed turn at 40 to 50 miles an hour.

In an unusual move, the LA police chief and a top deputy held a press conference, carried live by several television stations, complete with laser projection of the incident, pictures of skid marks, and a tape of the radio call. They usually don’t release so much preliminary information this early in an investigation, but did so this time to squelch rumors that this was another case of excessive police force against a black man.

When I, who was raised in upper middle class white New England, read the story, I reflected that most of the 13-year-olds of my growing up years were not out in the middle of the night, driving, a stolen car...and being someone who likes a little order in the community could understand his being apprehended. What was not explained, however, is why he was shot; one of the policeman fired his gun ten times.

Maybe more will be explained but it surely isn’t just a black-and-white issue, especially when it involves a boy drenched in blood.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.