No Justice For Terence Crutcher

In September of 2016, 40-year-old Terence Crutcher, an unarmed black man, was shot. His assailant? 43-year-old Betty Shelby, an officer of the law in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Originally, Shelby was charged with manslaughter.

Despite having proof of the murder via video footage, and the fact that Crutcher was unarmed, Shelby has been found NOT guilty of the crime. This has become a recurring result when it comes to police officers shooting and killing members of the African American community.

Justice is the thing that people of darker shades are constantly denied the privilege of obtaining. Who do you turn to when the people hired to protect and serve you, are the same people killing you off? What happens when the police need policing? What do you say to the families who have their loved ones wrongfully taken away from them?

The legal system continues to fail the African American community. Apparently, our lives aren’t worth protecting. Our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, fathers, and mothers are slain and all they have to say is “my bad”. This system does not value black lives. This has unfortunately, always been the case within this country, but many of us forget.

Let these murders serve as reminders.

We can march, we can form all types of movements, we can coin catchy phrases and slogans that spell out injustice, but what’s happening is bigger than all of that.

We have supposedly “trained” police officers saying they “fired out fear”,

because a black man is so terrifying, right? We have countless murder victims put on trial and blamed for their own deaths. Where is the justice? Where’s the humanity?

Terence Crutcher didn’t deserve to die no matter how the legal system tries to spin it. These cases leave a lot of us feeling restless and even useless. What can we do? What should we do? Before we can completely mourn and digest one murder, another hashtag appears. It’s left many of us desensitized. It’s become a normality. Things will never be okay until things change. We must stand as a whole community and take our justice because without it, there can never be any peace.

Condolences to Crutcher’s family.