Columbus Ohio Police Officer and military National Guardsman Nicholas Reardon shot 16-year-old Ma'Khai Bryant four times center mass at close proximity because Ma'Khai threatened to stab another teenager with a knife. Per NPR.org, "The police laid out a timeline of the incident, starting with the initial call" per Ma'Khia "at 4:32 PM officers were then dispatched at 4:35 PM, with the first officers arriving at 4:44 PM," per Interim Police Chief Michael Woods report.
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/21/989556698/makhia-bryant-police-identify-officer-who-shot-teen-release-video-footage Pictured below Ma'Khia with her mother Paula Bryant
When Officer Reardon approached the scene, Ma'Khia Bryant struggled with another teenager on her front lawn and then swung at another teenager standing in Ma'Khia's driveway. Approximately 15 minutes earlier, Bryant called 911 because teen girls who use to reside in home began to argue at Bryant because they felt that she was not helping out with house cleaning choirs enough. This led to an argument that turned into a physical altercations with Bryant and the two females in the home. Per the 911 call, you could actively hear aggressors attacking & making threats at Bryant and her foster family on their property. Bryant called the police twice, frantically seeking help. https://www.revolt.tv/2021/4/23/22400077/makhia-bryants-foster-mom-fight
Other officers who also responded to the call were at the scene approaching the girls and assessing the situation without guns drawn. Reardon drives up, gets out of the car, and within 22 seconds begins to shout, "Get down, Get down," and Reardon shoots the teenage girl point-blank four times in the chest where with Bryant falls backward on to car in her driveway. Bystanders were outraged. Officers on the scene were stunned. Officer Reardon didn't even ask 16-year-old Ma'Khia to drop her weapon. Unlike Reardon, the other officers at the scene who did not draw their guns immediately began to try to save Bryant's life to no avail. Per some reports, Reardon decided to shoot Bryant to kill because of his police training. On purpose. Center mass. Hence one set of officers came to the scene to de-escalate the situation, and Reardon showed up with a different methodology in his head.
Officer Reardon kept his gun trained on Ma'Khia until her last dying breath, which didn't take long, being that he shot the teen four times directly in the chest where bullets exited her back. Not in the back as some might suppose because when Reardon approached Ma'Khiia, her back was to him. We know this from the footage. Bryant turned to strike the girl in the pink sweatsuit. For some reason, as Officer Reardon approached Bryant with his gun drawn within 22 seconds of arriving at the scene, Bryant turns obviously towards Reardon, where he then took the shot. Neighbors and onlookers could not understand why Officer Reardon immediately shot a 16-year-old girl as if in a war zone and not amid a teenage squabble. The public will never know if the 16-year girl was turning to respond to the police officer's commands or not because of the militarized mannerism plus the perception that officer Reardon came on the scene with.
The militarized training of police officers mixed with a personal bias toward Black people tends to always turn out deadly when it shouldn't. Per news reports, we have witnessed non-Blacks attack
Capital buildings in the hundreds,
Ram police cars with their trucks with guns in tow, and see
White men shoot multiple innocent people, plus
Middle Eastern men set bombs off in subways
And both shooters & bombers walk away with police unscathed. Some are treated to a cheeseburger, such as in Dylan Roof, who went into a church and shot nine parishioners at a bible study. So the question is, why is it okay to shoot to Black children like Bryant, who had a knife in her hand and not a gun like Kyle Rittenhouse, a White 17 year old teen who shot two people with an AR-15 style rifle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, August 25, 2020, surrounded by police at a peaceful BLM protest? Or Akayed Ullah carried out a "lone wolf bombing attack on behalf of ISIS at the Port Authority Bus Terminal December 11, 2017, in New York City?
(Below Kyle Rittenhouse right after he shoots two peaceful protesters)
I'm bringing this up because this is no time for Black people to backslide into any post-traumatic slave syndrome thinking in order to justify the murder of an 16 year old child . Nor should the public be satisfied to blame the other two black teen troublemakers who started this incident in the first place. They did not shoot the weapon that would fatally strike Bryant in the chest four times. Officer Reardon did that.
These all too common deaths of Black adults and children here in North America when unarmed or protecting one self are caused by racially biased interpretation of rules and perceptions of laws on the books per law enforcement training. Per some people perspectives such rules provide the perfect excuse for police officers to act out their implicit or explicit agenda or biases. Hence the law must be changed, plus biased based police officers must be removed from the force. They are a danger to the society and can't be trusted to treat all people equally or safely. The number don't lie.
All incidents do not warrant an officer's militaristic attention or gun. Black people are being slaughtered for no reason at all but for the fact that they are Black. We know this because if this dispute were, in fact, a group of White teens and one had a steak knife, officer Reardon would have never, never, never murdered said White teen for fighting other teens. On its own merits, this case provides a reason for police reform in the training and hiring of police officers.
Per a news report by Roland Martin, Unfiltered April 22, 2021, shared that earlier that day, before the other teenagers showed up to assault her and her family, "Ma'Khia was playing on her Tik - Tok account brushing her hair" with a popular moisturizing cream. Per Roland Martin Unfiltered news report, "Ma'Khia was an honor roll student." And like most teenagers, whether neighbors or siblings, Ma'Khia was involved in an argument with other teenagers that simply got out of hand, and officer Reardon did not help the situation.
To make matters worse, once sensible police officers left the scene with Bryant's body, other officers, showed up taunting angry neighbors shouting that "Blue Lives Matter." This racist group of people dressed in police officer uniforms with shields showed up with their hands on their guns to clarify to the crowd that Bryants life didn't matter to them.
Thank you for reading. Stay safe. Support police reform. Your life may depend on it.
Tevin Campbell's "Tomorrow Will Be A Better You A Better Me"
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