No winners here….
When Derrick Stafford shot and killed Jeremy Mardis, November 2015, after his dad Christopher Few refused to pull over for a traffic stop in rural Marksville, Louisiana, like a pinch to the cheek, we knew justice would finally get some color this time.
… in Louisiana tragedy.
Black Trumps Blue, Boo,
for Black Men in Blue
Supposedly Few’s car was backing up towards Derrick Stafford, 33, and fellow deputy marshal, Norris Greenhouse, when the black men in blue opened fire. 1, 2, 3 7, 9, 13 . . . no, eighteen bullets pelted the car. Jeremy, an autistic 6 year-old, was shot 5 times. His father, caught on body camera footage raising his hands in surrender, survived.
Both Stafford and Norris Greenhouse, who faces murder charges in this Louisiana tragedy later this year, said they did not know the little boy was in the car.
Regardless. Long story short. Derrick Stafford was recently sentenced to 40 years in the pen.
Not the playpen . . .
for Black Men in Blue.
“Lawyers and family of the defendant, who is black, questioned whether he would have been prosecuted as aggressively if he were not one of two black men in blue.”
In an age when Men in Blue shooting first and asking questions later is the only thing that won’t die, it also seems that Justice flying as swift as a bald eagle when the victim is white is a time old tradition that won’t be shaken either. And neither should it.
From black men in blue to black men in orange?
Meanwhile, “Justice As Usual,” which is no justice at all, lands on the head of black men in blue, cop or not, like an angry billie club or the whipping sting of racism.
” ‘If it had been two white men who killed that little baby, it would’ve been justifiable homicide. If it had been a black baby, it would’ve been justifiable homicide,’ Stafford’s aunt Bertha Andrews lamented. She also said that the case was a ‘lynching.’ “
Whether forty years for an innocent life taken supposedly in the act of duty is a just sentence is not the main issue here. But African Americans must be wondering if the shock of being sentenced AT ALL—when so many of their white-cop counterparts get paid leave and the inevitable clean slate—shook these black men in blue with the force of a stun gun? We wonder if they thought for a brief moment the temporary blue suit would trump the forever-and-a-long-hard-day black suit they were born in?
It’s sad.
Mostly, it’s sick and more than evil that white victims continue to be viewed as having greater value as human beings. They are more often than not seen as more sympathetic victims, especially considering a black man can be shot for no (rational or lawful) reason and killed murdered while his whole family watches him slowly bleed out. His top chick. Child. Granny. Auntie. Nieces. Uncle Willie. The whole big unhappy family can gather round, or sit in the car with him, and watch him gasp for air, gurgle, and choke on his own blood, knowing no help will come for him.
Justice As Usual for Few
Not even God . . . for Black Men in Blue.
“Jeremy’s father, Few, said after the sentencing that he should have pulled over that night, but added that Stafford ‘kept shooting, kept shooting while my hands were in the air.’ ”
For black men in blue, who have become accustomed to watching their white-cop buddies get treated like victims one senseless murder of their brothas after the other, this is what happens when you forget the black suit you were born in will always trump the blue suit you choose to ride or die in. It won’t be a slap on the wrist for you, brotha. Not two months or two years. It will be 40 to 100. Real quick. Real *&%$4 quick for black men in blue.
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