(HU)Man Down
By: Hayet Gessese
Tags: Human Rights, Police Brutality, Race, Equality, Death

Isaiah Rustad via Unsplash

On October 17, 2018, San Antonio Police Department Officer Steve Casanova responded to a criminal complaint made by Maria Herrera and Esteban Preciado who were delivering ‘menudo’ on the city’s West Side. According to Casanova’s testimony, a man came out of the house and punched Preciado for parking on his block. These were all the facts Casanova was given before he went on to the scene to investigate the complaint. According to KENS-5, (the local news station in San Antonio) Casanova was familiar with the house because it had been previously visited by the San Antonio Police Department multiple times. At 1AM Casanova recounted that he visited the house with another officer and approached the house with his high beam light flashing through. The officer opened the screen door to reveal a lock barbed door and said “What’s up man?” to the men inside. A man got up from the couch and asked who was shining a light blinding everyone in the room. Casanova then yelled to the man who approached the door and Cassanova pulled his gun through the barbed door, fired two rounds and ran from the house. Casanova’s testimony said that he approached and went into the house and saw that a man with a gun was sitting directly in front of the door who matched the description of the assailant as well as the other kid sitting next to him. Casanova’s reason for firing first was that he saw both men with guns under their waist when he approached the house.

The testimony Casanova later gave to the San Antonio Police Department was then changed to just one man with a gun. Upon search of the house, no gun was found. As a result of the officer’s actions, 18-year-old Charles Roundtree who was one of the three men sitting on the couch was shot in the chest and died of that gunshot wound. The other round went through the buttocks of Davante Snowden and into the neighbor’s house. Davante was treated with minor injuries after being charged with gun possession. The gun that police found came negative upon testing it for Davante’s fingerprints after it was later revealed that a gun was found on the same block, down the street from the house. Video evidence from the officer’s body cam was released on May 23rd and the video showed Casanova within nine seconds raising his flashlight into the house, yelled at Snowden as Casanova approached the door and aimlessly fired his gun through the barbed door. 18-year-old Charles Roundtree had recently become a new father before his untimely death.

I mention this story in detail because stories like this happen every day in America. Unarmed men and men of color, particularly black men are being shot and killed consistently. It’s become such a reoccurring event in our news cycles in America that the initial shock to events like this has become numbed. Every shooting becomes just another shooting. Much like the shock of civilian deaths during the 2001 Iraq war, after time, the shock wears off, the reporting of hundreds of innocent lives lost becomes standardized and to our detriment, life-goes-on. But life hardly returned to normal for the thousands of families that were affected by the Iraq war and the families whose young innocent black men had been killed. Numerous people, some who I have known have ignorantly claimed that we shouldn’t be parading around the movement ‘Black Lives Matter’ because all lives matter. In reality this statement is true, all lives do matter, but sadly not all lives are valued the same. Not all lives are being gunned down in the streets like Ahmaud Arbery, in their homes like Breonna Taylor, in their communities like George Floyd, in front of their fiancé and children as in the case of Philando Castille who was murdered during a police traffic stop while his fiancé and child were in the car. There’s a growing fear among the African-American community that every ride in your car may be your last, every walk down the street may be your last and the sight of men and woman in police uniforms either instills fear or hatred of a system that is wrongfully murdering innocent lives.

I use these verbs deliberately because media and other outlets would like you to see these as shootings; accidents that were no more than coincidences as was the case when police officer Amber Guyger shot and killed Botham Jean when she wrongly entered his apartment and killed him, thinking a robber had been in her apartment. A strange phenomenon is occurring where innocent black lives are being traded for bullets and caskets in the United States. And this is not a race issue, a black issue, a police issue, or even a justice issue for that matter. This is a human issue. Gone are the days where these murders only affect a certain race or community. Human lives are being threatened daily, and we must rise and stand with our fellow brothers and sisters to defend their rights to civil liberty, peace and the basic promises outlined in our constitution. The value of the American people is its united front against the attack of democracy and our civil liberties. During times of war and casualties, our grief and mourning turned into strength and unity. When our nation was under attack and the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2011, a nation, a people, rallied in support of our fallen brothers and sisters regardless of race, sex, age or ethnicity. And today we face a similar attack on our people. The devaluing of a race and its subjection to brutality, murder and wrongful prosecution. We must stand with our fellow citizens, our fellow brothers and sisters in this time of distress. May we take on the burdens of all our people. As a United States, as a united people, let us stand hand in hand and take on the plight of not just the African American, but the Mexican-American, the Arab-American, the Native-American, the Asian-America and of every American. United we stand, united we fall.